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2007 / China

More wall
 
Taken by Kieran, our travelling companion for parts of Xian and Beijing. A much better photographer than me. :-)
Kieran's pic
 
Yangshuo vista
 
...as we had taken to calling them
Guilin Chinese-things
 
Complete with Starbucks and a KFC.
Shanghai 'old town'
 
Empty of tourists - there were very few others on this section and we hung around till last... I waited until the others got off and took this photo - the only person standing on the wall for miles around!
Great Wall
 
Tiananmen Square
 
Forbidden City mural
 
Two thousand year old quarter-size chickens and cows. What more do you want?
The chickens
 
...was this temple complex for another Xian king, two thousand years old and only now a quarter excavated. You can walk along glass floors looking straight down onto the pits, which are completely filled with small size variants of everything a dead monarch needs, like warriors, horses, servants, concubines, eunuchs, and animals of all kinds. My favourites were the chickens! <br/> <br/>For the amount of things to see, quietness of the place, real sense of getting close to the archaeology, this gets a big thumbs-up over the Terracotta warriors.
Better than the warriors
 
Xian Drum Tower
 
Apparently some German guy that did that busking where you dress as a statue got in here dressed as a terracotta warrior. Depending on the person doing the telling, he lasted either two hours or two minutes standing in with the rest of them before someone caught him. <br/> <br/>How he managed to get in dressed like that is anyone's guess. Big coat I suppose. He can't have done too much damage though, a picture there showed that they let Chelsea Clinton in with them!
Terracotta warriors
 
Near Jiayuguan. Cool jacket eh?
Western end of the Great Wall
 
Fun though!
Sandsledding failures
 
Jiayuguan fort is kind of the equivalent to the Roman fort at Gonio, in Georgia - for the Chinese, it represented the last point of true 'China' on the other side of which was barbarians. The Chinese often (as now, of course) controlled areas past this point but this was always the start of the 'real' China. It is also the end-point of the Great Wall.
Jiayuguan entrance
 
A desert in the middle of absolutely nowhere which nonetheless had a nice road, bright green minibuses and a lady in each telling us not to climb onto the boulders. Which we ignored.
Desert park
 
There were some lovely sand dunes near Turpan. Unfortunately they were the purview of a 'sand dune park' costing a ridiculous sum to get in. A noticebook at a traveller's cafe mentioned a way to get to the dunes without going through the gate (should be easy you'd reckon) but after an hour of wandering through the back of farmns and seeing the dunes *still* encased by a huge fence, we relented and paid the money. Still, half the fun was in the attempt.
Resting
 
This was in an ancient city we had been walking around for ages... I was tired so I got one of these guys with a donkey-wagon to take us back to the gate. Wheeeee! <br/> <br/>Location is a complete guess.
Uighur taxi
 
Somewhere near Turpan... this is part of the story of 'journey to the west', which is why there was a silly museum costing 50Y in front of the damn thing. We could have stopped anywhere 50km either side of the museum and seen the same vista... sigh.
Flaming mountains
 
I can't claim credit for this picture - Sarika was quick off the mark as this guy came sailing past.
Dude, bike and Camels
 
Our favourite travelling companions, who ensured non-snoring quiet nights in sleeper cars all the way from Ashgabat to Xian - thanks guys!
Sarika and Aryan
 

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