Arriving in Turpan Railway station at 0535 in the morning and facing the scrum of yelling taxi drivers in pitch dark is a bit daunting esp. as we had planned to take the minibus into the city which was 55kms from the station. Why they locate railway stations miles from the towns is beyond me but thats the reality. Problem was the buses didn't start until 0800. So breaking all the rules, we accepted an offer from the first yelling bloke, piled our luggage into the boot of his 'taxi' and roared off into the darkness - with absolutely NO lights on !! After some heated exchanges with the driver, we eventually got out of the vehicle but only after opening the doors of the car as he sped along. Was a close thing whether we ... read more

Leaving Xiahe today back to Lanzhou to catch train to Dunhuang. But first we wanted to visit the Bingling Si grottoes, a collection of carvings and frescoes and statues from the Han and Ming Dynasty. Trusty driver roared off in usual fervour and few hrs later we were at the boat launching place on the side of the lingshuia reservoir. Into the little speed boat and a 30 min race across the waters to the remote location where 'they' discovered this amazing site. Dodging the souvenir sellers and the restaurant touts we ventured into the chasm where the frescoes were. The caves were first cut In 420AD and continued for a thousand yrs after. There are 216 cave niches and one massive carved Buddha , about a thousand metres of mural paintings, and fifty pagodas. The ... read more

First day in Xiahe we explored the Labrang Tibetian Monastery - second in size only to that in ?Lhasa. We joined the many pilgrims and 'did' the Kora walk - a 3 km circuit of the monastery whizzing all the prayers wheels as we went. Very few touristy mainly nomadic Tibetian pilgrims who we're making their devotions. Many prostrating themselves on the ground in a repetitive fashion... read more

Catching the second of the high speed CRH trains from Pingyao was easy the second time, and we sped thru the countryside on our way to Xia'n Nth railway station. Landscape was 'flat as a pancake' for most of the trip with the realities of rural China being pretty obvious - that and being enclosed in the all- encompassing layer of smog/fog that prevented distant landscapes being seen. I had anticipated Xian being this 'little' village with the Terra Cotta warriors being its main claim to fame, but was shocked to discover that in fact Xian was a huge industrial city with a population of over 8 million people - like two NZ's in one city !! Luckily there was a metro line that whisked us into the city after we negotiated the frenzy of the ... read more

Tuesday, July 29 was the day we went on the Great wall of China. Not content with the easy way most tourists would go, we decided to travel to the Wild Wall section called Jiankou. After a one hour near vertical climb up a ravine and a rock face, we struggled up to the highest watchtower #34 in the Jiankou wall called Zhengbeilou. The views were fantastic only marred by the thick layer of fog/smog that encompasses all of Beijing Region at this time of year. We then proceeded to walk along the unrestored wall in the direction of Mutyinau. Seeing the terrain at first hand made one really marvel at the construction that was undertaken so many thousands of years ago. The height of the wall, the length of the wall and the difficulty of ... read more