China - Beijing to Xi'an

After leaving Ulaan Bator the journey was short in distance, but long in time as Mongolian and Chinese customs took several hours each. Then our carriages were hauled off individually to a giant warehouse where the wheels of the trains or 'bogeys' were changed to acccomodate the Chinese tracks, which are slightly different to the European tracks in Russian and Mongolia. I'd like to say that we watched enthralled at this amazing feat of engineering, as our carriages were hauled up several feet into the air by huge pneumatic lifts and as the new wheels were rolled in and attached. However, we mostly ate noodles and slept.

Beijing was where we would start our tour, and in the pouring rain we made it to our hotel. We were worried about the tour, mostly the people who would be on it, but we met our guide Louis 'Call me Lois, like Lois Lane' Liu and the rest of the bunch who (to our relief) were all very nice. We celebrated this fact by frequenting a bar together, and quickly learning that pretty much all Chinese beer is roughly 3.3% in strength. On our tour there were: Cath and Spiv (who we had seen earlier running up and down the road outside the hotel in waterproofs and crocs) Thomas Tawn (Who was sharing a room with Rich) Sara and Orissa (who were sharing a room) Kate and Rob (who were on their honeymoon!) Jamie and Cordy (Jamie would later teach us all how to complete a Rubiks cube) Klaus and Louisa (From Denmark) and Marco, who was from Finland.

Our first group excursion was the Great Wall of China, which me and Sadie were so slow to walk up to we diddn't see anyone else all day. It was very impressive, but also very, very hot. Sweaty picture of us on the Wall to follow. Other activities in Beijing included: Tiannemen Square, the Forbidden City, the Night Markets (where Rich and Spiv ate barbequed insects - yeurgh!) exploring the fancy shopping malls on Wangfujing, and failing to find the Sanlitun bar street. Worried friends and relatives would have passed out if they'd have seen me and Sadie negotiate the Beijing traffic on cycles, which was a lot of fun amongst the other thousands and millions of cycle and moped userson the road. Another thing we found very curious about Beijing which diddn't happen anywhere else in China was that being Foreign was regarded as a huge novelty, and many many Chinese people stopped to talk, stare and take photos. This was worse for Cath and Sadie who as blondes were treated practically like celebrities!

Our next destination was Shanghai which we were getting to on an overnight train. As soon as we got to the station we were 100% sure we had made the right decicion to come on the tour, as it's unlikely we would have been able to negotiate buying tickets alone, as non-Chinese speakers. (little English is spoken in China) The train set up in our Hard-sleeper carriage was a row of twenty open-ended six bedded 'dorms'. Although clean and relatively comfortable, it was noisy and the primary source of noise was Chinese men clearing their lungs and hocking up giant gobs of phglem, a sound heard often and throughout our trip never failed to elicit a shudder - especially when I was eating.

Shanghai is very beautiful, its streets in the area we were staying were lined with trees and lots of tiny boutiques. The highlights of Shanghai for me were firstly The Bund, which is the area on the river where one side is huge Asian style skyscrapers, brightly lit with flashing lights and advertisements, then across the river is 'European style' buildings, more classical in design and tastefully uplit in white. It was beautiful, i've never seen anything like it. We'd been in the day but at night the lights, the sheer enormity of the buildings and the reflections in the water completely transformed the riverfront. Secondly, we went to see an acrobatics show which was AMAZING! All throught I was on the edge of my seat as I worried more and more for the safety of the performers as the stunts became increacingly dangerous. What started off as hat juggling escalated to a giant metal 'Ball of Death!' where five performers whizzed around inside on motorbikes passing each other with only inches to spare. That coupled with a bizzare and mainly Star Wars-based sound track made it thoroughly entertaining, and i'd reccomend anyone visiting Shanghai to go.

Our next stop was Xi'an which is famous for its Teracotta warriors, the excavated site where an Emporor had an 8,000 strong army of teracotta statues placed to guard his tomb. I won't pretend to know much about it, but its very impressive and there is a branch of Subway there. Xi'an also has some cool markets that sold all manner of wonderful tat, including fake Chanel wallets and Chairman Mao watches. There was an awesome trip to the tea wholesale market where we got to try all the different teas and see the correct way of preparing it, which seemed to involve pouring most of it away. We also sampled an array of foods which ranged from the delicious (street food including a variation of spring rolls cooked flat, and on a cart, and resturants that we followed Kate and Rob too) and the bizzare (Sheep hoves we discovered after trying to be adventurous, don't have any meat on them - just skin).

Kaz.