This is the warmest day we have experienced since leaving Spain on 30th November. Had to be about 5 C, so off come the orange and yellow jackets and on come the puffer jackets. Both dark in colour had to tell each other we are now dressed the same colour as nearly everyone else. At least I had by blur ruck sack and tall and Penny with her fading pink hair. We got on the bus # 8 to the train station 20 pence each crowded in with the locals. With a bit of walking around and asking various people we found the bus going out to the Terracotta Army which we were on for an hour and cost 80 pence each. The place we were staying were offering tours for 2 people for £75.00. We came to the stop off and we walked around some guys mausoleum and spotted 3 warriors in various sites, got speaking to an Aussie couple and they said we need to get a shuttle bus which takes us to the Terracotta site. So after 2 hours of walking around we were on the bus and arrived where there were lots of people. Bought our tickets £15 each hopped on an electric buggy and got driven up to the sites. There were more Chinese here than we saw at the Great Wall and Datong Grottoes. Went into 2 big covered areas and still could not find the Warriors we have found the sign posting is not the best here in China. After 2 buildings we were becoming really pissed off, asked a lady and she pointed to another building did not look much but hey presto we found the Terracotta Army. The whole site is still work in progress, areas still to be excavated, warriors being put together and areas where the warriors are in tack standing to attention. It was good to see them but my top 3 here in China so far is The Great Wall, Datong Grottoes and Summer Palace in Beijing. Walking back to the buses you have to walk for about 20 minutes and it is fully commercialised with food vendors and souvenir shops and everyone of them want s your business. We just wanted to get the hell out of the place and get on the bus.
Found the bus and back to Xian train station and hour plus journey spotted a couple of crashes today. People on bikes ride riding into the traffic across the traffic and also the cars doing the same I wonder how many people get killed on Chines roads as their driving is really bad. Got back to the station peak time traffic Penny is coughing a lot now I was coughing up to a day ago but getting over it. So we get a taxi back to where we are staying it is getting cooler and we need to warm up. We check into our apartment Penny has a shower and I get started on all the hand washing which needs to be done. All done and I have showered we head out to eat, playing safe Burger King which was average and Penny had KFC which she was happy with. Back to the apartment on the 21st floor great views a modern part of the city lots of shopping centers all the top European shop names are here.
Penny still coughing a lot during the night the cough mixture is helping we will go out later in the morning and do some more site seeing. We have to leave here at 08:00 tomorrow morning to go to another train station here in Xian a 4 hour journey to Xining. We spend 3 days there it is at altitude so we will acclimatise there before we train over night up to Lhasa in Tibet for our 8 Day Mt Everest Base Camp trip.
Maurice's Travel 