Beijing's Summer Palace

Thursday 31 May

We're in Beijing, and the Summer Palace is one of the recommended places to visit, along with The Forbidden City, The Temple of Heaven, the Great Wall and, of course, Tianenmen Square.  We are only in this throbbing, people-packed city for 5 days, so it's a whistlestop tour trying to see the major attractions, and taking time to rest and relax in between.  One of the things we enjoy doing most is chatting around the hostel table to fellow tourists, mostly young people - last night we talked to a young woman from France, a young couple from New Zealand, and a young man from Ireland.  The subjects of conversation ranged from the number of people we'd all heard of who'd had their Tibet tour cancelled (including ourselves, of course), Mongolian visas (and how Americans don't need one), having dresses and suits made in Vietnam, how to still get Facebook and blogspots while in China, and the pros and cons of buying an I-phone in China. 

We take the metro (underground) to get to the Summer Palace from our hostel.  We are pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to do this; directions and signs are in English as well as Chinese, and maps indicate clearly which line to take for the station you want.  The trains are modern, clean and quiet compared to the London Underground.  Not only does an automated voice tell you, in Chinese and  English, which station you are approaching, each station not yet reached is lit by a red light on a tube map on the train.  As the train leaves a particular station, the light goes out - so you just have to glance at the map opposite you in the train to know where you are.

Everywhere you step in Beijing, there's people, people, people; and the Summer Palace is no exception.  A notice says there were 31,000 visitors yesterday, and 26,000 are  expected today - and we are 2 of them.

There was a temple on the site of the Summer Palace as far back as the 15th century; however, the gardens were developed, and more buildings added, during the Qing Dynasty, in the 18th century.  In 1860, the Anglo- French Allied Forces burned down the whole lot, buildings and gardens.  As we walk around the Summer Palace, we are constantly reminded that each beautifully. "exquisitely" (Chinese description, not mine)  designed buillding is a replacement for the original, which the signs tell us were "brutally burned down by the Anglo-English Allied Forces".  In 1885, the buildings and gardens were restored, only to be razed to the ground again by the Eight-Power Allied Forces in 1900.  After the People's Republic of China was formed in 1949. the Summer Palace was gradually restored to its former glory, as is the case with many other formerly dilapidated sites.  The Summer Palace is now recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage site.

Reg and I spend an enjoyable few hours walking around the site;  there are various temples to see, each containing buddas and other icons.  We go for a boat ride on the beautiful lake, which is man-made, having been dug out in the 18th century by 100,000 men.  

On leaving the boat we stop for refreshments before walking through tree-lined pathways back to the entrance gate.  We come across a museum housing a small exhibition of Qing Dynasty wooden furniture, much of it very beautiful and ornately carved.

There's probably a lot more we could have seen,  but we're all "temple'd and pagoda'd out" and decide to make our way back to our hostel, hoping to miss the worst of the rush-hour crush.

After a rest, we venture out for food, and find a cafe-type restaurant with lots of Chinese people eating in it, which is usually a good sign.  The menus are in English as well as Chinese, and there are photos of the dishes on offer.  Reg has a beef dish and I have sweet and sour pork, which is delicious.

Afterwards we stroll down a busy side street, where neon lights are glowing, and a hotchpotch of stalls,   shops, cafes, restaurants and street-food vendors vie  for our attention,  Goods on offer vary from cameras and mobile phones, hats, sunglasses and bags, to knick-knacks, jewellery and fruit and veg.

We buy a new rucksack for Reg, as his old one is broken, then return to the hostel for Reg to send a scanned-in form to the train-travel agency that supplies our tickets.  Paypal have at last recognised the fact that we are in China, and have unblocked Reg's account.

Tomorrow we are up at 5 am as we are going on a tour to the Great Wall.

"Temple of Heaven", temple of calm

Wednesday 30 May


Reg's tummy is definitely improving, and mine is back to normal, so we're feeling a lot better today.  Someone in our hostel has recommended that we visit the "Temple of Heaven", and it sounds like a place we will enjoy.  Also, it's only a half hour bus ride away, and we're meeting up with an American couple for dinner this evening, so it's an ideal place to go to today.

It's a hot day, but there's a refreshing breeze. and amazingly for Beijing we're told, there's a clear blue sky; apparently it;s rare to see Beijing without it's veil  of smog.  Yesterday evening's rainstorm must have cleared the air.

In a way, at first sight, the Temple of Heaven has some similarities to the Forbidden City; there are various wooden Pagoda type buildings, each having a separate purpose eg The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests,  The big difference though between the Temple of Heaven and the Forbidden City is that the former area is surrounded by trees and lovely parkland, with an enchanting  Rose Garden.

The Temple of Heaven was a worshipping site, where the Emperors used to come, in a ritual ceremony, to make sacrifices and pray for a good Harvest.  The ritual ceremonies were very grand affairs - the Emperor would be dressed in appropriate costume, and a procession would take place involving all the dignitaries and government officials.  Common people had to stay indoors and were forbidden from watching the ritual ceremonies and processions.

A particularly interesting feature is a small door in an outside wall, called the 70 year old door - not because the door is 70 years old, but because when one of the Emperors (Emperor Qianlong) reached 70 years old, his aides realised he was struggling to walk the distance covered by the long ritual procession to the Hall of Prayers.  So the officials suggested to the Emperor that they make a door in a wall as a shortcut for him.  The Emperor readily agreed; but to prevent  his successors becoming lazy, and using this "short-cut door" to make life easy for themselves, the Emperor decreed that no future Emperor could use the "short-cut door" unless they had reached the age of 70.  No future Emperor ever reached 70 years old, so the door was only ever used by Emperor Qianlong.

As sometimes happens on our trip, a group of 3 older schoolboys stop us and ask if we will please have our photo taken with them - one member of their group takes the photo.  They are  enjoying practising their English.  One of the boys says he will go to America when he finishes school.

"Not England then?" we ask.
"Oh, England too," he hastily replies, realising we aren't Americans!

After enjoying a leisurely stroll around the main area of the Temple of Heaven, we stop for an icecream in the shade (it's very hot now) and take a walk through the beautiful tree-shaded parkland.  We discover a temple we haven't seen yet - the Fasting Temple.  It's an extra 10 yuan (£1) to visit it, but we're so glad we did.  It's small, and no-one else is visiting it at the time; it's peaceful, and the surrounding grass is somewhat overgrown, like a meadow - almost as if it;s been forgotten about. In the courtyard is a huge brass bell.

After resting in the shaded Rose Arbour in the rose garden, we slowly make our way back to the South Gate to catch our bus.  We think we enjoyed the Temple of Heaven more than the  Forbidden City, because of the proliferation of trees and parkland.  It made us think of England.

After a rest at the hostel we make our way to a restaurant where Peking Duck is a speciality.  We're meeting up with an American couple we've been introduced to, Warren and Betsy Talbot, who are also currently travelling across Asia.  The difference is that they are much younger than us, and have sold their home and all their possessions in order to travel the world.  We have an enjoyable evening sharing stories - they have their own website, www.marriedwithluggage.com.  We promise to keep in  touch, and tell them to look us up when at some time in the future, they are sure they will  revisit England.  The meal is delicious - and a fraction of the price we were charged when we were scammed on Monday night.  We pay 144 yuan (£14.40) for a meal for 4 people. 

We visit the "Forbidden City"

Tuesday 29 May


We're feeling a bit flat after what happened last night; what's more, Reg's tummy troubles are persisting and he's not looking so well.  I'm taking a couple of Paraclens daily, but this morning even my tummy is out of sorts,

We have just toast and jam and tea for breakfast, then walk along to the local pharmacy and buy some extra strong Immodium for both of us.

It's much cooler today, probably 25 deg C and cloudy. We decide to visit the "Forbidden City", a bit like the Buckingham Palace of Beijing, in the sense that it's where the Emperors lived through the centuries; it's called the "Forbidden City" because there was no access to it for ordinary Chinese people.  There is no way that any unauthorised person would have been able to enter the Emperors' domain - there were (and are) numerous entrance tunnels and thick, metal strengthened doors to go through before you reach the inner areas.  Above the first entrance door to the City is a huge portrait of the infamous Chairman Mao.

We decide not to bother with a guide, and slowly make our way through all  the different tunnels, each of which opens onto a spacious open concrete area, with various pagoda type buildings (restored) at strategic places.  You can't go inside the little pagodas, only peer in at the somewhat dingy and difficult to see interiors, where you might spot the odd throne or two.   I don't find all this looking around at not very much at all very interesting, although the restored architecture is worthy of note, and Reg takes a few pictures.  The Forbidden City does have it's own beauty, but having seeen the magnificent, intricate
 architecture of the ancient buildings in Uzbekistan, it takes a lot to impress us.

There are lots of soldiers around; at one stage, part of the "inner square" and terraces is cordoned off by the army and cleared of visitors.  For me it is fascinating to see how calmly and effectively this is done by the practised soldiers.

Reg and I agree that the 2 highlights of our visit to the "Forbidden City" are the Hall of Clocks, and the gardens at the rear of the City.  In the Hall of Clocks are many unusual and decorative 18th and 19th century clocks, a good number of which were made in England by world-renowned clock makers.

These magnificent objects, some standing 3 feet high or more, are a feast for the eye; they feature moving elephants, dragons, birds; one even has a Dickensian-dressed character that writes in Chinese on a scroll as the clock chimes.

At the rear of the Forbidden City is a beautiful, unusual garden, no lawns, but stunning trees in strange shapes.   As you exit the Forbidden City, you can cross the road via an underpasss, and climb a long, winding stairway of stone steps to a pagoda on top of a tree- filled hill.  Most visitors take the opportunity to climb this hill to the pagoda (which houses a gold budda, no photos please), because from the pagoda is a magnificent view, looking down not  only on the Forbidden City, but on Beijing, with mountains visible on the skyline, for once not hidden by Beijing's famous smog.  You can walk right round the pagoda, thus gaining a "circular" view of the whole city.

We get talking to an American man in his 50's who's been living in China for 2 years, teaching at a secondary school, while his wife teaches in a college.  We have an extremely interesting discussion on Chinese life and government, and decide that China's future should be good, because of the wonderful potential, talent and courage of her young people.

We have a 2 mile walk back to the hostel, passed government buildings, with drivers sitting in posh, shiny, black Mercedes or 4 by 4's, all with blacked out windows, waiting, we assume, to drive home the government officials at the end of the working day,

It starts to rain very gently, and as we approach the subway we are inundated with people trying to sell us umbrellas! You can't fault the Chinese people's ability to exploit a selling opportunity.  We don't buy an umbrella, but as soon as we arrive back at our hostel, the storm breaks, and the rain falls down in torrents outside our window.

We are victims of a scam

Monday 28 May 

This is a difficult blogpost for me to write as no-one likes to advertise the fact that they have been stupid and gullible, but as I'm trying to write an honest blog, and the incident has affected us deeply, I have to bite the bullet and write about it.  Since it happened  to us, we have confided in another newly-arrived-in-Beijing couple, to warn them of the the scam.  They told us they had been warned at the airport  about this, but didn't realise until they met  us that it really happened.

The day starts well, in our soft-sleeper train cabin, where we have an excellent conversation with the Chinese man who is sharing our cabin, as we draw near to Beijing.  He doesn't speak English, but the app on his smartphone translates Chinese -English and vice versa. (Reg had a similar app on his phone until Google shut down his account without warning while we were in Kazakhstan - no doubt for security reasons),  According to the internet, it's a 3 hour bureaucratic form-filling procedure to reinstsate the Google account, and Reg can't be bothered.

The Chinese man shows us where the taxi rank is at the station and we say our goodbyes.  There must be 200 people waiting for a taxi; it's one of those cordoned queues, like the ones in Post  Offices and some shops - so at least it's fair.  We've arrived at 8.45 am, peak time - but we only have to wait 45 minutes for a taxi.  Reg reads the papers on his phone, and I read my kindle, as we gradually shuffle along in the queue.

We love our hostel; it has everything we need.  We are on the ground floor ( a pleasant change from our 3rd storey room in the last hostel), we can get wifi in our room, there's a lovely hot power-shower, and they serve English breakfast -what more could  we want?

After breakfast, a rest, and sorting ourselves out, it's about 3 pm and we decide to go to Tiananmen Square,  It's vast: in fact it's actually 2 linked squares.  You have to go under an underpass to get  to the square, whichever way you approach it.  There is x-ray security for your bags, and police using a scanning device for your person, in the underpass.  However, they are only checking Chinese people; if you are European, you are waved through.

As Reg is taking a photo of me a Chinese man, probably in his 40's, approaches Reg and asks him where he's from, and starts chatting to both of us in a friendly way.  A young woman in her 20's comes forward, and the man says he's a teacher, and introduces her as his student.  We don't really twig that it might be a bit odd, a teacher and just one student together seeing the sights of Beijing, when, apparently, they both live 10 hours away by train, in Xi'an, where we'd just come from.

We are used to Chinese people being friendly to us, and having a chat; it happens all the time.  After a while the man asks us if we've eaten yet; we say no, we're looking for somewhere nice to eat.  He says he can take us to a good place, "to eat, and perhaps share  a couple of beers, if we'd like to?"  We say sure, that would be good, as we've  only just arrived in Beijing and don't know our way around.

Reg walks on ahead with the man, I walk  behind with the girl, who says she has a bad foot.  A couple of times I call out to Reg and ask them to wait for us.  The girl is friendly and chatty and there's nothing suspicious about her at all.

Eventually after a long walk we are taken to a restaurant, and shown into a private room; I  guess the  alarm bells should  have started ringing at this point  but they didn't.

We spend about 45 minutes with a waitress demonstrating a tea-tasting ceremony to us; we're told it's traditional in Beijing.  No costs are mentioned and we naively don't ask; generally tea is extremely cheap in China.  We go through a ritual of drinking lots of different types of tea from tiny cups, and the health-givng properties of all  these teas are explained to us.

After this ceremony, the Chinese man suggests we have Peking duck, as it's a speciality in Beijing; we say that would be great.  Again we are gullible and naive; we don't ask to see the menu prices.  At some point during the meal, which is actually very nice  indeed, the man asks us if we have a car at home - is it a BMW?  No, we say, it's a 10-year-old Toyota.  He asks us if we have a credit card, still we don't smell a rat; we say no, we only carry a debit card with us, and some cash.  But, I say, we have enough cash on us for a Chinese meal.

Finally at  the end of the meal, the bill arrives - it;s 4900 yuan, about £490 pounds!  Our half will be £245.  We stare at the bill in shock - we only have 600 yuan on us.  And our debit card.  I glance at Reg, who is looking extremely uncomfortable;  I say,

"Do you mean the bill is 490 yuan, not 4900?"


No, he says, 4900 yuan,  Apparently, each tea-tasting ceremony for each different tea cost 45 yuan, or £4.50.


"My half of the bill is the same," says the Chinese man.  "Teachers earn a good salary in China".


You would have thought that at this point we would have realised the whole thing was a scam, and have refused to pay; we can't explain why we reluctantly got out our debit card and signed to pay 2450 yuan, or £245.  We are flustered, we haven't been able  to discuss the bill properly in  front of these people, and we aren't thinking straight.

"I want to go home now", I  say to Reg.

We part from the Chinese man and girl outside the restaurant.  It's still  early, about 7 pm.  The Chinese pair, of course, don't press us to share the rest of our evening with them.  They've got what they want, and can't get away fast enough.

As we walk away, after a couple of minutes, I say to Reg,

"That whole thing was a scam - we've been set up."  Reg agrees; we are both really angry.  I  look for my debit card receipt; they didn't give it to me, and in my flustered state and shock, I didn't notice.

"Let's go back," I say.  "I want my receipt.  We can go to the police".


The Chinese man and girl are nowhere to be seen; the staff are surprised to see us back.  I  tell them I didn't have my debit  card receipt, and would like it please.  They try to show us back  into the private room where we had our dinner, but I say, "No, we're staying here." (In the entrance of the restaurant),  The staff can sense trouble, and turn up the music, while trying to placate me, and say they'll get me my receipt.  All this confirms the scam even more - no doubt there are Europeans in another room in the restaurant being similarly scammed as I speak.  I don't know where I get the courage,  but I say, in a loud voice,

"I want my money back.  I'm willing to pay 500 yuan; but I want 2000 yuan back."


The staff are shocked.  They know they've been rumbled,

"Wait a minute,  wait a minute," a young man says, getting on his mobile. "Here, here, you can speak.to the boss,"


I'm speaking to a Chinese man who speaks English - I think its the "English teacher" who scammed us but I can't be sure.  All this time, Reg is standing in the doorway, making sure they don't lock us inside the restaurant.

"I want 2000 yuan.  And I want it now.  Otherwise, I'll go to the Police."

The man asks me to hand the phone back to the young man standing near me.  After a couple of minutes, the young man says I can have my money.  A woman is angry; she says, "1500!" and I say no, 2000 yuan.

The young man gives me my 2000 yuan - I count it, and sign for it, and we leave the restaurant,  I am shaking,  We know we have been incredibly stupid and trusting and gullible, but we've learned from our mistake; DON'T EVER GO FOR A MEAL WITH PEOPLE YOU DON'T KNOW; DON'T GO IN A PRIVATE ROOM; MAKE SURE YOU KNOW THE PRICE OF WHATEVER YOU HAVE BEFORE YOU ORDER.

Apparently, according to the couple we meet the next day, this scam happens regularly to Europeans, who are approached by practiced rogues in Tianenmen Square.

We didn't get all our money back - we paid over-the-odds for our meal, and tea-tasting (which we hadn;t asked for) at 500 yuans, or £50; but at least we minimised our losses.

The majority of Chinese people, we've found, are lovely,  kind, friendly, helpful people.  But this incident has affected us badly and we'll be a lot more careful in future,

Christianity is alive and well in China!!

Sunday 27 May

We're going to a Christian church service this morning. We've already been shown where the church is, just around the corner from our hostel, and have been told that the service is from 10 am to 11 am.

Reg is still having problems with a squidgy tummy, though feels slightly better. I have an English breakfast (we're going to miss this), and give my toast to Reg, as he's being really careful what he eats at the moment.

At the entrance gate to the church, there are several people begging. Inside the forecourt, lots of people – probably about 80 – are sitting on benches singing choruses from hymnbooks. We go inside the church building, which is huge but shabby inside. There are rows and rows of wooden pews (no cushions) and nearly every pew is full. I estimate there must be about 400 people inside the church, plus those outside, listening on a loudspeaker, and they are all singing choruses, led by a youngish man in a while cassock, with a red cross on the breast.. He is holding a microphone, and near him is a pianist, similarly robed. Some people smile at us. It's about 10 to 10. I look around and see that there are a few children and young people here; at first glance, probably about 70% of the congregation are women.

There's a stage at the front of the church, covered with a worn red carpet; on the stage is the lectern with microphone. The lectern has a gathered white curtain around the stem. On the wall behind the stage, is a large red wooden cross, with gold Chinese lettering semi-circled around it. Does the lettering say “Jesus is alive”? I can only guess. Sitting in chairs underneath the cross are a man ( in a short sleeved shirt and trousers, no robe) and a woman, dressed in a short sleeved white blouse and black trousers.

At 10 am a bell rings, and the choir come in – there are 15 people in the white robed choir, 3 of whom are men.

The woman in the short-sleeved white blouse who was sitting on the stage, approaches the lectern, and appears to be welcoming the congregation to the service.  Everyone sings, in Chinese of course,

"Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation!
O my soul, praise Him, for He is thy health and salvation!
All ye who hear, now to his temple draw near;Praise Him in glad adoration."

I am thrilled that I recognise the tune. The congregation sing a few more songs, and then the choir sing what I am sure is the Chinese version of the Christmas carol,

"Hark the herald angels sing,
Glory to the new-born king
Peace on earth and mercy mild
God and sinners reconciled."


Afterwards, the woman on the stage leads prayers; she speaks very fast, and the congregation interject with "Amens" at various intervals.  Then everyone joins in saying what I am sure is the Lord's Prayer.

Every now and again, someone's mobile phone goes off. A woman in the pew in front of ours makes the mistake of answering hers; another woman, with a badge on a cord around her neck (a steward?) asks her to take the call outside. She doesn't, but when her phone rings again, she does scurry off.

Someone hands us a hymnbook, but of course we can't use it.  The prayers have finished and the man on the stage (evidently the preacher) comes to the lectern.  It's 10.20 am.  The choir leave the church through a rear exit door.  The short-sleeved shirt man preaches mostly without notes; after he's been talking for about 30 minutes, a few people appear to be asleep; but many are listening intently, and some are even taking notes. Occasionally the preacher must be saying something funny, because a ripple of laughter emanates from the congregation. Now and again, someone walks out.

A woman sitting in front of us can speak some English, and asks Reg whether we can understand what is being said. Reg, in his usual indomitable fashion, smiles and says, “No.”

“Then why are you here?” she asks.

It's not possible to reply, but when the preacher is 55 minutes into a sermon we cannot understand, we are beginning to wonder the same thing. We came because I have really missed attending Sunday worship, and I thought it would be good to attend a Christian service, even one where the language was alien to me. Reg came along to keep me company. I did enjoy the first part of the service, but think that a sermon of 55 minutes and counting is very long, even for the local congregation. It is also stifling hot inside the church.

I would have liked to know how long the preacher did talk for, but after he has preached for an hour, we get up from our pew as quietly as we can, and walk out, watched by hundreds of staring faces. Many more people are still sitting in the church courtyard, listening intently to the preacher's sermon as it is relayed to them through the loudspeaker.  They look at us as we walk away.  

I decide that Christianity is alive and well in China!

Returning to the hostel, Reg has tea and I have a very large cappuccino. We reply to a couple of emails, and Reg orders more train tickets for future journeys. He hopes he'll be able to pay by Paypal, but they still haven't replied to his complaint email.

I catch up on my blog, and then we go to our room to pack; we are leaving on the 7.28 pm train for Beijing. After fish and chips from the hostel bar, we bring down our luggage from our 3^rd floor room and check out.   Fion, the lovely young Chinese girl who works in the restaurant, and her Chinese friend who works on reception, insist on accompanying us to the bus-stop, to help us with our luggage and to make sure we get on the right bus. We're not sure whether they are just being their usual kind, friendly, helpful selves ….. or whether they feel sorry for us 'cos we're “oldies”.  Either way, we're grateful for their help, and once again we say that the Hang Tang hostel in Xi'an is one of the best ever.

We're 2^nd class on the train this time, which means we have a soft sleeper, but are in a 4 berth cabin. We've been allocated 1 upper and 1 lower bunk. So far, the only other passenger in our cabin is a Chinese man in his 40's who speaks no English. We are careful not to repeat our previous mistake of piling our luggage onto the spare bunk bed, in case, as happened before, another passenger joins the train during the night.

A difficult day

Saturday 26 May

Although we should according to Caxton be able to draw out the equivalent of £300 at any ATM cash machine, on our Caxton FX Global Traveller card, we can only withdraw 2000 yuan today (about £200). With some money we already have on us, this gives us enough, with very little over, to pay for our train journey via the Chinese bank, since Paypal have still not unblocked our payment to the Chinese train agency.

It is very annoying that we have money in the bank but not much to live on today, until we can draw more tomorrow! After a morning of sorting out paying for the trains, we decide to forget about the annoying administrative problems that occur while travelling, and do something nice – cycle around the flat-topped, thick walls that surround Xi'an. We know we can hire bikes on the wall to do this – we are told we have to collect the bikes at the South Gate of the wall. Actually we discover afterwards that they are available to hire at a much nearer gate.

It's extremely hot, probably 30 deg C, and it's a long walk to the South Gate. I guess we're already a bit fed up because of our admin problems and I stop to coat my exposed areas of skin in factor 50 suncream (thank you so much Sylvia, for including that in your emergency kit for me). I'm wilting a bit already, after walking to the South Gate, but we finally arrive and pay 40 yuan each (£4) to climb the 60 stone steps up to the top of the wall (this is nothing to the climb to our hostel room several times a day, which is on the 3^rd floor and is 72 stairs!).

We approach the bike rental office, which comprises 3 young Chinese people sitting at a table under an umbrella; next to them is a long row of mountain-type bikes. We have enough money for hiring the bikes (40 yuan each, about £8 in total) for 100 minutes, but I suddenly remember they will need a deposit for the bikes – 200 yuan each (£40 total). Oh dear! Our Paypal blocked account has led to cashflow problems today and we don't have enough money for the deposit. Reg has had enough, and throws his rattle out of the pram.... or more, literally, throws our rucksack down in frustration. He really wants to cycle the 13 kilometres around the walls; and we've walked all the way to the South Gate of the walls to do this. We sit a little way off from the cycle rental stand, discussing whether there's any way around this. The young people must feel sorry for us, because one of girls comes over to us and asks,

“How much have you got?”

After paying the 80 yuan for the bikes, we only have 48 yuan over for the deposit, instead of 400 yuan. I offer my kindle and Reg offers his mobile as a deposit; they won't take either of these, but we must look honest, because after some discussion the young people say

“Ok, but you must return the bikes to this gate, ok?”

We readily agree, and promise to do this, whilst thanking them profusely. I point to my cross and say,

“You can trust me, I'm a Christian” but I don't know if this cuts much ice with them, although one of the girls gives a slightly embarrassed smile, and says, “It's ok.”

It's absolutely fabulous cycling around the walls, great to be back on a bike again, even if not my own bike! Reg is loving it too, and is finally de-stressing after all that has happened today.

The 13 kilometres along the top of Xi'an's walls is an easy, flat ride, despite the searing heat. We stop a couple of times, but return the bikes well within the 100 minutes allowed. Do we detect relief in the young people's faces as we ride back up to the bike rental stand?

We climb down from the walls, and stop to have a long drink and an icecream in the shade. We don't know which bus to catch so have to undertake the long walk back to the hostel, trying to walk in the shade where possible. By the time we reach our hostel I'm absolutely hanging; I drag myself up the 72 stairs to our 3^rd floor room, remove my walking boots, flop onto the bed, and sleep for 2 hours.

We go to our usual little place to have dinner, as it's really cheap, and we only have 38 yuan left until we can draw more money tomorrow. Dinner for 2, with unlimited green tea, costs 18 yuan, about £1.80.

On our return to the hostel, we open our computer intending to see whether Paypal have replied to our complaint, but we don't get very far. This is because you can only get wifi access in the bar area of the hostel; but whenever you sit in the bar, you end up in conversation with fellow travellers, and hostel staff who are keen to engage in conversation with you, enabling them to practise their English! We talk to 3 Germans, a mother, son and grandson from Berlin, whom we chatted to earlier, over breakfast this morning; an American acupuncturist who is teaching English over here; an American couple and their daughter who have somehow managed to arrange for themselves the coveted trip to Tibet and are off tomorrow; and to a young Brazilian bodybuilder who has just graduated in Finance, and has got himself a job with Goldman- Sachs, in Salt Lake City (yes, that is where the Mormons come from!).

We also have a long chat with Fion, a beautiful young Chinese girl who works in the hostel restaurant, and her friend, who's on night-duty on the reception desk. We talk about how Chinese families can only have one child in the cities; apparently, Fion's parents paid 8000 yuan to the Government to be given permission to have a 2^nd child. You can't always get what you want; but, it seems, if you're in the know, and have the money, you can.

Xi'an's Terracotta Warriors

Friday 25 May

Yesterday we booked a tour to see Xi'an's famous Terracotta Warriors; it's an all-day tour and quite expensive at £35 each.  We set off in a minibus - some people from our hostel, some from other hostels - all can speak English, as we have a Chinese, English-speaking guide with us. She gets us to introduce ourselves to each other, which is good.  Her Chinese- English accent makes her quite difficult to understand, but she seems nice enough.  She is also tour guide to some people in another minibus, so she has 17 of us to shepherd around today, ensuring we don't get lost - not an easy task

On our minibus are two young men who come from Singapore – and guess what – they are doing much the same trip as us, but in the opposite direction - travelling from Singapore to London, England by train! They are taking a slightly different route from us as they want to avoid the European Football Championship in Poland and the Ukraine. We swop stories and as they will be back in Singapore by the time we get there near the end of July, we will contact them when we arrive and meet up for dinner!

The terracotta warriors are a vast army of soldiers (probably at least 8000, according to wikipedia) made out of hardened clay, representing the conquering armies of the Emperor Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, in the 3^rd century BC.  The vast army, consisting of warriors and horses, were buried with the emperor in his tomb circa 209 - 210 BC; he thought this would ensure that he retained his power in the after-life. The amazing thing is that no-one knew of the existence of the clay army until 1974, when it was discovered by a local farmer, who was drilling a well to find water. After the initial discovery, major archaeological excavations have taken place, unearthing thousands of warriors (most in a damaged, broken condition – at least 2000 have been painstakingly restored), and many of the terracotta horses.

On our visit we are able to see some of the excavation areas, and the upstanding army of about 2000 restored warriors, as well as the broken parts of my warriors not yet restored. What I think is spectacular about the terracotta army is not just what the onlooker can see now, but also the sheer scale of the work undertaken by craftsmen over 2000 years ago, and the fact that this craftsmanship was kept secret, no-one knowing about it's existence until recent years. We are told that the sculptors who made the warriors and horses were all put to death by the Emperor once they had completed their work, so that what they were doing would remain a secret. Quite how we know this now I'm not sure.

After our archaeological tour with our Chinese guide who is difficult to understand, we are taken for a good Chinese lunch. Out comes my little knife and fork, while everyone else shows me up by using chopsticks.

In the afternoon we are taken to another archaeological site, a neolithic village, which is quite interesting, and no doubt fascinating to any archaeologists among us; but I wouldn't have made an effort to go there myself. I would have been quite happy to return to the hostel after lunch.

Back at the hostel Reg tries to book up more train tickets over the internet using his Paypal account, as he's done several times before, but for security reasons Paypal have blocked the payment. Reg emails them to complain; they reply to say they've sorted the problem,but they haven't; they want to phone us at home to check we are bona-fide, but, guess what, Paypal, we're not at home; we're in China.

The internet train-booking site doesn't take visa, so if we can't use Paypal, we have to draw out the money via an ATM cash machine, and pay the money back in at the designated Chinese bank, using a form the train-booking agency have emailed us, and which the hostel have kindly printed off for us. In order to draw out this money, I need to load more money onto my Caxton FX Global Traveller card from my current account debit card. I try to do this, but you cannot load money onto a secondary Caxton card, and my primary card was stolen in Kazakhstan. We notified Caxton at the time, and were able to continue to use the secondary card at ATM cash machines; this is the first time since the primary card was stolen in Kazakhstan that we've had to load the card with more money

I email Caxton about our card-loading problem, and to be fair receive a prompt reply, telling me the problem has been sorted, and I am now able to load my card. To my relief I find I can indeed do this straight away. Well done, Caxton, for your excellent customer service.

We re-email Paypal to say they still haven't sorted our problem, but don't receive a reply.

My parcel gets posted at last!

Thursday 24 May

Oh dear! Reg has a squidgy stomach today, so out comes the Immodium. (He's been fine up until now, and like me, didn't want to start taking the Paraclens (gut protecting tablets) until he had to. I've been taking them since I had a dodgy stomach some weeks back, and, touch wood, have been ok since. Some Chinese food is very spicy by English standards, though Reg is normally ok with spicy foods. We decide on one “big breakfast” between us, as Reg is hungry, so should be ok eating egg and toast. We talk to a Canadian couple over breakfast; they are visiting their daughter who is teaching in China. We've actually met quite a few English and American (and now Canadian) parents who are visiting children who are working in China.

It's raining lightly; we haven't seen much rain since we've been travelling. We're still really tired; however we sum up the energy to go to the large China Post to try for the second time to post my parcel of warmer clothes back to England (the smaller post office in Lanzhou woouldn't take it).

I've done up my parcel really securely in 2 black bags, entirely covered with wide sellotape. I needn't have bothered. I watch the person in front of me hand over some unwrapped items to the counter clerk. The clerk finds a (brand new) cardboard box exactly the right size, puts in the items, then deftly and expertly wraps the parcel with that hard, tight plastic tape, the sort that bounces back at you like a metal tape measure when you try to throw it away. The clerk also with one flick of the wrist covers all the edges of the customer's parcel with sellotape. She pays him 2 yuan (20p) for this service; she then has to take her parcel to another counter to be weighed and paid for.

My turn now and the counter assistant does exactly the same with my parcel. I pay my 2 yuan, and take my expertly wrapped parcel to the weighing counter. I have to fill out a customs form, which takes a bit of time, and say what I want done with my parcel if they can't deliver it. I decide, in the event of non-delivery to my home address, to ask for it to be given to my next door neighbour ( I hope you don't mind, if you're reading this Pam and Alan). I certainly don't want it to be returned to sender – the Hang Tang hostel in Xi'an, China.

I send the parcel home by surface mail, which will probably take a few months, and costs about £18. Reg thinks he might send home some books, too. I'm relieved to walk out of the post office without my parcel; not only will my huge suitcase now be a little lighter, there's room for the dress material I hope to buy in Vietnam.

We were going to to cycle around the walls of Xi'an this afternoon, but it's still raining a little, and Reg is not feeling so good. We have a rest, then go out in search of new in-ear headphones for Reg. He finds some good ones, and knows he is paying more than he would on the internet, but he needs them now. His music is important to him.

We return to the small cafe we went to yesterday, as I enjoyed my meal so have the same again (that's me all over). Reg just has a cup of tea; his tummy is still playing up.

Bliss! A full English breakfast!

Wednesday 23 May

Our room is on the 3^rd floor in the Hang Tang hostel, in Xi'an. There's no lift, so at least we'll be getting some daily exercise. The laundry room is on the 2^nd floor, and the hostel does it for you, at 10 yuan (£1) a kilo. I'm not surprised to find that our washing weighs 6 kilograms, but I think it's fine to pay £6 for such a big load. I've long ago stopped separating white and dark washing on this trip , as it means 2 washes, and so much hassle. But I know I'll go back to separating the washing when I get home.

We love this hostel – it's superb. It's modern and smells of new wood and new decorating. What's more it serves a full English breakfast – 2 eggs done how you want them, 2 slices of bacon, 2 small sausages, mushrooms and tomatoes, toast and butter, for 45 yuan, or £4.50. That is really expensive by Chinese standards, but Reg and I decide we deserve a treat. Our breakfast arrives beautifully cooked, and tastes delicious, especially accompanied by a pot of English breakfast tea.

While eating breakfast get talking to 3 lovely English girls – Sophie, Chloe and Lauren. Sophie and Chloe have been travelling together since January, and are going back home to England in a weeks time. They've been to Los Angeles, Australia, Figi, Bali and Thailand as well as China. They met Lauren while travelling, and have kept in touch, meeting up again at various points. We exchange

stories of our adventures, plus they give us some hints and tips for travelling in Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. A young German called Dominic joins in the conversation halfway through, and before we know it, we've all been chatting for about 2 hours! I ask the girls who are going back to England next week how they feel about going home – having been away since January. They say they've loved their travels – but are all “psyched up” to go home now. What have they missed, I ask? Sophie says, without hesitation, “Roast dinners!”

I have no energy today and go back to our lovely comfy bed for a rest, while Reg sorts out some more train tickets, for our journey from Beijing to Hangzhou, on Saturday week. He needs to scan in a signed form to send to China Trains, and is relieved to find that he can do this at our hostel. You can only buy Chinese train tickets 10 days ahead, but buying the tickets through China Trains means Reg can order them in advance, and they are then sent by courier to our next hostel. All this costs more but at least you can be sure of getting the tickets you want. We've found it difficult to buy the tickets in person, apart from when our Chinese guide Frances was with us, because of the language barrier.

There's been problems with the wifi in this hostel, but it's back on. I go downstairs to the bar area with Reg and we post yesterdays blog on the internet, and send a couple of emails. It's lovely to receive an email from our son, George, and others too. How lucky we are to have family and friends who care about us back home. We enjoy ordering a pot of tea, and I indulge in a piece of chocolate fudge cake – it's hard to find nice cake in China!

Later we take a stroll and decide that tomorrow we'll try (again) to post my parcel of clothes back to England; then we'll cycle around the walls which surround the town of Xi'an. On Friday we'll visit the famous Terracotta Warriors.

We find a small unpretentious cafe with pictures of the available food dishes on display. I choose egg fried rice, which comes really hot and is very tasty. Reg orders a noodle dish which takes a bit longer to come. We try to order tea, but the waitress brings soup instead – though we find this too is scalding hot and delicious. The waitress brings us slices of pink watermelons and lychees, too. The whole meal for the 2 of us comes to 18 yuan (about £1.80). For a change, I really enjoy what I eat, and so does Reg.

Returning to the hostel, we have another chat to the 3 lovely English girls, and Dominic. Then we decide to leave the young ones to it, and retire to our room. It's only 6.30 pm, but we're still tired after yesterday – perhaps all the travelling is catching up with us. I write this blog in Open Office (wifi isn't available in our 3^rd floor bedroom), and Reg watches a channel called ESPN, which is a sports channel in English; they are talking about, and showing highlights from, the European cup between Bayern Munich and Chelsea, which took place last Saturday.

That was the pot noodle that was!

Tuesday 22 May

I set the alarm for 7.30 am; we don't have to leave the hostel until 10.00 am, but it seems the early bird catches the worm where the showers in this hostel are concerned. Luckily, 1 of the 2 showers is free, and the water is hot.

Today we are catching the noon train from Lanzhou, arriving in Xi'an at about 10.45 pm. I'm not sorry to leave Lanzhou – it was good to see the Yellow River, but it wasn't a special place – really we'd only gone there as it was to have been the starting point for our tour of Tibet, which was unfortunately cancelled. We'd had the opportunity to chill out in Lanzhou, and also to witness Chinese life in the raw – Chinese people turning their hand to many different trades and types of commerce, in order to make a living. The “living” could be witnessed in the vibrancy, colour and noise of the local Chinese community, in the hotchpotch of little shops, cafes, market stalls and small business which lined all the streets of the area local to our hostel.

We're an hour early for the train as we need to find the right platform, and to ensure we have plenty of time to get there with our mountain of luggage. We are directed towards a waiting area which is specifically for our particular train and one other. We won't be allowed on the station platform until the metal gates at one end of the waiting area are opened by a uniformed member of the station staff. Reg is a little anxious as time goes on, thinking we should be boarding soon; but then he asks a Chinese man nearby, and discovers, through looking at the man's ticket, that he is going to Xi'an too. All we need to do is move when the Chinese man moves. The man is very nice, and tries to communicate with us in broken English.

My theory for the reasoning behind keeping passengers for different trains in different waiting rooms – like “holding rooms” in airports – is that this is necessary because of the sheer number of people using the trains. Otherwise perhaps the platforms would just be too crowded. A uniformed station employee approaches the other side of the locked barrier gates a few minutes before they are actually opened; the swarm of passengers, including us, press towards the gates, ready to move off at a moment's notice.

Reg had asked for soft sleepers, even though this is a day train, but the carriage we are in is a surprise to us. The compartments and corridor are open-plan, with no doors. There are 6 bunks in each open-plan compartment, 3 on each side, and it seems Reg and I have only been allocated one bunk between us, a middle one, although we can't be sure about this.

On the window side of the main train corridor are drop down seats at regular intervals, and they are all occupied; this carriage is absolutely teeming with passengers. By each corridor seat is a little shelf. Some people are already sitting on these seats, eating their lunch; large tubs of pot noodles, with boiling water added, are a favourite food, especially on trains. Suddenly a small drama occurs on the train; as Reg pushes our large suitcase along the narrow train corridor, his huge rucksack, which is over one shoulder only, manages to clip a fellow passenger's pot noodle dinner, which is steaming and ready to eat on one of the little corridor shelves. The pot noodle dinner skims through the air and ends up in a heap on the corridor carpet. The passenger's mouth drops open as he surveys his dinner splattered all over the floor.

Reg apologises profusely, and gives the man some money as recompense. I think the man would rather have had his dinner. Unfortunately, our open-plan cabin area is really near to where the accident occurred – and how to clear up the mess of noodles, which boarding passengers are doing their best to step over as they walk down the corridor with their luggage, searching for their bunk-seats as they board the train? The “little red bowl” (see earlier blogs) comes into its own, and Reg heroically clears up the mess as best he can – the train guard, mop in hand, finishes off the job.

The really nice Chinese lady on the bottom bunk in our open cabin doesn't seem to mind me sitting on the end of her bed – though is it her bed or mine? We're not sure. I'm not keen on climbing up to the middle bunk, as it means I have to get down again to go to the loo. I decide I'll sit on the end of the bottom bunk until or unless I'm asked to move.

Reg is enjoying looking at the scenery, sitting on a corridor window seat – he says he might climb up to our middle bunk later for a rest. He has also decided to download some books onto my kindle, so that when I am on his computer, he can use my kindle. I can't complain, as I need his computer to write the blog and check my emails; at least any number of books can be open at the same time on a kindle, it seems, so we can easily switch from one book to another. The problem arises on a long train journey, like this one, where only one of us at a time can read the kindle. I know that I'm a bit covetous of my kindle, and Reg has been good about me using his computer (most of the time). Reg thinks I'm being unfair, and we have a short exchange about our differing viewpoints, which leads to a silent not-talking-to-each-other row, attracting bemused glances from other passengers.

This was bound to happen at some point in the trip, as we've got on really well so far. The situation isn't helped by the fact that when we eventually get off the train in Xi'an, we've been advised not to get a taxi but to take a 603 bus to the hostel. It takes us a good 25 minutes to find the right bus stop, and another 25 minutes when we get off the bus, traipsing around with all our luggage, to find the hostel. When we get inside though, and book in, we are well impressed; the hostel is either new, or newly refurbished, and although we are on the 3^rd floor, our room is modern and clean, with a kingsized bed which turns out to be the most comfortable one we've slept in on the trip. There's also a modern on-suite bathroom.

I'm exhausted after our long train journey, and go straight to bed; Reg finds there's an English-speaking channel showing football on the TV in our room, so watches that for a bit. We still haven't resolved our petty differences; but in the morning we try to see things from each other's point of view, and make up. 

Good food at last - and an unposted parcel

Monday 21 May

Last night it rained heavily  - the first rain we've seen since Moscow, back in April.  It's still raining this morning, but not so hard - but it's an encouragement to stay in bed a bit longer.  We have no particular plans for today, except that I'd like to post home a parcel of warmer clothes I'll no longer need, and Reg needs to book a couple more trains and hostels.

In the shower room this morning I get talking to a young Chinese woman traveller who's just arrived at the hostel.  She notices my cross and asks me if I'm a Christian.  I say, "Yes, are you?" and she says she is - we hug and I am nearly in tears, because she's the first Chinese Christian I've spoken to, as far as I'm aware.  She tells me her parents are Christians too.  I tell her how I've missed going to church on Sundays while I've been away.  She says Chinese people meet together in someone's house on a Sunday to worship.  

I need to buy sellotape to do up my parcel.   It's double wrapped in 2 black plastic bags.  I ask the hostel receptionist  to write sellotape in Chinese on my piece of paper.  He tells  me that I can buy sellotape in the supermarket just around the corner. Then off Reg and I go, parcel in hand, as the "China Post" isn't far away.  

In the supermarket, I show my piece of paper with the Chinese writing on, and immediately the assistant disappears, returning with a roll of wide sellotape - just what I need.  At the China Post, we cover the parcel in sellotape, to make it stronger - as we are doing this, the counter assistant looks bemused, and consults with a colleague.  Reg and I take the parcel to the counter.  The assistant talks to us in Chinese; we don't understand, but obviously the gist of it is that they can't take my parcel.  They write something in Chinese, plus a bus number - it seems we have to go to a bigger Post Office to post the parcel.  

We return to the hostel; the receptionist is confirms that the bigger China Post is  a 30 minute bus ride away, on 2 buses.  We decide to wait until we get to Xi'an and try there.  What makes me think that posting this parcel home is not going to be easy?  I'm sure I'll have to fill out a customs form.  Will they want to open the parcel?  We'll see.

We're searching for some lunch.  We pass lots of small places where food is being cooked at 

the cafe entrance, but it doesn't look that appetizing.  Reg walks into a small cafe and sees someone eating a rice meal, with meat and vegetables, that looks ok to eat.  We smile at the cafe owner and point to the food the man's eating, hold up 2 fingers (in the nicest possible way) and say, 

"We'll have 2 of those, please."

The meal arrives soon afterwards, and is delicious - not too spicy.  We are given hot water to drink with it - in Urumqi it was always tea in the kettle.  We are grateful to have had something good to eat, and the total  cost for the 2 of us was 16 yuan, or £1.60.

When my purse was stolen in Kazakhstan, our spare passport photos, which we'll need for our Cambodia and Thailand visas, went with it.  We spot a photographic studio, and venture in to enquire about passport photos.  The lady photographer is very friendly and takes a lot of time and trouble to take and produce our photos - 8 for Reg and 4 for me, as I already had some.  The cost is 36 yuan, or £3,60.ed

I spend the afternoon replying to emails, while Reg sleeps - this is a catch up day.  In the evening, we go for a walk  through  the backstreets, where we find a medley of different shops and food points, selling everything from meat to fruit to noodles to mobile phones.  Later we search out a takeaway we spotted yesterday, which sells stirfried food in baps.  We choose, from a selection of meat and vegetables, what we want in our baps, and we can have a fried egg too, so we do.  

We take our feast back to the hostel, and enjoy it in our room.   We haven't done so badly for food today.

Later we will pack up again as tomorrow morning we leave Lanzhou, taking the day train to Xi'an, arriving there at about 11 pm.

Yellow river! Yellow river!

Sunday 20 May


I get talking in the corridor to a very pretty young Swedish woman (24) called Malin.  Reg chatted to her yesterday. She's travelling alone with her bike, in fact has been across the Gobi desert on it - though ended up hitchhiking (her bike in the back of the vehicle) most of the way.  She has her own tent and stove and is self-sufficient - and I tell her, extremely brave to travel alone.  Reg and I are going sight-seeing today, to the Yellow River in the centre of Lanzhou, and I ask Malin if she'd like to come, if she has no plans - she says she will,  She has cycled in China's traffic chaos, but needs a change, and is flying with her bike to Canada on Tuesday, where she has friends she can visit.  She part-dismantles her bike herself for the 'plane, and rebuilds it afterwards - I am extremely impressed.

We catch a bus to the iron bridge over the Yellow River.  We hear the usual  discordant symphony of vehicle horns, and witness the many near-misses as cars refuse to give way to each other.  It's a 30 minute bus ride, but costs only 1 yuan, (10p) the same as in Urumqi. We walk over the iron bridge and back again, noting that the river really is yellow, or at least, muddy brown.  We decide to take a cable car across the river and up into the hills on the other side.  When we reach the hills, there isn't a lot there except a little cafe where we buy icecreams, and a group of young Chinese  people.  One of them speaks good English, and asks if we will pose with them for photos, which we do.  I think in actual fact it is Malin's lovely blue eyes and curly blond hair which attracts them -not us oldies!! Malin says that wherever she goes in China, people stare at her because they aren't used to seeing blond people in the flesh.  She is certainly attracting attention today.

We enjoy the cable car ride, and afterwards take a walk along the promenade which follows the river.  We come across a crowded area where people are enjoying listening to a young Chinese singer/guitar player.   His friend sings too, and spots Malin in the crowd, and says "this song is for you", and sings something which is supposed to be in English but we only catch a couple of the words.  Afterwards the friend comes over to speak to us all in hesitant English.

The guitar player/singer continues his act - he has an amplifier and microphone and I think that his voice is quite good - and obviously so do the crowd.  It isn't long before 2 police women arrive and tell the singer with the guitar to move on.  Surprisingly, he refuses, and carries on singing, and receives shouts of encouragement and applause from the crowd.  The policewomen, red-faced and cross, plead with the singer again - but he seems to be telling them, "Look, the people are enjoying my singing, I'm not going to stop."  I'm pleased to see that the policewomen appear unarmed; however one of them is on her mobile, and it isn't long before 2 male police officers arrive, also unarmed.  Still the young man refuses to stop singing and playing and as we left, in need of something to eat, he was still performing.  We are surprised to see this act of rebellion in China, and would have liked to see what happened in the end - no doubt further police reinforcements were called in.

Once again we have difficulty finding somewhere to eat.  Finally we find a tiny cafe where meat in dumplings are being cooked, and we have these, with a small amount of spicy sauce.  They are really quite palatable. We ask for tea, but none is available, only boiling water.  Reg and Malin manage chopsticks, I get my knife and fork out of my bag.

I think we're all really tired now.  I buy some bananas and grapes, and Malin buys a fruit whose name we aren't sure of, and which Reg and I have never eaten before.  Malin offers us one and inside the hard skin, it is sweet, juicy and delicous!  Reg says the grapes are among the best he's ever tasted, and I agree.

We catch the bus home, and after having a good look at Malin's bike in the hostel, we spend the evening resting and relaxing, and I catch up on my emails and blog-writing.

Chickens' feet for dinner

Saturday 19 May 


We're in Lanzhou.  As usual, when we arrive at our hostel after travelling, we're a bit tired and plan a quiet day, finding our bearings in the local area.

The hostel seems nice and our room is ready.  It's a large room with a double bed and we are given 2 quilts just for good measure.  All hostels have their advantages and  drawbacks, and of course some are better than others.  In this hostel, the shower is not very good and is also right down the corridor.  There's no water facility in our room - this  is a hostel  after all.   There is however constant hot and cold drinking water on tap in the hostel lobby.

I just want to have an hour's sleep.  Reg doesn't need a rest despite being woken at 5 am this morning.  He messes around a bit on the computer and his smartphone while I recover.

We've been told that there's a place nearby where we can buy train tickets; it's 4 pm and it won't be open now but we decide to go for a walk and try to find it so that we can go there tomorrow - we need to have a meal, anyway.

It's a busy area around the hostel, with numerous little shops selling all sorts of wares, and a few eating places too.  We spot a gentlemen's hairdressers, and we pop in because Reg needs a haircut.  The barber gives Reg a nice short haircut, and washes his hair afterwards - all for 10 yuan (which is about £1).  We try to leave a 5 yuan tip but the barber won't accept it.  After the haircut the barber's wife insists on her husband taking photos of Reg, me and the her, then she takes a couple of Reg, me and the barber.  We saunter off, only for the barber to chase us with my purple backpack which we left in his shop.

We can't find the building where you buy train tickets,  Reg thinks he'll try and buy them over the internet.  We try our luck at a local restaurant, but aren't successful really.  No-one speaks any English, the menu's in Chinese, and they don't seem able to provide any of the meals on the list we carry with us, which is in English and Chinese.  In the end the waitress seems to be suggesting something, so we say yes, but it turns out to be similar to what we had on our first evening in China - a very spicy stew-like dish with bony pieces of meat in it, potatoes and a beansprouts, and a couple of chicken's feet for good measure.  We don't enjoy it that much, and needless to say the chicken's feet are left in the dish.

We wander back to our hostel, buying 2 melon-pieces-on-a-stick and an ice-cream each.  No little shady green park to eat them in as in Urumqi, so we take them back to the hostel and enjoy them there.

When I go to clean my teeth before going to bed, there's no water.  I ask at reception, and am told this happens sometimes in the evening.  The receptionist says it should be back on later - but I go on to bed.

When I  wander down the corridor in the middle of the night to go to the loo, there's still no water.  It's not surprising really - we're in a very dry area, not that far from the Gobi desert.  Lanzhou is one of the towns on the Silk Road, along which "caravans" ( traders with camels) used to travel, bringing goods from the East to the West.

A Chinese man in striped pyjamas

Friday 18 May


We have to leave the hostel at 10.00 am to get our train from Urumqi to Lanzhou, but before that,  Reg and Frances go early to get the train tickets for our journey from  Xi'an to Beijing, but without success.  The office is open, the tickets are available from today, they just aren't available yet.

We all have breakfast  - yoghurt with jam, and bread and marmalade (psychedelic orange and very sweet), and of course tea, and then Frances comes to see us off at the station, helping us with our luggage on the crowded bus. We give her a hug and a kiss on the cheek - she seems smilingly embarrassed.  Later I get a text from her to say her parents have never kissed her, so to be hugged and kissed was a new experience for her.  We know some Chinese to be very openly affectionate to their young child/children, as we've seen it - but some families in all cultures I guess don't openly show affection.  We've always been a family that hugs and kisses.

This is our first time on Chinese trains.  The train journey, mostly through the Gobi desert, will take till tomorrow (Saturday) morning.  We're sharing a cabin with a Chines gentleman, probably in his 50's.  He's wary of us at first, as we dominate the cabin with our huge suitcase and Reg's rucksack and 2 smaller backpacks, plus a carrier bag full of food.  We arrange our luggage as best we can, and smiling Reg soon wins over the reticent Chinese man, who at lunchtime offers us some of his lunch, including crispy fried chicken's feet, which we decline.  Early on in the journey, which began at 11.45 am, the Chinese man changes into his striped pyjamas, and is still in them when we leave the train at Lanzhou.

Chinese trains are faster, quieter, and the toilet area is kept much cleaner than on the old "Soviet" trains.  The clean bedding is already on the bunks - you don't have to make your own bed.  In fact everything is better apart from 2 small factors;  there are no clean towels provided (not a big problem), and on this particular train, there are electric sockets in the cabins, and in the corridor - but no electricity. When we had no joy with the sockets I asked 2 train guards, and both shook their heads.  This is quite important for the computer and Reg's phone on long journeys.  However, a plus for Chinese trains is that, aeroplane style, they come around with meals in plastic trays in the evening for purchase - Reg and I have one each and they are quite nice really.   Reg eats with the chopsticks provided, I use a knife and fork.

In the evening, it seems that there won't be a 4th person in our cabin, so we decide to put our big suitcase and Reg's large backpack on the spare top bunk (Reg is in the other top bunk), to give us more room to move in the narrow space between the bottom bunks.  All goes well until we stop at a station at 5.00 am, and there's a loud knocking on our cabin door, which we've locked for the night.  A Chinese man in his 30's has booked the other top bunk!  To be fair, his reaction when  sees his bunk strewn with lots of luggage is brilliant.  I manage to wake up Reg, and between them, Reg and the new passenger haul all our luggage down from the top bunk and plonk the suitcase in between the bottom bunks, and the large backpack on the end of my bunk.  I can't get out of bed as I've no trousers on!!

Very soon the new passenger in the top bunk is snoring very loudly indeed.  The Chinese man in the pyjamas, in the bottom bunk, shouts at him good naturedly in an effort to stop the crescendo of sound.  Reg says the man's snoring is even louder than mine!  When we were snoring together it was according to Reg a cacophony of sound!

We arrive half an hour early in Lanzhou, and luckily, asked Frances to write the name and address of our hostel in Chinese.  Several Chinese people, including our potential taxi driver, pour over our piece of paper, and eventually they seem to decide they know where our hostel is.  The driver delivers us safely, but we've decided that Chinese road users in Lanzhou - cyclists, buses, motor scooters and car drivers - have the same mentality as our taxi  driver in Kiev - it's a case of every driver for himself, and never mind who gets in the way.  The continuous beeping is almost tuneful; the cars and buses even sound their horns when stuck in traffic - perhaps it relieves the stress.  Nonchalant pedestrians scurry across the road, weaving in and out of the cars, and also wander along the  gutter areas, seeming to prefer these to the pavements. Where the pavements are wide enough, cars will drive along them, looking for a parking space, taking little notice of legitimate pedestrians.

Traffic, trains, buses .. and a search for a toilet

Thursday 18 May


Our last day in Urumqi before moving on to Lanzhou.  We have more washing to do - I'm able to do 2 loads for only £3, including the washing powder. I hang it on ceiling poles to dry, in the laundry area.  A lovely young man (from Denmark I think) speaks fluent English, and shows me how to work the top-loader washing machine.  He's travelling around the world for 9 months, alone.  We chat for 20 minutes.

Reg has done a lot of rearranging of trains and hostels due to our cancelled trip to you-know-where.  So our first task when we meet Frances at lunchtime is to buy train tickets for after Lanzhou.

We catch a heaving, people-filled bus to Urumqi station (would there be this many people on Bristol buses if the fare was 10p however far you travel?).  We need to buy our tickets from Lanzhou to Xi'an, and from Xi'an to Beijing.

Urumqi has a population of 2.33 million, according to Wikipedia, and I think the majority of them are in the railway station, buying tickets.  Frances is never afraid to approach people to find out what to do.  She finds that there's another place about 15 minutes away by bus, where we can buy the tickets, so off we go.  We would have waited hours at the station.

Incidentally, as we entered the station, I took off my sunhat, forgetting my sunglasses (not optical ones yet, Angela!!) were on top of my hat.  I remembered 5 minutes later, and Frances went back into the packed station to look for them.  No  joy.  How many pairs of glasses/sunglasses have Reg and I lost between us on this trip?  I could make this a "blog" competition for the correct answer - but answers please at the end of the trip.

I said earlier that Urumqi drivers don't beep their horns a lot.  I take this back - at least, in respect of buses.  Pedestrians don't walk on pavements in Urumqi - well, they do, but they enjoy walking in the road as well.  I don't want to tempt fate, but I can't believe I haven't witnessed anyone getting knocked over. The lane coming out of the bus station is extremely narrow, and people are walking in the bus lane all the time.  As the bus comes out of the station, the pedestrians nonchalently move over just a bit, and the buses brush passed them.

On the road, buses have designated lanes too, so they move more quickly than cars.  The main roads have designated " people crossings", with a green man/red man.  The Chinese take no notice of the red man, whether cars are coming or not - in fact, it's as if it's a challenge for them to them to try to cross between four lanes of moving traffic when the light is red. A bit like in England, says Reg!

We arrive at the other place that sells train tickets.  In the queue we meet a Chinese man who's just returned to China after studying computers at Newcastle university for 3 years.  His English is excellent, and we all, including Frances, have a good chat.  Reg is really pleased because he's able to quiz this man about luggage allowance on Chinese trains.  It seems that luggage on trains doesn't get weighed so we should be ok.  I've already decided that when we reach Lanzhou I'm going to try to send some clothes home - we shouldn't need any warm clothing now.

We get our tickets from Lanzhou to Xi'an, but can't get the ones from Xi'an to Beijing until tomorrow, as train tickets in China can only be bought 10 days ahead.  Reg arranges to meet Frances at 8am tomorrow to buy our tickets from Lanzhou to Beijing.  They have to meet early as we need to be packed up and ready to leave the hostel at 10 am tomorrow to catch our train for Lanzchou.

We go for lunch with Frances to one of her favourite eating places.  We have a special dish, and a lovely refreshing cider-like drink (which is actually made from honey), both of which you can only buy in the Xin 'jiang region of China.  The lunch is noodles, lamb pieces without bone, peppers and beansprouts, and a slightly spicy sauce - it's delicious.  Reg eats his with chopsticks - he's getting really good.  I have to ask for a spoon.

Some restaurants in Urumqi have a toilet, but most don't.  The public toilet near the restaurant is locked.   Reg doesn't need to go so he stays back in the restaurant.  Frances, in her quest for the toilet, takes me across the road to a hospital.  The women's toiilets are on the 3rd floor, not very clean, (those toilets again of course) and there's no soap to wash your hands.  Perhaps thankfully they haven't got the MRSA bug in Chinese hospitals yet.  I know I go on about toilets, but I learned one more thing from Frances - people living in the country don't have toilets, or any kind of sanitation.  Just a hole in the ground.

We walk to the "ethnic bazaar" area of the city.  We go into the huge Carrefour supermarket there and buy food for our train journey tomorrow.  It's very difficult to buy unsweetened bread in Urumqi.

I buy some replacement sunglasses and a pair for Frances too.  We pay her for being our guide, though whatever we paid her wouldn't be enough.  She doesn't want to take what we give her, but we make her.  She's a hungry student after all.  Frances has bought us a present too - a CD of our wonderful theatre experience on Tuesday, when Reg and I were forced onto the stage!!  Also a beautiful Kazhak style scarf for me.

We have a quick look around the ethnic quarter, but oh dear its nearly 6 pm and we've been on the go all day, and even Reg is flagging a bit - and I definitely am.  We say goodbye to Frances till tomorrow, head back on what seems like a very long journey on the bus to our hostel, standing all the way on the sardine-packed bus.

We have our little routine now - we buy an icecream, and go into the lovely shady green park near our hostel and relax for a few minutes.

Then back to the hostel to pack and make ready for our train journey tomorrow.  The washing is dry.  We've loved this hostel, and most of all we've loved our experience in Urumqi ...which might have been a very ordinary place, had we not met the lovely Frances.  We've given her an open invitation to visit us in England if she can - she's one of the world's very special people.