Fengjie – Yichang - Xi’an

We left the lovely Yangshuo, for almost two days of travelling. 1 hour bus ride, 19 hour train ride, and then a 5 hour bus ride. So for those two days we really don’t have much to say. We ate some more
pots of noodles, and read some books, and played Mafia, a game that we were introduced
to on our NZ tour. We were warned, but over the past few days we have noticed a few things. Chinese people stare at white people. A lot. They point at us, they come out of shops to watch us walk past, they take pictures of us, they follow us into shops, they walk into people in front of them because they are so absorbed in looking back at us. At dinner today one girl asked our guide if we would mind her taking our photo. At least she asked! Then about another 20 or so people took our photos. Some of them got into the photos too.
After dinner,some of us went into a clothes shop. One of the assistants asked Kristian, a Norwegian
who is travelling with us, if he minded taking a photo with her. She actually jumped for joy when he said yes. Absolutely no exaggeration. She jumped up and down and waved her arms around. And in the train station yesterday, a child was obsessed with one of the girls. He would be playing with his dad, and would just stop to stare at her. And stand there and stare. It was quite funny!
We were also warned about the air quality. It’s very poor, so it is almost perpetually foggy. It is so bad that when we blow our noses it comes out black. The food isn’t great either – we were served duck
and chickenfeet, and heads too we think. Though we have had some nice enough stuff too.
And people spit, noisily, everywhere. (including on the restaurant floor).

From Fengjie we got two boats. The first was a hydrofoil,and we travelled down the first of the Three Gorges. Plenty of nice scenery along here. You can see the water mark of how high they let the river flood. Because of the dam the government have total control over this, and people are allowed to build anywhere they want above this line. Some have built only a few meters above it, meaning that in Winter (the dry season) the water is just below their houses. We got off this boat, and had a quick lunch. We then drove to the next dock. On the way we passed the famous dam. It is not the longest or
highest in the world, but it has more turbines than any other hydroelectric dam in the world, and it gives electricity to about 25% of China’s population. It was a huge construction project, where the government spent billions.The gorges behind the dam were flooded, so many people had to move house.
They were given three options; move higher, move to a different province, or move to one of the new purpose built towns. Obviously many were not happy about having to move, but for most it was an improvement in life quality as the houses were provided for them, and they were also provided with land to farm.
The second boat we got was on the other side of the dam. It was a luxury cruise boat (without cabins for sleeping), and it was very nice too. (Even if they did serve tomatoes with the ice cream, for whatever reason!) Again, plenty of beautiful scenery, and the sun even made a rare appearance. We had to pass through a different dam further down the river, so I got to go through a lock for the first time ever. (The three gorges dam has a series of 5 locks, because there can be over 100m of a difference in the water levels in front and behind it. They are also constructing a ship lift, as the lock system takes about 4 hours to navigate).
That night we went out for a few drinks. I tried to order a vodka and coke, but it just wasn’thappening. They were trying to give me the entire bottle of vodka, which I wasn’t really on for! We had some
time the next morning in Yichang, before heading off for another overnight train. At the train station, another child was transfixed by the same girl! The train wasn’t too bad. This time we amused ourselves by making some dice, and playing Yatzee.

We arrived in Xi’an on Tuesday morning, and got a taxi to our hotel. The driver kept saying stuff in Chinese to me. Then he showed me his arm, and compared it to mine. I’m not sure if he was showing me that he was more tanned than me, which he was a bit, or if he was showing that he was almost as white as me, since his arm was whiter than his hand. That’s something that we have noticed since coming to Asia. Nowhere sells fake tan. Most moisturisers advertise themselves as “Whitening”, and you can buywhitening creams, body lotions and shower gels.

On Tuesday afternoon we visited the Terracotta Warriors, which was about an hour away on the bus. This is a very interesting museum, with the excavation of the warriors still in progress. Four pits have
be found, 3 of which contain these warriors, chariots and horses. They were all made as a tomb for China’s first emperor, who died by poisoning. (He was poisoned by a concoction of medicines he took to give him everlasting life. Most of the medicines contained metals such as silver, gold or mercury.)
It is amazing to see how much money, time and effort was put into building his tomb, which was
only rediscovered in the 1970’s. Most of the group were very happy to discover that pizza hut was an option for dinner that night!
On Wednesday we took a bike ride on the city walls of Xi’an.
The three couples in the group took tandem bikes, which are frankly terrifying.
If you are in the back, you have no control, nor can you see much ahead of you. Someone said that all you need is some trust in your partner. Yeah, I trust John to do his very best to scare me. Still, once I got used to it, it was very enjoyable, and we cycled the whole way around the wall, a distance of
13.5km. We got a bit wet in the rain though.
We spent the afternoon just pottering around, and then we went out in the evening for some Karaoke! Amazingly, for all the time we have spent in Asia, this was our first time doing this. It seems to be very popular all over Asia. We went to a very fancy hotel, and had a room to ourselves.
Dinner and drinks were served to us in the room, and we had three microphones.
However, we didn’t really take turns – everyone just sang every song that they knew, and it ended up being quite crazy, with people dancing on the couches, and screaming at the top of their lungs.
We have one more day here in XI’an, so we are going to sample the local speciality of dumplings for lunch, and spend some time seeing what there is to see. We have another night train this evening, and we are heading to Shanghai.