First stop - the Relics Museum of Zhou and Qin dynasties (which houses a model of the tomb and the Terracotta warriors) , followed by a visit to the palace at the Huaqing hot springs at the foot of Mount Lishan. Prolly not particularly interesting to those less familiar with chinese history, but this is the palace where Yang Guifei, the famous concubine of the Tang dynasty emperor Xuanzong bathed (there is a white marble statue of her in the gardens and you get to see her humongous bathing pool). There is a man made lake and several pools amidst the palace buildings and gardens. The natural spring water is lovely and warm (our tour guide tells us it's about 42 degrees, we had to pay 5 mao pp to splash our hands in it). This is also the place where Chiang Kai Shek (the dude who founded Taiwan) got captured by the communists. I think the local tourists were more interested in this than we were.
Palace grounds
Chiang Kai Shek's quarters (that's his marriage pic there)
Statue of Yang Guifei (Hmm I wonder what he saw in her?)
After that, we visit Qin Shihuangdi's mausoleum (..the first emperor of China, built the Great Wall. The BBC did a programme about him a while ago - the one where they think his tomb contains a model of China with rivers and seas of mercury). Anyway, there isn't much to see though... all you see is a huge mound in the distance. Fortunately we took a golf cart ride around the tomb ... the perimeter was about 3 km. The visit culminates in a performance of dances (as there really isn't anything else to see or do here) with really bad english commentary (we didn't have a clue as to what they were saying).
Yup.. that hill is it
Another view of the tomb
PerformanceNext we get driven to a really expensive restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately, we had heard about this from other hostellites the day before and brought packed lunches. However we thought we'd have a look at the restaurant anyway. An average dish (typically written in a separate English menu) costs about 60 yuan (highway robbery as a dish in an average restaurant costs about 5-15 yuan in Beijing). I politely ask our tour guide and the waitress if there are smaller dishes as there's only two of us and they just keep on pointing at the bloody expensive pomegranate chicken dish. Irritated, I tell our tour guide point blank that this is a rip off (which from her red face she acknowledges) and much to their chagrin (I think it's a chinese 'face' thing) we walk out to have our lunch in the van (well, 60 yuan may not be that much to us but out of principle, I refuse to be ripped off by another chink). Our driver nodded in agreement when I told him the prices were too steep and he (bless him) even showed us where we could get noodles from a roadside stall. Our packed lunch was fantastic though (we had gone out the night before and typically, had no idea what we were ordering and ended up with more food than the family of five next to us). The chinese family that toured with us return to the van after their lunch. The wife is pretty angry and I can just make out the words 'chicken' and 'price' in mandarin.
Last night's dinner (btw there are about 100 chillies there!)
Then it's off to what I can only truthfully describe as a shop dubiously called the National Geological Museum. We gather at the entrance for a few seconds whilst they assemble us into groups. A member of staff takes our group through some displays of gemstones and minerals (amethysts, jade etc). He whizzes ahead, barks sharply at our fellow tour buddies for dwawdling and after a 'guided tour' of about 3 minutes long suddenly loses interest in talking to us just as we come up to the entrance of the shop. Btw, according to most tourists we meet, if you are taking tours beware as these are usually 1% tour and 99% shop/factory activities. We've been doing our own exploring so haven't been exposed to too much of this. So after a few sad rocks in a couple of display cases, we are now faced with rows and rows of glistening jade bangles and jewellery. I buy a pink jade pendant and JD buys a terracotta horse for 25 yuan.
We finally visit the Terracotta warriors! Btw, you can easily do the Terracotta warriors yourself. Just take bus 306 (green bus, make sure it's the public bus though... there are several smaller tour buses which deceptively attach the number 306 on their vehicle) which takes you to the entrance itself. If you are, like us, not really into chinese history, the other places visited can be missed.
There are 3 pits - Pit 1 and 3 are the best. Pit 2 is still being unearthed so you only see mounds of soil. Pit 1 is really vast (see pic). The buildings housing these pits resemble concert halls. There is also a museum on the grounds which has several really well preserved terracotta warriors (the archer and horse are JD's favs) and (surprise surprise) a shop. Don't bother buying stuff from here - a souvenior horse similar to JD's costs about 600 yuan (apparently because it's made from the clay from the digs.. *cough)... I'm thinking who'd buy that?? ..no one can be that stupid can they??
Pit 1
Pit 3
We return to our hostel late afternoon. It's pomegraneate season - there are rows and rows of stalls temporarily set up in front of the orchards, stacked with the fruit. There are also boxes and boxes of persimmon, also in season. I buy 6 for 1 yuan to try.
Day 22 - We take an overnight train back to Beijing. As the sleepers were all booked up, we had seats instead. Fyi - you can only book tickets from the location you depart from and there is no such thing as a return ticket. Consequently we were not able to purchase our return tickets from Beijing. Seats are cheap though (300 yuan in total for 2 of us as opposed to the 800-900 yuan for sleepers) but really hard work especially if like me, you get cranky without sleep.
The train is serviced like an airline. There is a steward who organises and arranges everyone's luggage in the overhead shelves in a perfect line. On both sides of the train, seats are arranged 3 in a row, with every 2 rows facing each other. We sit with another chinese gentleman and 3 female students, and play a variation of chinese poker with them all night. Everyone eats pot noodles on the train (I bought one from the trolley guy -- they're much nicer and more substantial than the pot noodles we get here). Towards the end when everyone is trying not to succumb to sleep, JD lets the chinese guy try his Sodoku, causing the poor man 2 hours of continual sighing and tapping his fingers on his forehead (he did solve it mind you..).
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