Terra-cotta warriors watch out. We are exhausted. 6 hour bus ride. 3 hrs walking around to find a hostel. Xi’an looks amazing. Here for 4 nights at least. More to follow.

Btw. Noticed some time zone issues with posts. The displayed date and time is local to the reader and not to the author. (so if you see posted at 15h30 it was actually posted at 21h30 our time) At the moment we are 6hrs ahead. Need to figure out how to fix that ! WordPress issue.

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More as promised

V’s cough is not getting better. Under the threat of being smothered under a pillow she has decided to take a course of anti-biotics. We left Pingyao around 9 with another electric tak-tak travelling to a toll-gate on the highway outside the city. The long distance bus just pops in and back out. There was a substantial crowd at the stop but as soon as the bus arrived they all disappeared ! No idea what that was all about. The bus was half empty and the 6 hour ride to Xi’an was comfortable. We passed over some amazing bridges and caught the landscape getting a little greener in between eps of the West Wing.

Again the bus decided to stop at a station that we had not expected. We were at least 10km from the hostel options and there was not a taxi or tout in sight. We enlisted a motorized tak-tak that was in pretty bad condition to get us to the first hostel. I’m not sure if the driver was brilliant or insane – cutting congested corners by speeding through back alleys and markets or just getting onto the wrong side of the road until he could bob and weave back into the flow. It was a wild ride.

As is usually the case when V gets directions wrong, she gets it way wrong. We were dropped about 200m from the hostel but we walked about 2km in the wrong direction. Another tak-tak got us to the hostel – it was full. We decided to walk another 2km to its sister hostel. We got there hot and sweaty to find it had moved. Another 2km got us to the correct spot and paradise. A room for £16 a night that for us is 5 star. Even has BBC world and some other English channels.

A short walk around the area to find V some more meds and we were quite DONE for the day. Xi’an is massive but feels much better than Beijing. Lots of trees and parks, blue sky and a little cooler. Lots to do over the next few days. Can’t wait!

[Pictures: We finally made it to the hostel/inn – must be how a suicide bomber thinks he will feel after pushing the button – paradise]

– Posted from my iPhone via Wifi