Travel report #17
China - Xi'an, Chengdu, Lijian and Kunming
Wednesday April 11, 2001
Woke up in Xi'an. Nice city, we visited a huge pagoda, the Wild goose pagoda, that we climbed to get a view of the city. Not much to see...
Thursday April 12, 2001
Got up early and entred a local bus heading for the Terracotta warriors. A long bus ride, chaos in the traffic, facinating to see how hopeless it gets when nobody can wait to let others through...
Finally we got to the big attraction, the Terracotta Warriors. These warriors are all life size, average height 1.9 meters! They belive them to be part of the worlds biggest tomb, the final resting place of the first emperor to unite China and also the man starting the Great wall project!
The first room we entered was stunning. We got into a huge hall, enough space to room a full size football field. And down below us we could see the warriors lined up! Unbelievable!!
There are three different pits that have been found, they believe there can be more. The first we saw is the biggest, one smaller is believed to be the HQ and the third full of horses and wagons. All the warriors have been destoried over time and by wandals, but the whole statues we could see are all put together by original pieces only! We also got to see parts of how it looks before restaurations.
The amazing eigth wonder of the world, the Terracotta Warriors:
Part of the park is also a museum with very interesting exibitions and a 360 degrees movie showing the history of the tomb, about the emperor and also facts about the excavations.
It takes a very crazy man to have more than 7000 life size terracotta warriors created to go with you in your grave...
Friday April 13, 2001
No reason to linger in Xi'an, really not much to see besides the Terracottas. We got on the night train towards Chengdu early in the afternoon. Nice train ride, some good scenary until the night came and we went to sleep, this time on "Soft sleep", our most luxurius train ride so far. No hard sleeps were available, the main difference beeing a closed compartment with only 4 people, and a bit softer and comfortable bed.
Friday 13th, but that did not give us any problems :-)
Saturday April 14, 2001
Slept really well and arrived in Chengdu, checking into Sam's guesthouse. A really nice backpacker's place. Spent the day wandering about in Chengdu, ironic main square where we could see two white statues, one of Mao and the other of the KFC founder at the opposite end :-)
(main square in Chengdu, another Mao, here looking directly at a KFC restaurant across the square :-)
Lingered for a couple hours in a very nice Buddhist temple, Wenshu Yuan, full of locals drinking tea and playing cards and different games.
Sunday April 15, 2001
Got on a set of local buses, took us close to three hours until we arrived in Leshan where we could admire the worlds biggest Buddha. Got some amazing views of this enourmous status, sitting inside the mountain guarding the river.
The same bus ride home. Taking these local buses we had very interesting experiences; an old woman eating cherries (? kirsebaer) and spitting the stones on partly herself and in the seat next to her and later leaving the bus falling over B, a small boy peeing in the bus beeing hold up by his mum...
Monday April 16, 2001
Hired bikes and set of towards the Giant Panda Breeding park. Interesting bike ride, we came in rush hour and the streets were packed with bikers!
The ride took us about two hours and we came just in time to get a fantastic view of these facinating animals. They feed them early in the morning, then later they creep inside to avoid the sun. When we were there they mostly sat still, on their bottom/back IN their food, and ate. They are just so relaxed and laid back!!
Waching these animals, they look like living teddy bears!! We were extra lucky. The CCTV (China's BBC) were shooting for a documentary on these animals and they had 5 of the young bears out at the same time. A report were inside with the animals. Good entertainment as one of the 7 month old baby bears were very fond of the reporter woman :-)
We also got to talk to a research woman from a Zoo in the US (Atalanta), she answered all our questions. Normally she would be studying these baby bears, a research on how they breed better with or without their/a mother, but the TV crew had changed all her plans for the day...
Had Hot Pot for lunch on our way back. A restaurant out of the tourist trail, and it will continue to be: all around us people were spitting on the floor inside the restaurant!!
Tuesday April 17, 2001
A relaxing day as we waited for yet another night train, now heading for Lijiang.
It turned out to be yet another bad experience with Chineese culture (or lack of it). We had middle bed tickets, meaning we had someone lying above us. IA got a nice girl above her, no problems, but the man above B was a nice smiling ordinary Chinese man that started SPITTING on the floor from above after going to bed!! Unbelievable!!!
Wednesday April 18, 2001
The train arrived early in the morning, but we were only now halfway to Lijiang. Next was a 10 hours bus ride. Eventually found a nice bus and had a really facinating bus ride. Fantastic scenary, steep mountains, at times a bit scary... Arrived safe and tired in Lijiang late at night and found a nice, cheap hotel.
Thursday - Sunday April 19-22, 2001
Lijiang is a very nice, small town. The old town of Lijiang has narrow cobble stoned streets, no cars or motorbikes, lots of water canals running in all directions and bridges crossing. Fantastic and facinating place!
We used the first day to walk to the Black Dragon Pool, a nice lake just ouside town. Got some fantastic photoes of the lake and the mountains. Inside this park there were lots of temples and on a wall we could see several photoes of the Norwegian King and Queeen, they must have been here not long ago!
Spent several days here, enjoying life, walking the streets and having lots of good food. The place is a mecca for back packers and there are many of them here as well... We got to know two girls from Sweeden/Denmark (Anna&Dorthe) that we ran into all the time :-)
Monday April 23, 2001
Bus to Kunming. Nice hotel with TV. Got to see Chineese kitchen TV (fjernsynskjoeken), very facinating. More dull TV is impossible to make, the famous Espelid is a wild woman compared to this one :-)
Tuesday April 24, 2001
Did not see much of Kunming, it looked also to be a nice place to stroll for some days, but ours are counting. We had to rush on, we have a flight to catch in Bangkok!
Again we entered a night train and a very enjoyable ride with great scenary, from Kunming to the Vietnam border, a city named Hekou. The night came and we should wake up in Hekou, but not so.
Wednesday April 25, 2001
All night the train had been stranded in a small remote village due to a landshed. We did not understand much at first as nobody spoke English. But, luckily, we found one and an Englishman. We were told that we might have to wait the full day, before we could continue...
But, around 11am, about 10 hours delayed, we continued. And the break was a blessing. We got to finish this train ride in daylight and it was fantastic. Going down a valley with fantastic views of the landscape!
Early in the afternoon we finally arrived in Hekou and we walked across the bridge, leaving China and entering Vietnam!