Guangzhou was mainly spent doing the tourist visit thing and noshing on at various food stalls. There was a 3 lane road around the corner from our hostel which at night turns into an arcade of alfresco dining, while still trying to masquerade as a road. We found a clay pot specialist that is so cheap that it is ridiculous. One night I had a noodle and dumpling soup followed by a clay pot of pork, rice and veg, while Jill had 2 bowls of noodle and dumpling soup (it is really good) all washed down with 2 x 600ml bottles of Pearl River Lager and when the bill came we had to fork out a total of 45 yuan ($8.06).

My wife has taken to muttering to herself. She spends large portions of her time with her face buried in a computer screen asking herself bizarre questions. Now being a good husband, on occasion when she articulates the question rather than muttering it, I offer answers to her queries. Now she seems to think that I am not contributing to the planning phases by offering such advice and i on the other hand believe I am providing the answers to vital questions that she clearly needs help with. By way of example this afternoon she was staring at a map of Chennai and asked where is the airport…I promptly responded that it was the place where all the planes land. Apparently this was not helpful to her majesty.

Our last day before leaving China saw a huge cold snap. Temperatures plummeted, it was wet, windy and cold. We hid out in our hostel and made preparations for that which was to follow. We did our last street food hit (back to our clay pot man) who likes us so much he is now giving us the locals discount. He must be. We paid 25 yuan for 3 mains and a beer. On a little side note…we ran into a Sri Lankan couple while in Guilin and were talking about my love for the street food. Their answer to me was…and I quote…”we are from Sri Lanka… we have many germs in our stomachs…we did not even eat the Indian street food”.

I may need to rethink my dietary approaches.

Xian has a bunch of stuff worthy of checking out and as tourists we are obliged to do so. It is quite strange really that in both Brisbane and Canberra where we lived for extended periods we never really hit any of the tourist things but are now doing everything that exists. This started with the major attractions but has spilled down to the the little ones now too. Possibly best highlighted by our trip to the ‘Giant wild goose pagoda’ a fairly impressive structure south of the city walls. Essentially this was yet another monument that Jill decided that we needed to climb so we schlepped it up endless flights of stairs.

Having seen the ‘giant wild goose pagoda’, we started heading towards the ‘Small wild goose pagoda’ only to find that it was buried amid a heap of buildings (3 storeys) and could not be seen without fair expense or obscene amounts of effort. From the ‘small wild goose pagoda’ we tried to see the ‘barely bloody there wild goose pagoda’, then moved on to the ‘really more of a pigeon than a goose pagoda’ and finally stopped at the ‘this thing is still an egg pagoda’.

The walk back from the various pagodas was fascinating. We got hopelessly lost in the back streets of Xian and found ourselves wandering the streets in the local market and commerce districts. They tend to group their services in blocks here so we wandered past 10-15 shops specialising in a particular thing before moving on to the next thing. There does not seem to be much of a pattern to how these things are grouped but it was kinda cool the way it all works out. Ten shops selling crabs is followed by ten selling bicycles, followed by fish tanks, followed by pet stores and so on.

And then we happened upon the fabric district which was a series of massive markets of material which were accompanied by curtain makers and then tailors once again all in blocks. As we popped out of this area we found ourselves back at the city walls. Three days later we hired a tandem bicycle and did the bike ride all around the city walls which is about a 90 minute ride on a cobblestone wall, which for two people who have never really been cyclists, had an adverse effect on our dainty little backsides and we are a touch tender. Jill was behind be on the tandem bicycle and she swears that she pedalled the whole way but the giggles at various times throughout the trip suggested that she was amused by my efforts while she was given a ride (I cannot prove this, and she denies it but all the other people who had the girls on the back that we passed saw the guy pedalling and the women doing everything else but. One woman was eating ice cream while old mate in the front worked his ring out going up a hill).

Minor attractions aside, the main reason for coming to Xian is its proximity to the Terracotta warriors which we did on the Friday 1 November. They are about a 90 minute bus ride out of Xian and with an English speaking guide it is a fascinating trip. The site is split into three main pits and they started us off at the worst of the three, then the middle one, then at pit 1 which is the main one and is impressive by anybody’s reckoning. An interesting part to the story (that was unknown to me) is the fact that physicians at the time believed that mercury had curative properties and were dosing the emperor on a daily basis. It truly is amazing what can be achieved when an insane megalomaniac subjugates his people and enforces personal whims. Needless to say he thought that creating the warriors was a good idea and he died fairly young.

There is a mound of dirt around the corner from the warriors that they believe to be the tomb of the emperor due to the heightened mercury levels that have leeched into the soil and the feng shui associated with the area. According to the guide, the technology does not currently exist to access and excavate the tomb and everyone believes that it will be in pristine condition when it is finally accessed (not expected to occur for another 50 or so years). Having seen both Indiana Jones and Lara Croft I am sure that we could do it today but they apparently wish to preserve it rather than being chased by large boulders. Perhaps the Chinese are not as adept with a whip as Harrison Ford.

Today we went hunting to the Bell and drum towers along with the city god temple and the great mosque. These were all items highlighted in the centre of our tourist map as major attractions. Granted the bell and drum towers were pretty good but in the centre of town they were dwarfed and eclipsed by shopping malls on all sides. On the up side it saved me having to climb yet another attraction. The city god temple (believe it or not) was the name of one of the big shopping centres. And the great mosque was buried in the midst of the bazaar stalls in the Muslim quarter. We had actually already walked past it three times without noticing its existence.

The highlight of the day was the visit to the bird market. What started as a market for pet birds and their accessories has exploded into any item you could possibly imagine. The extension to other pets such as reptiles, fish, turtles and squirrels was fairly obvious as was the usual phone, food and clothing stalls. I must admit that the street dentist threw me. There was a chair set up on the side of the market and a table full of dentures in front as he got to work on some lady seated in the chair.

So our last couple of days in Beijing were spent nursing our cooties and wandering the streets in search of Hong Kong Sevens Rugby tickets. A successful trip even if it did cost us cash and about 7 hrs of walking. We found a family sedan that seems perfect for the growing Mellis Clan. It has 4 doors, great fuel economy and seems perfect for Scotty and his growing tribe (see photo). 

We had our first lucky dip meal failure of the trip when we lobbed at a joint and pointed at random dishes. Alas we were met with a chilli Prawn dish that had more Habanero chillies than prawns and our sides to be put into the steaming broth ended up as seaweed that was the texture of polystyrene foam and iceberg lettuce. On the up side, Jill has been steadily acquiring an ever increasing tolerance for chilli.

We had an overnight sleeper car on the train from Beijing to Xian (a first for me). Managing the local regional train network proved almost as easy as the city metro however seemed much more daunting due to the sheer volume of people. The train ride was 13hrs overnight and we left at 8pm arriving at 9am. We got off the train and were waiting for our lift from the hostel, when I was set upon by the only (partially) english speaking drunk man at the train station. Clutching his beer and rambling incoherently, I instantly became his friend.

We checked in and immediately headed for the Muslim Quarter of Xian for a meal. This is one part of the world that everyone should see at least once. It was a 100%  assault on every one of your senses with so much crammed into such a relatively small space that you were in total awe of what was going on. We watched cooks pressing noodles using what looked like a set of bellows with a mincer on the end pushing the noodles into a boiling vat (we plan to go back so I will try and post a video). The meat on a stick men were everywhere and the pure cacophony of actions was astounding.

We found deli’s, bakeries, restaurants and shops full of items that we had no idea what they were. After our lucky dip menu excursions and our willingness to try lots of different things, this place took it to another level. There was a fight (physical with many punches thrown), hawkers, touts…this place had it all going on.

We settled on a venue for lunch in the Muslim quarter and Jill made her first major blunder of the trip when she ordered beer with her meal. We ordered a couple of different versions of a beef soup sort of thing with some chilli squid on sticks. Shortly following this we hit our first CRITICAL INCIDENT of our trip and I have determined that we need some form of codeword to emphasise the criticality of an incident.

About 40mins after my meal I found myself in need of the amenities. Upon conveying this need, Jill at this point decided to stop on the side of the road and discuss the manner and type of facilities that would be available rather than actually take any step towards a venue of relief. I entered into a Zen-like state of concentration while trying to maintain an olympic pace back to the Hostel. While on my power walk, I was set upon by a turkish hawker who walked next to me for an extended period offering to sell me every item available. I tried to maintain focus and pace while I was offered sex with prostitutes and tried to deflect by pointing to Jill, who was in the meantime wandering aimlessly 20 meters behind me and was holding the key to get into the hostel for hostage, while every element of my being was screaming.

We got there and the world was good again. We have booked our trip to the terracotta warriors for Friday (it is Wednesday today) and will spend the day tomorrow trekking about Xian. We have 5 days here than on to ChongQing where we will take a 4 night cruise of the Yangtze River and the three gorges.