Sara's travelogue

Sara's travelogue Xi'an and Chengdu

Flew out of Beijing to Xi'an on Wednesday, it was really beautiful as it was at night and you could see all the ring-roads.

On Thursday I went to the Terracotta Warriors which was good, though Pit 2 and 3 were boring because they had nothing in them. My favourite part wasn't the warriors all lined up but the parts of the bodies coming out of the dirt that haven't been excavated yet, and the horse's bottom sticking out (that night at the hostel 2 other people were talking about the horses' bottom too, so it's not just me). I decided to be adventurous on the way back and take a public bus (instead of the one that goes directly back to the train station) because on the way there we passed some really cool farms I wanted to take pictures of.

It was an adventure in itself, it took over 4 hours and 4 buses to get back. The first bus took ages because we went along a road and they were vege markets all along both sides of the road which slowed the traffic down. But I got some amasing pictures of old men and their bicyles, or sitting on the side of the road selling their veges with a cigarrete hanging out their mouth or playing cards.

Then I had to get off that bus to catch another one to this park I wanted to go to, which was really dumb so I left and had to catch 2 buses back into Xi'an.

The next day I walked around the city, which it the filthiest place I've ever been, there is a layer of black flith over everything. I went to the Bell Tower and saw the performance there and then walked around the Muslim Quarter and down some random backstreets, where they were selling all different parts of numerous animals insides, which were in big piles on sacks on the ground.

I'm now in Chengdu, yesterday Silke (a girl I met in my dorm) and I went to Leshan. We got up early and took the 8am bus to Leshan and walked around for over 6 hours looking at temples, a park with 3000 different Buddhas and the biggest Buddha in the world. We got a boat to drop us off at one end of the park and we walked out, when we went past the biggest Buddha in the boat we weren't very impressed because there was still some low cloud. But later we walked down along side it and it was more impressive.

At the top near the head of the buddha there were heaps of Chinese people taking their photo with their hands out and we didn't know why until someone showed us the photos and it looked like they were touching the buddha's head. So of course we did the same. A bit further down there is a platform where you can also take photos so we took some more and then decided it would be funny to take photos so it looked like we were picking the buddha's nose. It's still funny now (but incredibly juvenille) - but how many people have pictures picking the biggest buddha in the world's nose?

Today we slept in and then walked around the city and a park as there's not many sights to see in the city and we spent a lot of money yesterday. Tomorrow we are going to see the pandas. Then hopefully I'll be going to Yunnan, I find out tonight about my train ticket.

It smells like toilet so I'm going to go

Sara's travelogue ---Chengdu-Lijiang-Zhongdian-Lijiang-Dali

Last time I emailed I was still in Chengdu. Went and saw the pandas, they were so cute. You can pay $RMB30 to have your photo taken with a red panda or $RMB200 with a big balck and white one. I didn't do it as that was a whole days budget at that stage (now it's 2 daysas things are a lot cheaper here - $RMB10 for accommodation).

Spent Chinese New Year in a quite pub eating and drinking with 2 germans, and american and a canadian. A pretty quite night, I though Chengdu would have got into it a bit more. Lots of fireworks.

Caught a sleeper train to Panzhihua, which got there at 5.30am. Got ripped off by a taxi driver going to the bus station - still a little bitter about this. I got to the bus station about 6am and men kept coming up to me and saying in Chinese that there is no bus to Lijiang today and they'll take me in their mini van. It was 6am, I was tired, had a really bad stomach and was not in the mood to be pissed around by someone who was going to rip me off. I told them I didn't want to go with them in Chinese, but like any good Chinese person who's trying to rip you off they kept persisting (for an hour) until I started swearing at them in English and they got the idea to leave me alone - don't mess with me when I'm tired and ill.

So a bus turns up at 7.30am and guess where it's going, Lijiang. So I got there in the end, though seriuosly condsidering not getting on the bus at one stage - thank god for lopermide! Really nice bus ride through the country.

Lijiang was really beautiful but extremely touristy, masses of Chinese tour groups. Wandered around on my first day and then spent the afternoon on our balcony in the sun looking at the view. The next day I was all set to go to Tiger Leaping Gorge (a 2-3 day hike), backed my bags, bought a cap and suntan lotion. All I was going to take was soap, a towel, changes of underwear. But my stomach had other plans so I didn't get much sleep and when my alarm went off I had to tell the person I was going with I couldn't go.

Lijiang started to drive me crazy with all the people, so I took some proper drugs to sort out my stomach and heaed off to Zhongdian, 100km from the Tibetan boarder. It snowed for the 2 days we were there, went up with someone from the hostel. Spent the next day walking around a 300 year old Tibetan monastry in shin deep snow. It was amazing.

Ran into Dean and Hannah, who I met in Beijing, when I got back to Lijiang and went out for dinner. They had run into a couple they met in Xi'an, who I'd met in Zhongdian, and they came too.

Now in Dali, walked around and had dinner, then did some much needed washing. I'll need to do washing more often now as I've got rid of a lot of things so I can now actually carry my backpack.

Thought I might leave you with some of the signs/noticeboards I've seen and taken photos of along the way
- Birds are our friends
- Pay attention to saftey! Nice to live!
- Wildlife is not food
- To be friend with the environment, treat it as your friends
- Only urinate!

Apparentl there is a 'No sh*t!' sign somewhere in Dali I hope to find.

One week to go in China, after Dali I go to Kunming then head down to Vietnam. Really enjoying Yunnan, they cities have been getting to me but there's plenty of beautiful countryside to go into for the day.