Xian & Mt Hua Shan

Photos:

The Cable Car

The top of Hua Shan

Possums Car!

The Stairs on Mt Hua Shan

Mt Hua Shan

The Teracotta Army

Looking Across the Peaks

Dear Diary,

We have our things packed and today we fly from Xian to Shanghai. Xian has been our home for the last week (big thanks to the Macleans for having us) and is full with old sites to see so we have managed to jam plenty into our time here.

The first few days were based around the city centre, one of the local kiwis joined us and we checked out the bell & drum towers and the highlight a 17km bike around the city walls. We might just point out this was completed on a tandom bike! For those of you that have riden a bike in China you will understand that inflated tyres, brakes, and a straight set of handle bars, are something you can only dream of... So with a possible penalty of a fine for returning the bike in any time over 100 minutes its fair to say that we are seasoned pros on the tandom, speed site seeing and plenty of local beer was required at the finish point - cheers for a good day Bruce!

The main highlight for our time in Xian (and quite possibly a trip highlight to date) was our trip this on Monday. We booked a driver, who proudly collected us at 8am in a suzuki with no english and we set out for the Terricota warriors. An hour later we arrived and our driver was named ''possum'' as we had shot in and out of lanes, roads, between trucks and im pretty sure he got some sweet air over some road works at one point! A couple of hours got us through the warriors, the attached photos dont really do the place justice, incredible to be able to see things 1000's of years old, and we agree with the sign at the gate - the 8th wonder of the world!

Next stop was Mt Hua Shan, we had read a little about this place and decided it was our oppurtunity to climb a mountain. So possum dropped us at the base and we started our climb thinking we would go a couple of hours and set up camp for the night. The real difficulty with these places is the language barrier, as there are no engligh signs, people, or anything!! So after a good few hours of walking and the tempreature finaly dropping to below 25 we decided we would continue into the evening and head for the top hotel. This really was amazing. The hill got so steep at times that we had to grasp the rusty chains that were on the rocks beside us and hope like heck that we didnt topple over with our bags on! The steps were short (not deep enough for westerner size feet!) and there weren't any barriers but we made it safely to the peak early eveining - this being 1650m above sea level. After getting the token photo we opted for the cable car down the otherside and returned back to Xian the next day by public bus - very cool.

So with plenty more smiles lets see what Shanghai has to offer.

McDuff

Tristan & Michele