Took the overnight train from Beijing to the city of Xi'an (only 9 million people live here and I think they were all at the train station this morning). we were a bit worried about the train, as there are about three classes of cars, some with no sleeper berths and some sleepers with 4 to 8 people. We were lucky and got a car with 10 sleeper units, 4 people to a unit and the tour group was all put together so no strangers, we actually stayed with our long-time friends from Dawson Creek and now from Kelowna, Lloyd and Norma.
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| Hallway on the train. |
One of the attractions in Xa'in city is the Muslim Quarter, home to the city's Moslem community and situated within the old city walls. The Moslem Quarter has a carnival atmosphere with the streets packed with tourists and locals and lined with street front eateries, butcher shop, noodle factories and much more.
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| Fried food shop in the Moslem Quarter |
Xi'an is one of the few cities in China where the ancient city walls are still intact. Built in the late 1300's the walls are 12 meters in height and were built wide enough at the top to accommodate an 8 wide cavalry troop to ride around. Now fully restored, for a small fee you can either walk or bike around the top, a 14km ride. So when in Xi'an, one must ride the city walls, didn't see any calvery horses though, just tourists.
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| Loreen |
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| Norma Smith and I |
Today went to view the Terracotta Warriors - These sculptures were built and buried over 20 centuries ago. An emperor in ancient times that started to have a tomb built in his honour. It took about 21 years and some seven hundred thousand workers to complete. The area surrounding the tomb is huge and consists of about 600 separate sites. To date they do not know what is in the majority of the sites. They do know that some of the sites are mass graves, as the emperor had all his concubines, workers and honour guard killed before he passed. He thought that he would just transcend from being emperor on earth to being emperor in the heavens and wanted the same lifestyle, including an army ready for battle, hence the Terracotta Warriors. They are big, all around 6 feet tall (life size), but of different shapes. Some are skinny, some are heavy and all have different features.
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| Terracotta Warriors |
The first pit was discovered by some farmers digging a water well. They sold some of the artifacts and were caught and punished for robbing part of the tomb.
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Terracotta Cavalry
Terracotta Soldier
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At the time of discovery all the land was being farmed and after archeologists determined the extent of the areas, the government declared the area a heritage site and moved the farmers into a special made village. They still have some land to farm - mostly for their own garden but some grow pomegranate and other fruits like persimmons. They no longer make a living from farming. Some of the farmers now provide lunch time meals for tourists, from there private homes. This was probably the most down to earth meal we had in China. It was delicious and cooked and served by the husband and wife.
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| Loreen and the Chefs |
On to Tibet, Lhasa, the capital, has a population of around 500,000 and is the traditional, political and spiritual centre of the Tibetan world. We are all experiencing culture shock and many of the group are experiencing severe altitude sickness. Only six of us out of fifteen took altitude medicine and we are doing fine, well some of our group are unable to function.
There is a lot of political strife here with many military and Chinese police walking around. When wanting to enter certain street or religious venues everyone has to go through checkpoints and show their ID! My friend thought is was a good thing as he thought the military was protecting from terrorism, being cynical I thought it was just for intimidation of the local people.
The scenery is stunning. It's a thrill to be in the Himalayas.
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| Lhasa Tibet |
The people of Tibet are extremely religious and follow the teachings of the Dalai Lama. Lhasa was home to the Dalia Lama until he fled Tibet due to land reform under taken by the Chinese government. The old city of Lhasa is full of red robed monks and a multitude of pilgrims, as it every Tibetans obligation to make a pilgrimage to the holy areas of Lhasa. Some of the pilgrims walk and prostrate themselves, they walk five steps and then lie flat on the ground, for as much as three to four years. The holiest places in Lhasa are the Potala Palace, the historical home of the Dalai Lama and now occupied by Buddhist monks were they charge a fee to go through the palace in support of the Dalai Lama.
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| Potala Palace |
While there are many Buddhist Monasteries in Lhasa the most revered place, besides the palace, is Jokhang Temple. There is a continuous throng of pilgrims that that traverse a route around the temple for hours every morning, as well as dozens of the devoted that continuously prostrate themselves in front of the temple entrance.
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| Prostrating Pilgrims |
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| Buddhist Monks. |
Tibetan cuisine well similar to Chinese food, most restaurants serve a range of Tibetan, Nepalese, Chinese and western dishes, there are some unique dishes with a lot consisting of yak meat, which is not much different than beef. I don't think any of us have yet tried the staple diet of roasted barley flour porridge and yak-butter tea! Today we had a cooking class and made two kinds of Momos, (dumplings filled with yak meat or vegetables).
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| Lunch, Yak Burger and Fries! |
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| Making Momos. |
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