Advertisement
In Lhasa we took a bus to Ganden Monestary. After about an hour and a half drive, and 30minutes of mountain switchbacks we found the monestary built right in the side of the mountain. We stopped about 10minutes before we arrived and the driver climbed through to the back of the van/bus to collect money for the trip. I'd never seen that. I don't know who decided "hmm, perfect" for so many buildings but i suppose it is actually nice to be so secluded. Very little else was up there, as you can imagine, other than some Yak and Sheep crossing the roads. Many of the buildings have been destroyed and rebuilt, so much so that they say many pilgrims don't even know where to go to find the temples. I really enjoyed wandering between the buildings a lot more than the interior of the temples. The paintings and figures are impressive... but after so many, they're all just as impressive as the last. Among the buildings, actually on the roof of one there was a monk watering some plants. It's interesting to see them scurrying about doing differen't chores while you're allowed to wander through so much of where
they live and study. This funny monk watered us! Grabbing something to eat at the monestary we met a Taiwanese director of a travel show. He was traveling, though not for the show because he had quit. Without being asked he followed, "i do it all the time, when i go back the job will be there for me." Could you imagine having a job you could quit, travel for 3months and when you go back you'd know it'd be there, sounds like a dream to me.
From Lhasa we took a 30some hour train to Xi'an. That train was not nearly as fun as the first. For a while it was just a lot more laid back, though the guy below us did have a whole chicken. We also had our own snacks this time though most of them were weird, because i can't read the packaging so it was kind of a shot in the dark. Then it just became frustrating. At around 12midnight a lady, her mother and husband and baby got on the train. It wouldn't have been frustrating, so much for the baby, but the parents! Their kid was so damn tired rubbing it's
eyes and everything but they couldn't just leave it alone to fall asleep. The poor exhausted overstimulated baby just got crabby and fussy. These people just couldn't stop messing with the kid, not to mention they were on the bottom bunk of our cabin but managed to take up the hallway where the chairs were, for the poor people on top who can't quite sit up! Mmm... i'm glad that ride ended. And when we arrived in Xi'an i immediately liked this city. I'm not sure what exactly it is but it is a really nice city. At the first hostel we found ourselves at there were lots of people, and it was a really well done place though we afforded basement dorm beds which turned out to be noisy (from the people above) and a little damp. We moved to another hostel, when we got in the room there was a guy laying in one of the beds who was so old and didn't look like he was breathing for a Long time. We walked around Xian for a long time, saw the bell tower and the drum tower. At the bell tower we saw a bell and percussion/flute
demonstration. At the drum tower i got to hit the biggest drum i've ever seen. Then i watched a drum demonstration practice. It was more interesting than the actual demonstration was. We headed over to the Muslim quarter where we found a market of a ton of dried fruit and nuts, and the Great Mosque. The Mosque was a really pretty place, though you can't really see much of it. You're not allowed into most of it and the 'exhibits' are just a bunch of wood furniture in a hallway surrounded by red rope, with No explaination. The enclosed area that you can walk through, and the buildings that surround it are nice, however. I heard that someone refered to the "great mosque" as the "OK mosque." Though i thought it was nicer than OK.
I just lost a whole BUNCH OF THIS BLOG even though i saved it! Argh... lets see...
Today we took a bus to see the Terracotta Warriors. The museum was built right over the excavation site, which i think was a great idea. The whole place was really well done. Though some of the explainations plaques were either dumb observation commentary, things you can
see yourself, or in English too terrible to bear reading. So for the most part while the site was awesome and the amount of uncovered terracotta is also intense. There are 3 uncovered pits with between 34-2000 excavated soldiers in each pit. The pit with 2000 of them is expected to have over 6000in total! It seems that much of the actual work has been slowed if not suspended until better techniques are known. Though they might also figure that since they have enough of it uncovered to bring in a lot of tourist money, why spend money they might not have to uncover much more of it. Who knows. It was really impressive, in mass as most things here in China are, though also in detail. I can only imagine what kind of ruler this guy was to have such a huge task taken up just for his tomb. Thousands of terracotta warriors, each with individual faces, and stances in textbook (of the time) war poses. Not to mention the terracotta horses and chariots, and the actual weapons that the warriors held. The Warriors were originally completely enclosed underground with a roof and sealed corridors, covered in 'fine soil'.
Looking at all the pits and relics today there were a lot of tour groups. One of which blocked my path for a few minutes and so i just watched the scene. It was clearly a group of about 25-30 old people, all over 70 with the exception of one poor grand-daughter who was probably in her 20s. The Chinese tour guid with his little flag is yelling about the pit before them and when everyone gets up to get goign to look around there's a hollow bang. And one old lady says. "It was Millie". Millie knocked over the garbage can, and immediately responds "I just wanted to hear some music." The Chinese tour guide goes over and says, "Music, you're so cute." It was so funny, witty old lady. I could see them being fun to watch and frustrating to be that poor grand-daughter. It was fun to see. I really enjoyed that museum, and i've really liked this city.
It's getting late and i think i'm going to want to eat before later tonight. Tomorrow at noon we will get on another overnight train to Datong, with another shot in the dark of food. After a few days in Datong, and hopefully some laundry (my clothes are kind of icky, don't worry i washed some underwear in the shower so i'm the necessary kind of clean) we'll head back to Beijing and be home.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.06s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 7; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0352s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb