Day 17 in China

Hello to everyone.  We are enjoying our third day in Xian.  Let me see if I can pick up where I left off....we met Mr. Hou again on September 25.  We took us out to the Yungang Caves - these are Buddhist caves and monuments carved into the rock between 460 and 524 AD! I am not sure what we expected by reading the books.  Certainly when we think caves we do not think of places like this.  These grottoes were all chipped out of the earth - man made caves with huge statues of Buddha in them.  Unfortunately some of them are quite damaged.  The seventh largest coal mine is just across the way and I am sure some of the pollution has eaten away the images and paint that existed in the past.  Still it was an impressive site.  Thankfully the place was not very crowded and we were able to see and study the site at our leisure.  There are 45 different caves varying in size from small alcoves to huge spaces.  I hope to be able to load some photos to Shutterfly as I did last week so that you can see them.  Tom was photographed with at least 5 school girls that were there.  We decided that maybe we should start charging 2 Yuan for each picture taken of us at the various sites.  We get a lot of requests to pose with various Chinese people.  It is pretty funny.  Some of them want to touch Tom's arms as well as they are a lot hairier than anything the Chinese have seen.  His feet have gotten some attention as well.  :-)

 

After a couple of hours at the caves we rejoin Mr. Hou and go on to the Huayan Si lower monastery.  It is lovely and quiet but after seeing the shrines at Heng Shang we are a bit worn out by monasteries.  We head to the nine dragon wall in Datong - it is the largest in China evidently and well preserved among the new buildings.  It is amazing that it survived when all else around it has changed and been destroyed.  The house that it used to protect must have been quite magnificent in its day!

 

We finally make our way back to the hotel.  We get dropped off and decide to venture out for some dinner before the train.  We do down the street and wander into a restaurant.  It is a bit early for the dinner hour but we find a place that welcomes us and enjoy some BBQ mutton, soup and other yummy things.  After eating we go back to the hotel, wash up and then take a taxi to the train where we will take the train to Pingyao.  We have booked a soft sleeper and it turns out to be quite comfortable.  We share our space with a nice man from Hangzhou - he offers Tom cigarettes and some form of clear alcohol - he declines nicely.  We settle in and enjoy the ride.  At 4:30am Tom stirs - we think we have another hour until we reach Pingyao - but the conductor comes in and tells us that we will arrive shortly - 45 mins early!  So we pull ourselves together and quickly get ready to get off the train. 

 

It is very dark and immediately many people are trying to get us to stay at their hotel.  After a bit of a hard time we get a taxi driver to drive us into town and at the second place we stop we are able to find a room.  We check in and try to get some more sleep - we get to sleep on a kang bed - an old form of platform bed that they could heat with bricks by putting them under the platform - no heated bricks for us but the bed was very comfy.  The hotel was in an old courtyard style Chinese House.  The people are very friendly and we see some familiar faces from the train.  We are a bit anxious about getting train tickets for the next leg of our journey as we had learned at the train station that it is difficult to get berths on the trains to Xian.  When we get up, we check with the manager and she agrees to do what she can for us.  Pingyao is one of the few towns in China where most of the old houses have survived - the city wall is also intact.  We spend the balance of the day wandering around the streets admiring the architecture.  We decide to visit the old court houses late in the day - there are some people practicing opera and then we were able to see a reenactment of an old style court case - it was pretty amusing.  Finally we made our way back to the hotel.  We end up playing cards and eating dumplings until 10:30 or so....we taught Jesse Crazy eights and Go Fish and she taught us a game called the First One Out - we had a good time sharing the games although I could have used Lydia's expertise on some of the rules of Crazy Eights!

 

The next day is a bit frustrating....we wanted to go to an old merchant house that was used for the set of the Raise the Red Lantern but we are a bit worried about getting our tickets so we decide to go and walk on the wall and visit some of the museums in town.  We do secure tickets for the train that night but it is in a hard sleeper...we decide to take it anyway.  Tom did not feel so well so he went to lay down while Jesse and I go and try a foot massage - it feels good after walking on brick streets all day.  Jesse had never had one before so she is thrilled.  The girls that treat us are very nice.  At the end of the day we all ride in an over size golf cart to the train station and get on the train for Xian.  In retrospect - I wish we had had one more day here but given that the trains were only going to get busier the closer we were to October 1 (National Day in China) it was best to leave. 

 

The hard sleeper experience was quite something.  The bunks are stacked six to a compartment and just separated by a partition - they are open to the hallway.  We shared our space with two Australians and a couple of Belgian guys - they were all very nice.  The train was filthy, the air was a mixture of bathroom smell, smoke and pollution - if you opened the window you were blasted with diesel fumes from the engine...Yuck.....and you might be able to imagine the state of the toilets but maybe not!  Somehow I managed to sleep a bit on the train - they turned the lights out at 10:30 and back on at 6am....we arrived in Xian a bit worse for wear and desperate for a shower around 6:30pm.  We had booked with the hostel in Xian so we were met at the Station by some very helpful people and driven by Taxi to the hostel.

 

We had definitely been spoiled by our hotels in Datong and Pingyao but the hostel is fine....just not as clean and nice as the last hotels but the price is right!  We hit the showers and then Jesse and I set out to explore the city while Tom rests.  He was still not feeling so well.  Jesse and I take our map and head off to the Muslim neighborhood in the City.  We enjoy a spicy lunch in a busy area and visit the Great Mosque which looks like many of the temples we have visited in the past except that the great hall is covered with prayer rugs - we can't go in because we are not Muslims..and we are women.  The grounds and buildings around the great hall though are great - and we enjoy the piece and quiet.  We take a very long route home through some of the city neighborhoods and arrive back at the hostel a bit tired. 

 

The next day it is a bit rainy - we decide to try to sort out where to go next and end up with air tickets to Chengdu for October 3.  After that is settled we head to the History Museum by taxi.  We decide to get lunch first and enjoy an amazing hot pot meal near the museum.  The museum itself is incredible with relics back to the stone age!  Xian was the center for many dynasties so the artifacts are numerous and beautiful.  We end our visit by buying a Chinese water color (black and white) of horses running from an exhibit on the first floor.  We hope we can find a good place for it back at home.  That night we go up to a large grocery store to buy some supplies - it is amazing - we enjoy learning about all the different things in the store - it is an experience in itself.  We decide to go to a restaurant recommended by a friend of Jesse's - it is Chinese fast food - cheap but not that good....but that's OK - we head back to the hostel happy.

 

Yesterday we visited the Terracotta Warriors - it was pouring in the morning but we were going to go rain or shine! It was worth it and by the time we finished our visit the rain had stopped.  We were amazed by the site - they still have so much work to do there but what we could see was impressive.

 

Today was sunny and cool - we road bicycles on the wall - a great way to start the day.  We then had lunch again in the Muslim district.  After we got my pictures put on a CD - I will try to load some of those to Shutterfly at another location as the computers here are not that great.  We also sent some things home at the post office - what an experience that was.  Tonight we will go to a show - Tang Dynasty dances or something - who knows - it should be fun. 

 

More from Chengdu!  Hope everyone is OK!

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