We had a long night. First, my feeble attempt to grow a beard has been vetoed. It seems i’m genitically incapable so I spent some time removing the scraggly growth from my face. Have to admit it feels much better. It’s been great to have good facilities for a few days – I’ve been abusing the shower twice a day. What a luxury. Have to say thanks again to Martin. That washing line is proving invaluable – you would be amazed at what we have attached it to 🙂

I decided to have a closer look at our budget and panic set in. The trip will be over in 2 months if we just go where we really want so we have had to make some changes. A few hours of painful plotting and discussion and we are back at our original plan. Hong Kong, back into China, southern route to Tibet and then backtrack (which we really don’t want to do) into Northern Vietnam. So Nepal and the Philipines are out (at the moment). We also HAVE to do something about a camera – V’s old Nikon is getting worse by the day – possibly in Hong Kong. Oooo I see the new iPhone is already available there NO NO bad boy.

Met a chap at breakfast who has been travelling from the places we are wanting to go to. We are feeling a bit more confident that southern China will be cheaper and SE Asia even more so. We will just have to see how things go.

Off to cycle the wall aroud the city.

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A very late start today but at least we were awake enough to use our coffee vouchers instead of paying £1.50. The plan was to take a complementary bike from the hostel and cycle around to some sights, but being so late the bikes were all out. We settled for the bus to the ‘Big Goose Pagoda’. The pagoda itself is not much to look at but the surrounding musical fountains and parks are wonderful. We strolled around again baking in the sun watching kids (and an alarming number of adults) running through and playing in the fountains. Xi’an is really a beautiful city.

The fountains and the adjacent park all look fairly new. Probably built in the last 5 years or so would be my guess. There were no hawkers begging you to buy something and it was all very neat and tidy. We could have been in a park somewhere in Europe (apart from the obligatory loudspeaker presumably telling people in Chinese not to litter). It’s weird though cos if you go a block or so away there will be dozens of filthy chaotic alleyways which present the exact opposite picture of China. Such an interesting country and so like SA in many ways.

After an ice lolly to cool down the next stop for the day was the Shaanxi history museum. We were standing in a long que with lots of students to get tickets while a major argument was going on at the counter. Suddenly the que began to flow and we were presented with 2 tickets within seconds at no charge. No idea what was going on but I assume we got in as part of a school tour – excellent freebie. The museum was good although smaller than we expected with English everwhere (unlike Russia). My highlight was one of three Tiger Tallies in the world (a small tiger with a message enscribed in two parts. The Tiger would be separated and used to authenticate military messages. Very cool for 400 odd BC.

We set about walking back to the South gate of the city wall with the intention of renting a bike and cycling around it (on top of the wall), but it started raining so we headed for home. A couple hours later we decided to give it another go and headed by bus for the south gate once more. As we arrived the rains returned !! Calling it a day we decided to take a long walk back to the hostel stopping to savour the local cuisine on the way home (um… that is another one of the 4000 odd KFC branches in China) – highly recommended as value for money and for lack of consequences.

We are trying to get a tour arranged to a nearby tomb but there is a minimum number required. The staff at the hostel (who are amazing) have put up an ad in reception – no luck yet. We also got our train tickets today. Confirmed for Chengdu. Travelling 15hrs by overnight train ‘hard sleeper’ class (ie: open carriage. 3 bunks high) just to see some black and white bears ! They better be cute 🙂

[Pictures: V cooling down at the Pagoda]

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A good sleep in our larney hostel/hotel room (you know it’s good when they supply toilet paper and the walls are made of brick) followed by a light breakfast and then off on a tour to the Terra-cotta soldiers :gps:(GPS)::34.38428::109.27459:gps: – Another ‘must see’ on our list. Took about an hour to get out there with our guide and 12 other travellers.

It was good to have a guide for a change – saved us spending an hour on Wikipedia. Pits 2 and 3 are interesting with excavation and reassembly of warriors apparently ongoing but a chap on the tour who had visited 9 years ago didn’t feel much had changed. We saw the ‘kneeling archer’ – the first to be discovered accidentally by a local farmer who was digging a well in the 70’s. BTW the farmer was in attendance to shake hands and sign books. I guess at his age it’s easier work than tilling fields 🙂

Pit 1 is the one we had in our minds. Some 2000 painstakingly restored infantrymen (total discovered so far around 8000) with horses lining the corridors in this massive area. They were all originally painted but exposure to oxygen destroyed the paint. A few have traces of colour but photos from the excavation were on display to give an idea.

Pits 4 and 5 are ‘new’ and some distance away from the main area. Apparently they are not open to tourists yet – sorry Dad. Also, the chariots are on display at the Worlds Fair in Shanghai. Maybe we’ll catch them there. It was well worth the fee (£19 each) although the claim that these are the 8th wonder of the world is a little optimistic.

From the pit complex we were taken off to an optional lunch (which we cunningly got out of) passing the tomb of the looney emporer (Qin) that had the army built.

The sleepy ride back to Xi’an also saw our guide snoozing. One last stop was a visit to a small temple in town. We have to admit that they are starting to all look the same but at least with a guide we got a little insight into how they are laid out. Back in the hostel it was just too comfortable and we ended up in the lounge all evening. I even resorted to a burger for sups (yip it was good) !

We are plotting and planning again. From here we want to go to Chengdu, then Chongqing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Then fly to the Philipines for 2 weeks, come back into China and take a southern route up to Tibet and into Nepal. From Nepal we’ll fly to the cheapest South East Asian destination – probably Thailand. Budget cuts will definately take Australia off the table and possibly some of SE Asia.

[Pictures: Me with the Kneeling Archer and V with an army of clay pots]

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