Xian

It's a rainy Saturday in Xian so a good time to download a few more photos. Still from the 23rd on the Wall.

Arrived here early Thursday morning and spent the afternoon wandering around the central square area near both the Bell and Drum towers - went up the drum tower and had a look around haven't been to the Bell tower yet but can see it from where I am sitting. The rest of the afternoon was spent just wandering the streets There is a night market which I will explore tonight with some of the people from my tour group. Yesterday I gathered up all my worldly goods and walked across the road from from the Hostel to the Bell Tower Hotel a 4* place just a little different. Met up with the rest of my group the previous tour and a tour going to Kathmandu so two truck loads! Got my room key to my new fancy place and it was an absolute disgrace - the room had not been made up and three very dirty people had slept there tissues bottles and general rubbish all over the place - had to wait about an hour before I could actually get in - am sharing with Svetlana from Poland - good English but not going with me going to Kathmandu. We all hopped on the trucks and headed to visit the Terracotta Warriors about 50kms out of town and a huge area really well organised - no matter how many pictures you see of these things the actuality is just so much more. And yes it was good to be with a few people again - nice to have someone to talk to.

Last night our group had dinner at the Beijing Duck - 8 courses for 32yuan ($6.50) and I had an orange juice $5.50!!! beer and soft drink were about $1.00 each. Great dinner followed by a huge birthday cake for one of the group - covered in 3cm thick 'cream' One of the guys ate about a quarter of the cake himself and then went out partying I'd hate to have been his stomach in the morning.

I went with a couple of other newbies to try to find an Internet cafe I think we walked around for about 2 hours before I brought them back here to my original Hostel where they don't seem to mind people off the street using their facilities. We had a drink here before heading back the 4* hotel for the night. And after trying once again today to find an Internet cafe I ended up back at the hostel.

the truck is quite large and seats 24 I think we have 7 empty seats so that's good two sets of seats are facing each other with a table inbeween like on a train so on the long stretches cards etc can be p0layed. The group - well so far I have met about half properly - we only have one couple and they are Aussies from Tasmania who have already been on the road with Dragoman for 14 weeks and don't get off the trip unit December I think. Deidre is a larger than life accountant from England also travelling for about 11 months - Lynne an American from Iowa who have lived in the UK for most of her adult life currently from Edinburgh and Tijiane a Londoner with a Muslim father who only eats Halal I think she is the youngest of the group and I would guess about 22. We've got one old guy only doing 3 weeks and the rest are a fairly diverse lot who I will get to know over the next few weeks. Our leader is from New Zealand and has been o the road for about 12 years Our driver has been with Dragoman for 8 years and I think he loves the truck her name is Giselle.

We leave here on Monday morning for our first bush camp apparently a very nice place where the group camped on their way to Xian.

1 Aug 2009

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