Xi'an

Arrive in Xi'an early on the 13th October after sound sleep on the train. But still plan only to have a mooch day - heard not so good things about the Terracotta Warriors (poorly displayed) and this was confirmed by a couple we bumped in to after (although think this could be considered treason in China - very proud of the warriors, understandably). Had a bit of a hectic trek through the streets trying to find some breakfast, gave up and got a full meal instead! We were the first people in thew restaurant and got to watch the 'pep talk' given by the head waiter - presumably aimed at creating efficient and positive service!

After food went up on to the city wall which encircles the center of town, 14km long. Top tip from Seffalice! Hired bikes and spent 1 1/2 hrs cycling the city walls - lovely and peaceful after the mental city streets below, and gives excellent overview of the city. As we found in Beijing, can clearly see how the old parts are being demolished - can see why to some extent as the old residential areas are pretty squalid with little sanitation, but then in the center at least these are replaced with smart shopping streets with people moved out to new residential areas in the suburbs. You can see huge numbers of tower blocks going up - as we got the taxi out of town I could not believe the sheer scale of development with cranes as far as the eye can see. Where there were no cranes, massive industrial developments loomed out of the gloom, and where there were none of these the land seemed to have been used as a dumping ground for soil and rubble from developments. Including the dry riverbeds - possibly the theory being that the debris is washed away in the rainy season?

At this point have to admit that we were getting the taxi to the airport - less than a week in and we had failed in our no flying! We had tried, but even three days in advance could not get bunk now seat from Xi'an to Chengdu - possibly due to the end of the public holidays. But off we head!

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