Blogs from Xi'an, Shaanxi, China, Asia - page 11

Finally moved on from Beijing via overnight train to Xi'an. Xi'an is most famous for the Terracotta Warriors but the city is also very interesting and we spent today cycling around the city walls and visiting the Muslim Quarter. About 1% of the population of the city is Muslim, and the population originates from the earliest time of the Silk Road which led to Muslims from Central Asia coming to China and marrying locals. Our guide made much of the physical appearance of the Muslim population: according to him they are easy for the Chinese to identify because they are paler than the rest of the population. The dress is also distinctive, lots of brightly coloured suits and, of course, headscarves. The big draw of the Muslim Quarter is the food markets, which still sell traditional ... read more

Why Herro! So, this is my very first attempt at a travel blog and im hoping it wont be too rubbish, but my apologies if you get bored and need to leave/eat/do anything that is'nt reading about ME!! Aneesa and I arrived in Beijing at about 5.00am China time (10pm England time) feeling pretty hot, tierd, wired on caffeine AND excited, so we immediatly sat down, had another coffee, and then braved the Beijing subway to our hostel, which was actually not as difficult as i imagined. Got to our hostel to be told we couldnt check in until midday, (at this point it was 7.30am!), so we went for a little explore that turned into an epic adventure, including three different scam artists that we successfully evaded, delicious noodles, and not getting too lost... huzzah! ... read more

Met up with the other travellers on the 'Wild China' tour in Beijing with an initial trip out to the monumental Great Wall, visiting the Mutianyu section dotted with Ming dynasty forts. A steep stair climb up and along the wall was rewarded with misty yet atmospheric views as it meandered over the ridges and hilltops. Exploring beyond 'Fort 23' reached a section slowly crumbling in on itself and overgrown with trees and bushes, enjoying the eerie solitude before returning to the tourist bustle for a well-earned pancake. That evening watched a Chinese speciality acrobatics show, impressive feats of jumping, spinning and bending were followed by 4 motorbikes simultaneously speeding around the inside of dome, fractions of a second from crashing into each other as they pirouetted... Next day caught a bus to Tiananmen Square across ... read more

Shanghai at night was as to be expected.. the same as Shanghai by day except darker with flashing lights. We were hoping to climb up the 87 floor Jinmao tower- not the way Frenchmen Alain Robert did on the outside only to be arrested as soon as he got to the bottom again, but by the stairs... unfortunately this is Shanghai and a lot more modern than Devon so we had to take the lift... up 87 floors in just 45 seconds! The tower had views all across Shanghai- very tall, big and grey. The flight to Chengdu was 3 hours.... we had to fly rather than a 30 hour train otherwise we wouldn't have time to do anything on arrival the Chengdu before going to Xi'an. I slept most the flight.. Justine nearly had to ... read more

Our first blog post after a heartfelt departure from Dunhuang finds us in central China in the city of Xi'an, the ancient capital for over ten dynasties and home of the famous Terracotta Warriors. Our train took 24 hours to get here, and with all of the luggage we had to bring to accomodate both winter in Dunhuang as well as early summer in Taiwan, train travel will definitely prove to be a challenge. Train travel in China has several options, but for overnight trains the only real way to travel is by sleeper—unless you wait until the last minute and want to stand for the entire trip, but luckily we planned enough in advance to avoid that. We opted for the soft sleeper, which has four people in one cabin and you can close the ... read more