Made in China

I went souvenir shopping today at a cool and relatively low-key artisan market down by the city wall, just inside the South Gate. One good thing about buying souvenirs in China: You know where they were made!

(At the Ismailovsky Market in Moscow there were thousands of matrushkas -- the traditional Russian nested wooden dolls -- for sale. I bought a couple from a guy who pointed out that his were the real thing since, prominently painted on the bottom were the words "Made in Russia" -- in English. Yep, they're from China.)

There were jade carvings, painted scrolls, calligraphy sets, miniature Terracotta Army figurines and, for that special someone, a wolf pelt.



Seriously, it was bizarre seeing this guy walking through an open-air market in a city of over eight million people.

And what market in any country would be complete without a caricature artist? It's obvious where this guy falls on the political spectrum.



Even if you're a Bush supporter, you have to wonder what Audrey Hepburn did to offend the artist to end up between those two guys.

Last day in China

My original plan was to travel by train all the way from St Petersburg, Russia, to Lhasa, Tibet, and then overland to Nepal. But because I was only granted a 15-day Chinese visa that plan had to be scrapped.

I was considering skipping Nepal altogether because I'd have to pay an additional $1500 or so for airfare that I wasn't planning on. I thought I'd continue south through China and then overland into Southeast Asia. But ultimately I saved a lot of money by not going to Tibet, so the money issue isn't such a big deal after all.

Trekking the Himalayas was one of the main reasons I took this trip in the first place, so I'm going to Nepal.

In the meantime I planned on going to Guilin, in the southeast corner of China. I booked a "hard sleeper" ticket, which means I'd be in a cabin with six beds, with three bunks on each side. I got the middle bunk.

Then I realized there were further complications with my visa (which I won't go into). As a result I would travel 27+ hours by train to spend about a day and a half in Guilin. It just didn't seem worth the travel. I took a hard sleeper from Beijing. The bunks were like coffins.

I saw everything I hoped to see in my shortened China trip: The Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Terracotta Army and Hua Shan. To quote Butt-head of "Beavis & Butt-head" fame: "I have seen the top of the mountain. And it is good."

Tomorrow I'm going to refund my ticket and move on.

So not only am I going to Nepal, I'm going two days early! Part of the reason I booked this particular flight is that it connects in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, at 9:45 a.m. I'm going to try to get a ticket on the right-hand side of the plane so, hopefully, I'll be able to view the Himalayas from air into Tibet and from Tibet into Nepal!

It means I've got an 8-hour layover in Chengdu, so my main goal tomorrow will be to find some reading material...

Hua Shan

About a year and a half ago an email went around the US with pictures of a crazy hike, on a sheer cliff face with nothing to walk on but planks laid over stakes driven into the side of the mountain and nothing to hold onto but a rusty chain.

I discovered that the pix were taken at Hua Shan, one of the five sacred Taoist mountains in China, just outside of Xi'an. Today I went to the mountain.

I didn't do that hike.

I did do the easier version, though. But for the sake of clarification, this is the easy hike.



It was 6km of walking, which isn't much, but it was all straight up. My plan was to take one route up, spend the night on the mountain, watch the sunrise, then take the other way down.

Well, the weather was lousy and getting lousier. This was the view from the north peak looking to the south peak.



There's a line of people visible in the bottom center of the photo. The line goes up and over the ridge, then down and over to the left and then back up to the right. It was a complete logjam. On an overcast Monday afternoon!



I didn't fight my way through the crowd to the south peak. And the crowd ruined my vision of a peaceful night on the mountain. And there probably wouldn't be much of a sunset or sunrise. And I have to catch a train tomorrow. So I took the cable car down and caught a bus back to Xi'an.

OK, so I wussed out. But even the cable car is pretty darn scary!



There are snack bars every few hundred yards. They get their supplies the only way they can, by carrying them up. Any illusions I might have had about how tough and rugged I am vanished when I encountered this guy.



I don't know what's in the red boxes, but he carried whatever it is and two cases of half-liter water bottles to the top of the mountain.

Xi'an

The history of Chinese culture goes back at least 6,000 years, much of it centered around Xi'an. Eleven Chinese dynasties had their capitals here. The earliest known settlements are not far from here, at a site called Banpo.

Xi'an is primarily known as the jumping-off point to see the Terracotta Army, but today I decided to walk around the city itself. Two of the main tourist attractions are the Bell Tower (in the foreground) and the Drum Tower (in the background).



My hostel is just on the other side of the Drum Tower. Also visible in this photo is that ubiquitous symbol of modern China: smog. The Starbucks I've gone to the past few days is on the other side of the Bell Tower. There's also a Starbucks behind me, of course.

Since I had just visited the Summer Palace and the Forbidden City it seemed a bit silly to pay to go inside. I did, however, pay to see something you can't see in Beijing.

Xi'an is one of the few cities in China which still has city walls. This is looking westward from the South Gate.



They were built in 1370 by the Ming Dynasty. They're about 40 feet high and at the base they're about 60 feet wide. You can rent bikes, pay a rickshaw driver to do the work for you, or even hop on a trolley to travel around the entire wall, about nine miles. The original walls, built during the Tang Dynasty hundreds of years earlier, encompassed an area seven times greater than the existing walls.

This is the view looking across the gate to the southern part of the city. They were setting up for some sort of event. I suppose my invitation got lost in the mail.



Friday night is dumpling night at my hostel. The staff takes great delight in watching us foreign tourists clumsily folding the dough. Afterwards we got to taste the results. They must have been OK because the staff ate some too.

The Terracotta Army

In 1974 farmers near the city of Xi'an were digging a well when they discovered some broken pieces of pottery. What they stumbled across would soon become China's third-biggest tourist attraction.



The First Emperor of China began construction in 246 BC of an army to serve him in the afterlife. It's estimated that 700,000 workers were enlisted to build the army and the emperor's tomb, which is nearby and has not been excavated.

There are three pits (the picture above is from Pit 1), most of which are still being excavated. There are clay sculpures of 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses buried here, along with their weapons and wooden chariots.

From a distance the Terracotta Army may look like dolls but they're actual size. This is a kneeling archer.



The level of detail is astonishing. They're all unique. The facial expressions, clothing, hair, weapons -- everything is different.



Sadly, the complex itself is a tourist hell. Though there are only the three pits and a museum to visit, a lot of walking is necessary, much of it through what might diplomatically be called an open-air mall. Translation: Dozens of souvenir stalls selling the same crap. If you're thirsty you can buy a Coke about every 50 feet. Hustlers literally spring out of the bushes to sell you replica statues for a buck.