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Published: September 11th 2006
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First of all sorry for the article title, its cheesy and I am deeply apologetic. I also feel that I must apologise for the confusion caused by publishing two blogs at the same time, last time around. So if you have missed one (the silly or the serious).....have a read. As for developments here in China, sit back and let me tell you...... We had finally decided to head out into this vast country by ourselves and had left Yuki, back in Shaolin. I would like to think it was us verses the problems of getting a train, finding a guesthouse, and finding our way to the sights, in a country that has western tourists few and far between and locals that have not grasped much English (not like I blame them, why learn English in China). However that was not the case, like all our trip through China so far everything had been pre-planned and booked for us. With time being so short in our scattered locations, we would not have survive if not. It did take all the energy we could muster, just to catch the right bus and find the booked guesthouse. So Here we are, Xian, home
to the terra-cotta warriors.
I dont know what I was expecting, actually I did, I had an image of a small, dusty, dull town, only surviving on the tourism drawn to it via its major sight. Its not what we were welcomed by. Engulfing the historical splendors of the inner city was a vast wall. Not that the city was only steeped in history, it was a thriving cosmopolitan, bursting at the seams with, big corporate companies and shopping malls. I would have liked more time to take in the city, but our stern plans would not permit it. So morning soon arrived and we headed for the proclaimed seventh wonder of the world, the terra-cotta warriors. If your planning to go there yourself, dont go on a guesthouse tour, that is an utter expense and drops you at nearly every sale pushing place along the way. Catch the 603 green bus (not the minibuses next to them) from the left hand side and across the road from the train station, it will cost you less than 50 English pence to get there, and its just as easy to hop on one on your return. As we arrived we
took in the modest terra-cotta excavation trenches and its accompanying museum. We did not see the trench with the lines of warriors, we had believed to exist from photos. So we was ready to go home disappointed, that was until we got talking to some westerners and discovered that the excavation site we was thinking of did exist, and it was the bloody massive eyesore of a building we were stood next to. Fools! The life sized warriors themselves dispersed the disappointment as they lived up to their visual candy reputation. Its hard to imagine that they spent hours carving these warriors, all with different facial expressions, and detailed suites of amour, only for them to be buried and lost, never meant to be gazed upon again. If you have a day to walk around the city, I highly recommend the drum and bell towers, especially in the eve, as they are superbly illuminated.
So back on a two night train journey - again. Our destination was Kunming. Kunming would act as our travel hub, to the picture perfect city of Lijiang. Walking around here, it did not have much to offer, but a bargain can be found down
one of its numerous stall roads. We once again met up with Yuki, who had booked us onto a tour group for the next few days. I dont know if you are ne of those people who dread the cursed tour groups, but I am. They walk around following a short and fat women with a flag, the members all wear the same brightly coloured t-shirt and hat, and obey every command the fat women screams, eat this, take a photo here, sleep now, get back on the coach, buy this and that so we get some commission. Its all a bit of an idle way to travel. Not like I can really complain, yuki's dad had nearly organised every aspect of our China visit, but at least we had freedom to say where and when we wanted to go, and once we got there we could move around freely, not like on a tour group. The tour group did supply the much much cheaper method to get to our destination, and we could avoid the dreadful eight hours on a coach to Lijiang, via a day trip to Dali.
Dali itself is a high altitude city, pretty much
the same as Lijiang. My breathing was a little labored, but not to the extent that I needed to folk out for the oxygen bottles that were sold everywhere. The tour group dictator, took us to numerous beautiful locations, such as the three Chongsheng Pagodas, Butterfly Springs and the ancient village, but all were time constricted and we got sped through. They did however find mass time to visit numerous jade and silver factories along the way. The tour group were on a two and a half day trip. One day in Dali, and one and a half days in Lijiang. Our plan was to ditch the group as they returned back to Kunming and take the time to relax in its gorgeous surrounding. We were going to hop on a coach/train with a different tour group to return at a later date. We did spend the last few days seeing more sights (I wont bore you with the details) and in more jade factories - when I close my eyes at night, I now see jade. So the time had arrived to leave the group, not that there were any tears, with them being all Chinese and not speaking
any English, we had very limited methods to communicate, and not much effort was made from either party. Our time here is drawing to a close, there is not much to see in Lijiang, but if your in its close proximity, its a must, its so stunning, at day and night, and I highly recommend staying in the old city itself. I have not seen one westerner during my three days here, in fact the majority of tourists are Chinese themselves. For a surreal experience head through the city at night and witness the drunken singing wars between the different bars - wonderfully weird. Oh and if you are a little on the large size, definitely get yourself here. A fat man, who drinks, smokes, does not have a job and stays at home as the women works, is the perfect and ideal man here, so all you women complaining about your bloke, just spare a thought for the women of Lijiang, whos minds are severely clouded. Mind you even plump women are apparently beauty's. So what else could I do but embrace the local fat culture, with numerous visits to KFC.
Right, today I am going to endure
nearly a weeks worth of solid travel. a coach back to Dali, a night train to Kunming, a three night train to Shanghai, one night in a hotel, then a two night boat crossing to Japan. So its nothing but trying to sleep as kids scream, crouching down to use a hole in the floor, the train tracks speeding visibly below, and eating nothing but glorified pot noodles - nice one!
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