Beijing to X’ian by overnight train with Bailey's Tours .

The train journey.-A different experience, quite exciting once we got on the train, however we had not anticipated that we were going to have a bit of a March consisting of a 15 minute walk to the train station, with 22kg on our back. We then had a half an hour queue in a very crowded railway station, then again everything seems to be crowded in China.  We slept on what you call a ‘hard sleeper’, which is based on small rooms along the corridor consisting of 6 bunks in each, a bit of a tight squeeze, but we managed. It was also cleaner than we imagined so it was a bonus as we were preparing for the worst.  In total the train took 17 hours from Beijing to Xian

Our first impressions of Xian were similar to Beijing, a lot of cars and people.  Xi’an population is 8 million so you can imagine pretty crowded.  The roads were certainly as bad as Beijing, pedestrians don’t have any rights,  Crossing the road here is like playing the game chicken where you hope for the best, as you dodge in and out of the traffic.  Over the last few days it has been getting easier as you have to become fearless.

Xian has plenty of shops and markets, very reasonable prices but you have to barter, which the Chinese people seem to enjoy, they ask you to name your top price. 

Xian main attraction is a wall that is built around the city, 1400 kilometers in perimeter,  it is 600 years old.  You have a choice whether you wish to walk around it, which takes about 3 hours or hire a bike which takes one and a half hours, we did it the easy way and rode around it, it was good fun, it wasn’t tiring as it was flat but bumpy.

One of the main attractions we came to see near Xian was the Terracotta warriors, which was an hour ride on public bus from the hotel.  It is a museum well worth going to see, apparently the biggest archeologist discovery in the 20^th century, where there is still more of it to discover as it is still buried underneath the ground

Setting off again today on another overnight train this time a soft sleeper, supposed to be on the upper class, we will wait and see our next experience.  We are setting off to Chengdu panda breeding centre to see the giant pandas, We are looking forward to our next experience.