Xi'an 18 - 20 April 2006

Our train arrived at 6.30, we where pleasently surprised by a free pick up to the hostel. The Shuyuan Hostel has a lovely feel to it, again presented in a courtyard style. Xi'an seems to be an upper class city with lots of designer shops, it was the capital and still has the old city walls which are rumoured to have been built the same time as the Great Wall. It has all the usuals a chinese city has to offer Bell Tower, Drum Tower etc.

The Terracotta Army was impressive, getting there reminded me rather of arriving at Alton Towers - the car park was massive, full of buses and cars. Public transport to here was easy, thats what we like!
The fountain show at the Big Wild Goose Pagoda was unbelievable, the place was packed and the fountains where huge and arranged to music. The kids where having a real laugh running through them and getting soaked, the music was random ranging from classic to pink floyd!

Culinary adventure - Knife noodles! A guy shaves off noodles from a lump of doe that is rested on his forearm. The fly through the air into a sizzling wok with a sizzzzz. The Muslim 1/4 here is great for food and we had our first BBQ food - very yummi, don't know what we had mind.
We experienced our first market that sold frogs, turtles, fish, snakes and eels by the bucket. The poor things looked pretty dismal but here fresh means fresh! Another shocker - it seems to be fashion to buy fluffy things in cages that they can't move in staked in baking heat, guys selling puppies and kittens that haven't even opened their eyes yet.

Here we tried to buy some sunblock but that was harder than expected! Everyone wanted to sell me block with skin whitener in - crazy when I think of how many people I know are trying to get a tan! We settled on some baby block.
Xi'an is massively illuminatated by night, really bright and dazzling. We stopped at a bridge in the shadow of a tree to watch some bats feeding over the river.

The WWF Shaanxi Wild Animal Reserve is close to here, maybe this was on tour we should have took as we didn't get there on public transport. We found the bus and everything but they just did not want to take us, it felt wrong so we didn't push the situation - we guessed the towns on the way where not mean't for foriegners.
Next Stop train to Lanzhou!

Pingyao 16 - 17th April 2006

Well we where certainly very green about the whole 'train' process in China. Not only did we turn up with just 10 minutes to board, we soon realised that our fanastically cheap seats where hard-seats. Everyone had boarded the train before us and taken all the luggage room. We put one bag under the seat with all the spit, spilt drinks and other discarded nasties, whilst the other was between our legs for the whole 12 hours. The train was packed with people standing in the isles, lying next to the toilets and squatting on bags in every other available space. It was very uncomfortable but at least we had a seat as many people stood the whole way, going to the toilet was a major upheaval for the whole carriage. Chatting later with other travellers we learned it is possible to upgrade once you are on the train - doh!

We arrived at 05.30 feeling very worn out and ratty! We were approached by various taxi drivers and went for the cheap option - an electric golf buggy in the cold morning air. We had a warm welcome at the guest house and were shown to a small room with two beds while our rooms were made ready. Straight to sleep until 10.00!!

The hostel was an original house in this walled city with a courtyard and ornate roof tiles. Our room had the original bed which was built on bricks with a place underneath for a fire to warm it in the winter. Eight people could have easily slept in comfort on this bed plus we had a private bathroom. The decore was very old and blackened by smoke and the ceiling had an obvious leak as the plasterwork bulged and was stained yellow.

Our venture into the town really made us appreciate the tranquility of our early morning arrival. Once we stepped outside the hawkers where waiting for us to part with our money on various 'antique' artifacts. The place was bustling, chinese tour groups, bikes and stalls. Some of the stalls were selling what appeared to be tiger skins but, they were actually dog skins sprayed with black stripes!

Many of the courtyard complexs where devout to Kung-fu

Pingyao is a world heritage site due to the near perfect condition of the walled city, giving you the feeling that you are walking in an ancient Chinese dynasty. There were 21 sites to see on our ticket - we only manage 15, there is only so much culture you can take in two days!

Whilst walking around the backstreets at the base of the city walls a teacher asked if we could go into her home where she had a class of young children learning English. The kids were very excited as we read from their text books and they repeated the words. It was a fantastic opportunity and we all had fun. David drew a sketch map of England and showed them where we were from and at the end they taught us some Chinese greetings.

The Kids

Overall this was a trulely wounderful place with a magnificiently preserved history but has become a honeypot for Chinese tourists which killed the atmosphere a little.
For this reason we walked outside of the city walls to find some cheap grub, on the way we found a karoke stage on the street. It was a fancinating experience, the lady had a good audience and was singing chinese pop, once we appeared the entire crowd turned to face us. It even seemed that the lady on stage was singing exclusively for us, feeling a little on the spot - we left and found our food.

The weather here has generally been warm with a sandstorms on the last day. The local speciality food is cold oat and rice noodles with dipping sauce and some funny processed meat stuff that resembles corned beef.

A funeral prosession we witnessed with the large coffin

We could not get onward tickets to Xi'an, we got stung 40 Y (same price as the room for the night!) commission each from our little 'sweet' lady hostess who arranged it for us.