Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Blog 3
Xian
Hard sleeper on the night train was a better experience than the hard seats we have previously used although little sleep was had. It's always a shock arriving at a new place. Train stations are always crowded and it is easy to spot the white guys so we have a rush of people wanting to sell maps and offer taxi services.
After a catch up nap, we headed to the East Gate of the city wall. The wall here ia amazing, totally intake it surrounds the city by 16 kilometers. The top is as broad as a highway and it was peaceful riding above the traffic, with lots of stops to peer over the parapets and watch street life buzzing below. The ride was followed by an evening stroll through the Muslim quarter and dinner was sampling some of the delicious street food in the area.
Yesterday we had a slow start and headed for the train station to figure out how to use local buses. We were approached by a man who wanted to drive us. He was very pushy, though polite and his English and rate was good so we accepted. We had a lovely day visiting the Tomb of Emporer Jendi (very hard to get to usually) and Terra-cotta Warriors. Both amazing places. Mr Ding Ye was also able to help us get on a Chinese tour bus to Hanshen Mountain, again at an excellent rate, and picked us up from our hotel this morning and delivered us to the bus, explaining to the guide what we wanted to do, all out of the goodness of his heart.
I am writing this on the tour bus as we head back to Xian. We are both exhausted. Hanshen mountain was absolutely awesome. We managed to get to the East peak and return in the 5 hours. This involved a minibus ride, a cablecar and then climbing up 1000s of steps hewn out of the stone, the pathway going straight up a vertical slope that had sheer cliffs each side. Sometimes there was a steel rail to hold, sometimes a chain. At times it was pretty hairy, and we could only marvel at the human effort that created this. There were hotels (basic) on each of the four peaks and porters carrying heavy loads of water and other things to service them. There were also pagodas on peaks and temples carved into the mountain. There were 1000s of Chinese visiting this sacred mountain. We saw no other tourists.
1/4
Today has been a wild goose chase. Spent most of the day rearranging our itinerary as looked like Tibet was not going to happen. Even booked flights to Kunming but ran into major trouble trying to book flight out of China to Kathmandu. Checked email late afternoon to find an email that Tibet permits and travel had been confirmed so had to go about canceling what we had booked and now have a flight to Xining tomorrow. We pick up our Tibet documents there and travel to Lhasa by train on 3rd. Thought we would round off a rather worrying day with Mexican meal. Headed for the Wild Goose Pagoda where is supposed to be near. Couldn't find it, but found an Italian restaurant so Pizza satisfied the cheese craving. It's 2305 and all we have succeeded in doing today is book to Xining and eat breakfast and late dinner. Thank goodness for Starbucks for coffee, clean toilets and free WiFi. Couldn't have done it without them
- comments