Catch up

Just to bring you up to date. Sorry that there will be no pictures as I haven't yet worked out how to do it on these cafe machines but when I do...I'll add a few.

So far we have survived the following:

1 A hard sleeper train ride to Xi'an from HZ complete with Chinese mothers and babies who they let sleep on your bed with no protective pants on and then hold them out over the carriage floor to pee through their split pants! They then get a mop to spead it all around and hopefully clean it up. Trust the next ride has no young folks in it. We did however see countryside at last with crops and rice fields and sunflowers and wheat and people toiling in the fields with hand implements. What a hard life still. We were pleased to know that there was such a landscape as until now we had seen very little other than concrete jungles.

2. Have visited and wondered at the Terra Cotta warriors. What a fellow that Emperor Qin Shi Huang was. A visionary?, a megalomaniac?, crazy? Hard to say but he accomplished a lot in his short dynasty 2500 years ago including the Great Wall, the unification of China, the standardising of weights and measures and money and writing and the centralising of govt., plus many other interesting projects. He also slaughtered a great nuber of people and kept a whole lot more employed. Fascinating to see the vaults with the broken, and the restored, warriors What an amazing job they are doing. As always the actual site is huge and well laid out to accommodate the many visitors. We certainly did not feel crowded or hassled in any way..... so most enjoyable.

3.Have done our two day hike up the Sacred Hua Shan mountain and stayed overnight to see both sunset and sunrise. Because of the numbers of visitors the pathway to the top is all manmade with rocks and stones to protect the environment. The paths slope upward to be followed at greater heights by the dreaded steps many of which are small, hardly wide enough for our big feet, and many of which are high requiring a good push up, all the while ascending vertically. We did the North Peak in good time accompanied by a young American couple also teaching in China, and they returned while we continued to the West peak to see the sunset over the mountains. Cetainly it was clear that we were seeing it set into the pollution layer and not the horizon but as we had seen our first really bright blue sky and fresh clear mountain streams that day we were not too disappointed. At 4.30 am the next morning, armed with flashlights, we headed up a virtually vertical path/steps to the East Peak where we watched and waited for the sunrise. Unlike our many companions of the morning we did not buy good luck locks and attach them to the chains which adorn the rocks to help you climb, but we did take advantage of a hot coffee for 10 yuan at the top!

4. Unable to get a train we headed to the smallest province Ningxia by long distance bus and apart from faulty air conditioning and windows impossible to see through the 9 hour trip went surprisingly quickly and we were amazed at how many mountain tunnels we went through. By looking out of the driver's window we could see the change in the landscape as we headed into desert land and sand appeared around us. The scenery was not unlike parts of Africa and I was surprised to see houses built much the same way as those I had seen there. Although they were brick and mud and not pole and dagga they looked the same on the outside, the square ones at least with their flat rooves held down with stones and rocks. They were each isolated and looked so desolate in the treeless environment. However unlike Africa we saw not a goat or animal oin the long journey. Such a different landscape....and I am sure a hard one to live in.

5. Yinchuan is a city again but we had a nice (hot) hostel near the University with friendly young staff and a night market each evening. We had seen on the map that the Great Wall runs close to the road in parts of the province so we hot footed it into .....

6. Inner Mongolia to see Bayon Hot a town just over the border where we found the loveliest 300 year old Mongolian temple. It had not been gussied up and the paint and woodwork were really old and fading but somehow I loved it, it was so full of character and the furnishings were colourful and varied and there were so many of them. The temple now houses about 30 lamas and was the first 'working' temple that we have seen. I really appreciated it as I saw the lamas banging the gong and reading their scriptures (sutras I think they are called) and one lama blessing an elderly woman and her daughters with holy water and prayers. Previously we have only seen their artifacts sitting unused in the temples. The old lady walked with the help of a little stool in front of her and I so wanted to give her a rollator like we have in NA but although I have seen crutches and splints and wheelchairs I have not see rollators and so many of the elderly folk here would benefit from them. ..

7. When we had investigated the town we headed out on the bus back towards Yinchuan asking to be let off on the road near the Great Wall at Sanguankou. This was duly accomplished and we headed across the desolate area to the crumbling but still impressive wall which is still standing and is totally unprotected or looked after it seems. We were able to trace its path through the surrounding HelenShan mountains with our binoculars and discovered its nooks and crannies totally alone. It was wonderful thinking about the people who built it and manned it oh so long ago and all that has transpired in their history since. I doubt it will last too many more years in such a good state as the extremes of weather must surely break it down especially as it has none of the protective stone on it any longer. When we had had our fill of the wall we headed for the roadway and flagged down the next bus that came along taking us back to Yinchuan passing the Pyramid type tombs which are another historic site in this area.

8. Finished the day by climbing the 13 stories of the Chengtiansi Ta temple in town to get an overlook. Sad to say all we could see were buildings and apartments into the horizons on each side as the pollution obscured our view of the majestic mountains we had seen earlier in the day.

Today we successfully bought tickets for the next stage and are taking a breather doing washing and catching up.

Trust you are all well and enjoying your summers. Will check in again when we have time or when I learn to get pictures onto the blog. This is such a fascinating place!