Back in London / Sunsets

Today I completed the arduous task of sorting through the 3-million or more photos from my trip and despite a considerable number of them being of the out of focus, poorly-lit, or incredibly unflattering "fat-head" variety, there remained a handful that are at least interesting to look at. Here are just a few photos of the sun dying over foreign lands.

Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia

Queensland, Australia


Forbidden City, Beijing

Unfortunately I don't own Photoshop, if anyone does and would like to fix the contrasts for me that'd be awesome!

Overnight Train back to Beijing

From Didgeridudes

Last night I caught the 12-hour train from Xi'an back to Beijing. Due to delays I waited around Xi'an station for two hours, crammed in with about a thousand other commuters all hoping to squeeze through the gates first and secure a good baggage slot aboard the 15-carriage train. On the way to Xi'an I paid 400 RMB for a soft sleeper (the carriage classes, from worst to best, are: hard seat; soft seat; hard sleeper; soft sleeper).

To save money on the return I paid 258 RMB for a hard sleeper, which had 6 bunks in the room instead of 4, oh and no TV, not that that particularly mattered since all programmes are in Chinese. I had severe stomach ache and was up all night, probably due to one of those "tasty dumplings" I bought from one of the street vendors I've visited. The carriage was packed with people and the trip back to Beijing was less comfortable than the trip to Xi'an.

Me on the zip cable shooting down from the Great Wall. I look quite 007... if you pretend my underpants aren't poking out of my jeans.

The Big Wild Goose Pagoda (Xi'an)




Xi'an at Night

Left, one of the many places likely to be responsible for my 'Beijing belly'.


A girl modeling for magazine photographers outside the hostel.

Xi'an - City Wall

The centre of Xi'an is surrounded by an imposing rectangular wall. It's pretty hard to miss at 12m tall, 15m thick and 12km in circumference. It was started in the Ming dynasty around 1370 and is the most complete city wall in China. After 3 lazy hours I managed to walk about half way round then thought better of it and headed into town for pork dumplings instead - not only were they tasty but at 1.5 Yuan each I could afford to be greedy (15 Yuan = £1). On the subject of dumplings, on Friday night the hostel put on a 'dumpling party' where we were taught how to make dumplings and after an hour got to enjoy the fruits of our labour. They were all a bit malformed, but they tasted great all the same.

Right - The courtyard of the hostel I'm staying at.

Xi'an - Army of Terracotta Warriors

** Geek warning**

I've always had a peripheral interest in archaeology. At sixth form I studied it for 6-weeks and only dropped it due to clashes with my geology classes (how cool do I sound?). So to visit the sight of what is the largest and one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the 20th century was pretty exciting. Xi'an is one of the four ancient capitals of China. Today Xi'an is a prosperous walled-city of some 8 million inhabitants and is home to the tomb of the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, who unified the country in 200 BC. His tomb has never been excavated and will one day provide an Indiana Jones style exploration of an underground city believed to be relatively intact. At the time of construction it would have been one of the largest cities in the world and was slavishly built by 700'000 people over four decades. It is the largest tomb on Earth, and the mausoleum at the heart of the city is believed to contain a model of China complete with Great Wall and lakes of mercury.

At first the site was so overwhelmingly huge that I didn't quite know where to begin, confronted with a life-size army of thousands silently standing guard. Incredibly, no two soldiers faces are alike and only a fraction (approximately 8000) have even been excavated. The majority have been left for future archaeologists because once removed from the earth the paint covering the soldiers reacts with the air and evaporates in less than 15-minutes and there is currently no known way of preventing this process. All together there are three pits at the site, the smallest, pit 3, contains 72 warriors and horses, pit 2 contains around 1300 warriors and horses, and pit 1 (the largest pit) contains 6000 in all, all standing in a rectangular battle array, facing east, crossbow and longbow men followed by soldiers (originally with spears, swords, and dagger-axes), followed by 35 chariots that were made of wood and have long since disappeared. The army was discovered by peasant farmers drilling a well in 1974 - one of whom was at the site when I visited, he was very old and frail and sat fanning himself at a little desk as a parade of people shuffled past him, staring. Apparently the peasants were paid 30 Yuan for the site - that's not a lot of Yuan in any time period.

I also got to visit the remains of the Banpo Neolithic Village, the earliest example of Neolithic Yangshao culture, dating back to 4500 BC. I still have a lot to see in Xi'an so I have decided to skip Shanghai to explore Xi'an in more depth. I've booked my sleeper train and I'm departing for Beijing on Monday night, but I'll upload plenty of photos of Xi'an before then.

Out and about on the streets of Xi'an.

This man in the street repeatedly headbutted two bricks for money. After a few attempts he tried it with one brick and was (thankfully) successful. He rallied round the audience for cash. I was there with two other backpackers and embarrassingly we dropped just 3 Yuan between us and were subsequently laughed at by the crowd.

A miniature looking at puppies for sale in a suitcase.

Below Left - After a quick double-take I realised that the mannequins here are actually real people. Right - Tiger dog! Grrrr.