A Blast of Wind in your Ear

Ni Hao,

After leaving Beijing we went by train to Ping Yao, a journey that I can safely say was possibly the worst train journey of my life. The train is open and each compartment houses 6 bunk beds, 2 rows of 3 high. I was in the top bunk. A Chinese bloke gets on the train and as it was an overnight train went straight to bed. The guy spent the night snoring like a bull and worse was coughing, spluttering and spitting all night. I was woken up on more than one occasion with spit on the back of my neck. I couldn’t believe that the Chinese man with SARS was in the bunk opposite mine…NIGHTMARE.

We landed in Ping Yao, it’s another world heritage site and is apparently a City that hasn’t changed in 2000 years. It was all typical Chinese housing.
It was interesting to see. There is a high wall all around the city that I thought was way more impressive that the great wall. This wall would definitely keep the Mongols out! It was here that I had my first culinary nightmare. I ordered fried sausage and ended up getting pigs intestines. It was actually quite tasty but the texture was of pure fat and made me gag…nasty stuff.. after that ordeal we left Ping Yao with Xi’an the destination.

Just a wee bit on the trains here. As you sleep the train fills with coal dust from trains that pass by…its nasty and extremely hard to breathe at times. The carriages are wide open and unfortunately the toilets are squatters which are beyond nasty.

Anyways we arrived in Xi’an…one hell of a polluted city..the worst so far, Beijing was clear skies in comparison. We immediately left to go see the Terracotta Army. The Chinese really have the tourist side of things nailed.
Everything is setup for tourists. Most sites have some kind of movie explaining about the sites. The army themselves was really impressive. Over 8000 soldiers found to-date and they haven’t excavated the whole place yet.
We also met the guy that discovered the army in 1974. He was only paid 10 Yuan for the discovery (approximately 1 pound). He wouldn’t allow photos and had a big fan that he covered his face with when anyone tried to get a photo of him..I got one though when he was signing a book for John :). I also found my calling in life, the generals were distinguished by having a big belly so its General Hughie from now on!

Back to Xi’an then and we are heading next to climb Mount Hua which is one of China’s Five Sacred Daoist Mountains, and has a long history of religious significance. We will be coming back to Xi’an afterwards to see more of the local sites..

Terracotta Army Photos

talk soon
General Hughie