Majestic skies and indifferent cows

Photo By Tang Yue / China Daily

Happily I learnt that if you want to see such a display you need not travel all the way to New Zealand; the celestial show that Enhe puts on is just as remarkable.

On the other hand, if you do insist on traveling to Tekapo (It will take you at least 18 hours to get there from most big cities in China), please avoid embarrassing yourself with a bravura display of ignorance.

In Tekapo the people I was with had next to no knowledge of astronomy, and before we could resort to a mobile device to find out what bunch of stars we were looking at, one unwise soul piped up: "I may be no expert, but at least I can tell you that that is the Big Dipper."

The chances of that being right were as high as your chances of seeing the Southern Cross, whose stars adorn the flags of New Zealand and Australia, in Enhe.

So I can now count myself as one who has not only seen three Chinese border posts, but who has also seen the two different, but utterly fabulous, star shows that the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere offer.

Of course, seeing border posts barely compares with looking at the stars, and that wonderment can be heightened by doing this: Look up at the stars, and as you are doing so, rotate for a while. When you stop, keep on looking up, and you will see a sky full of stars rotating above. But it is likely to make you a little dizzy, so make sure someone is on hand to give you a hand when you are about to fall.

And when you are doing this in Enhe, don't forget the vodka.