hennaonthetrek

Yeah I know, I know. I have been neglecting my writing, again..From the photo below you can maybe guess what prompt my writing mojo today? The photo is from our 30-storey balcony. From here I can have a view all the way to Singapore. And the view is actually quite nice, even if it doesn’t really look like it on the photo. It is pouring rain right now and you can hardly see the Straight of Johor separating Malaysia and Singapore. Tomorrow we are heading up the coast towards Tioman Islands but for now, I am in Johor Bahru, stuck inside because of the rain and I am going to spend the time to continue telling you about our journey.

If we backpedal few months we will find our selves saying goodbye to Kathmandu and landing in Paro.

The beautiful scenery greets us immediately after stepping out from the plane. We step straight in to the runway which is surrounded by mountains and trees. The air smells fresh and I am feeling very grateful to be able to be here!

I also feel that I won’t be able to make justice to this beautiful country and our awesome guide, miss Tenzin. She made us feel welcome right away and told us captivating stories of her homeland. I am little bit ashamed how much of what she told us, I have already forgotten. She did a awesome job and still my brain works like a sieve and drops at least half of the things that are put there..Alas, nothing that can be done about it right now. So on we go.

Before settling in to our first accommodation, we had the opportunity to saw first sights. Between airport and Thimphu, there are Tachogang Lhakhand Bridge crossing the Paro Chhu River made of iron chains and Buddha Dordenma Statue. It rise above temple and is one of the largest seated Buddha statues in the world. It was made to celebrate 60th birthday of well loved fourth king of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuck and symbolizes peace, compassion and enlightenment.

We also had a opportunity for a little walk through Thimphu where our hotel was. The city was as peaceful as rest of the country and I enjoyed looking in to the stores we walked by. We also had a beautiful scenery from our window on our room and I enjoyed the well placed chairs seen on the photo.

We spent only one night here and right after breakfast headed for a drive. Even when the distances in here are not long, the roads are winding through mountains which takes time. The scenery from the window were breathtaking and made sitting on the car more enjoyable. On our way to Punakha we stopped on a Dochula Pass. It is located 3 100 meters above sea level and from there you are able to have a view towards Bhutan Himalayas. Probably the only un-climbed mountain range in the world. These mountains are deemed to be sacred and it is forbidden to climb them. That makes it a perfect place for the 108 stupas, Druk Wangyal Chortens, commissioned by the Queen Mother to remember all the soldiers who died defending their country against insurgent not so long ago.
Even if I don’t believe afterlife, this place felt serene and peaceful, good place for a remembrance.

From there we drove to our next stop, Punakha Dzong. Yet another peaceful place surrounded by beautiful nature. This Palace of Great Happiness is a fortress built in 17th century and here all the Bhutan’s kings are crowned. Right now the peace is kept by the rooster standing on the roof of the temple.

Thorough all our journey, today too, we had a lunch on the way and were definitely well fed. Food was good and there was plenty of it. Today it was set outside looking towards the river. Punakha has a two rivers, the male river Pho Chhu, and calmer female river, Mo Chhu.
Town of Punakha is known for white river rafting (on a male river whom have fast rapids) and it is easy to see why. The water in all the rivers I saw were so beautiful blue color and you can see that nature are respected here. You can see in all my photos how blue the sky is. I wish you could also smell how crisp the air smells like.

What all of the Bhutan is known for is Tiger’s Nest Monastery where we would be heading tomorrow. But after our road trip we got to check-in to our accommodation for the rest of our stay in Bhutan. Tiger’s Nest Camp. We get our own luxury tent to stay in, I loved it!

After good nights sleep, we were as ready as we could be to head up to the Tiger’s Nest. The Monastery is probably why most of the people choose Bhutan to visit. And I can’t deny being one of them.
The hike itself is not long, only 6,5 kilometers or so but what makes it challenging is the altitude. I am glad we already visited Lhasa so we knew little bit what to expect. Though, I have to admit that I rarely ever walk so slow!

The Monastery is on a cliff in 3 120 meters altitude and looks absolutely stunning! Its name comes from Guru Padmasambhava who flew on a tiger to the place Monastery is now. He introduced Buddhism to the region and the Monastery is still working place of worship.
As I mentioned before, our hike was slow, but even when we took all the breaks we needed, we were able to reach the Tiger’s Nest above average speed. Good us!

It was as spectacular as I imagined it would be and I was so happy I was able to do the hike! I was little bit scared that I would need to turn back, but even when I could feel the altitude it wasn’t too bad.
The weather was superb too, sunny but not too hot. In here, like in the rest of Bhutan the nature was clean, if not for the path and the Monastery itself, you couldn’t see the human presence here at all, perfect!

In here, I had one of the best experiences on this whole trip! As we were ready to start our climb back down, we encountered one of the monks who happened to be guy who had gone to school with our guide, miss Tenzin! He offered to make us tea and we accepted. We were offered a seat in kind of an living room which doubled as a guest room which king himself had stayed in!
Tea was nice and hot and we had a nice conversation too. You just can’t get memories like this if you stay at home!

As for memories right now, I think I will remember Johor Bahru for this rain. As you can see in a photo below, the weather is getting even worse! You can also see and hear the lightning too. Quite fitting weather to write about the Land of the Thunder Dragon! At least I was able to continue the blog of my adventures a little bit more even if I can't do the sightseeing I was planning to do here!

I wasn’t able to escape the heat. Somehow in Cambodia it’s even more hot than Laos! How is that possible? We have been in Phnom Penh couple of days and thank goodness Toni found us a place with a pool. Mercury has climbed way closer to 40C than I would like, yesterday it was 38C during the day even the sky being clouded!

We have couple hundred unwanted neighbors though. My ankles are full of mosquito bites and itching like crazy. I haven’t been able to find a aloe vera gel anywhere but Toni was the best and bought me tiger balm. I am just little undecided if it really helps or not. Maybe I will have to lean in to the placebo effect? What I know is that if the itching is only problem I will get, I am not going to complain. Much.
Will have to keep fingers and toes crossed that I won’t catch dengue fever or malaria or whatever these little fuc#&!s are spreading in these parts.

Okay, I could rant for ages about gnats so lets backtrack from possible maladys to the fever I did have.

From Chengdu we headed back to Himalayans. To Kathmandu to be exact. I have been coughing a little for couple of days and was starting to feel even worse so I was relieved when our guide dropped us to our hotel. The clock wasn’t much but I wasn’t feeling up to even for a walk. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to. I really did. While travelling one thing, I don’t like to do is coop up in the condo when there is so many new places to check out (That’s why this heat we are having now is starting to eat my mood too!). Alas, my head was starting to pound and my cough get worse, so what we did was laundry and took a nap. The nap didn’t help. I was feeling actually much much worse than before. And hungry. So we headed restaurant downstairs. On our way back we asked a thermometer for a loan from reception. I did have fever and Toni was starting to feel ill too. I started to pop painkillers and we spent the night napping and coughing.
To no surprise, either of us wasn’t feeling better the next morning so we contacted our guide to tell that we just weren’t up for any sightseeing. Our guide was understanding and both he, his boss and reception of our hotel asked several times during the day if there was anything they could do to make us feel better. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much more to do than just keep popping those painkillers, sleep and drink lots and lots of tea. Our guide did suggest ginger-and honey tea and it was delicious! Didn’t stop the cough but at least it tasted good.

So, our first full day in Nepal was spent basically in bed. Not fun. So even if not feeling 100%, next day I was adamant to do something. Anything. We had a visit to Chandragiri Hills in our itinerary so I asked if we could do that. We opted not to leave first thing after breakfast but noon instead, so we could sleep late. Well, I woke up before 6AM but at least Toni got to sleep in.

On our the way to the hills we stopped to buy some cough drops and those really helped!
Chandragiri Hills are close to Kathmandu and have panoramic view of Himalayas. On good weather you can see peaks from Annapurna to Mount Everest up there. We did have a good weather and cable car took us up the hill. Even our activity being just slow walk, it took my energies and we headed back to the hotel instead of doing something else from our itinerary.

Tomorrow was going to be our last day in Nepal and I was determined of being healthy. Dammit.
And dammit. I wasn’t. But denial is powerful tool when wielded right so we headed to our excursion. We had several sights on our itinerary and becouse of spending so much time in bed instead of exploring we had pretty much our pick what we could do. So, Durbar Square and Monkey Temple it would be. With many temples in Durbar Square there are also Kumari Ghar, the House of the Living goddess. Kumari is believed to be a living incarnation of the goddess Taleju Bhawani.

Kumari is a young girl chosen from specific community to live in Durbar Square. Devoted believers and curious onlookers may get to see a glimpse of her while visiting the square. It is strictly forbidden to take a photos but it is said it to be a blessing to see her. Her visiting her windows are not a everyday occurrence. This tradition is said to be a bridge between mundane and spiritual. That I don’t know anything about but what I know is that her life is not mundane. Comparing to lifes of other girls of that age hers is sheltered and has more religious aspects and rituals.
When current Kumari has her first period (or bleeds in anyway, even from scraping her knee or something like that), the choosing of next goddess begins. Having lived such a secluded life, it is good that human rights advocates had taken interest in this tradition. Having private tutor, access to internet and books are for sure helping the transition to “normal” life after being goddess for your whole childhood! In the yesteryears that hasn't been the case and I can imagine how one would struggle for your life changing so drastically!

We didn’t see Kumari, and I didn't really expect to, and continued our journey to the next destination. Swayambhu Mahachaitya, or better known the Monkey Temple. You might think that the name derivates from all the monkeys that live there but no. Back in the day, Buddhist deity, Manjushri spent time in the hill and he let his hair grow long. Apparently, he didn’t think washing it to be important and got lices. Some of them dropped from his head and turned in to the monkeys that now call the hills their home.

Even being one of the main attractions in Kathmandu and enticing bunch of tourists to visit, it is active place of worship which you could immediately see when you walk around the area. Beside all the souvenir sellers there are religious people walking clockwise turning the prayer wheels while they go. From my childhood I remember religion to be sitting quietly in the church and listening the priest so this kind of worshipping is foreign to me. But that’s part of travelling. The very best part, encountering customs and things that aren’t the same than back home!

Well, visiting these places didn’t take very long and we would have time to do something more today. Even if not having a fever anymore, I was still having a headache and a cough so I opted to see Bhaktapur. It is one of the 3 important cities in the Kathmandu valley. Even it not being very far to get there we would need to sit in the car for a bit and that would be perfect for me right now. Opportunity to see something and still letting myself to heal some more.
When we got there, we had a nice walk in the square and while our guide kept us entertained telling us interesting things of our surroundings I have to say that I don’t remember any of those. Shame on me! I still have positive feelings of this outing though, and we did have a nice chat with group of tourists in a cafeteria when we took a little break of walking.

I was starting to feel tired so when we got back from Bhaktapur, we just went back to our hotel. I was really starting to get fed up this coughing!

Well, the cough eventually ended and now I am dealing with the heat. And empty fridge. In my future I see me abandoning my little haven by the pool and defying the heat for exciting outing of grocery shopping. In a few weeks, we have a flight to Bangkok but after that our plans are wide open and I am really starting to consider South Korea. Now there is nice, cool 15C weather. Could be perfect, what do you think?

One thing I love about Asia the most, beside of course the people and the scenery, is all the tuk tuks and rickshaws. Where I come from they just wouldn’t be practical.
But here, need I ride home when you have blister from all the walking (not me, Toni with his new crocs)? No problem, tuk tuk just stopped beside you.
You are looking for the mall? No problem, rickshaw just stopped beside you (in India we had the best day touring around, and just because we stopped to listen to our driver).
Or you are needing the ride to the airport? No problem, there are tuk tuks everywhere.

Well tomorrow, we are going to walk to the airport, since our hotel is just across the street, but I am currently enjoying watching all the traffic. You can see my huge windows in the photo below. Quite fitting really, because my story will take us back to mainland China and Chengdu, the panda capital of the world, and you can see a picture of one on a billboard in the photo.

Our flight from Lhasa to Chengdu went smoothly and I think both of us was a bit relieved to be back to lower altitudes. At the airport we were greeted by lovely Casey, one of the best tour guides we have ever had. Could be partly that we instantly clicked and the conversation flowed easily between us the whole time we were there. And she also was a good guide who knew what she was talking about so it was not just because of the good talks we had.

Originally, I hadn’t thought to come back to mainland China after Tibet but there were no direct flights between Lhasa and Kathmandu so it made sense to spend a couple of nights here if we needed to fly in anyway. And I am very glad we did!

First night we didn’t have anything fixed up planned so we went for a stroll. I had read this tea place in the People’s Park and wanted to check it out. True China-fashion the park was packed so we didn’t order any tea. I should have known that I had somewhat outdated image of what the park would be like. In my head I had this vision where there is tranquil tea shop by the lake and in the park there would be tables where people are playing Mahjong. But there wasn’t anything quiet and relaxing about it, people where everywhere and no mahjong-tiles to be seen. I wasn’t disappointed though. Well maybe a little of my own preconceptions, I know better than to rely my expectations on history books that are decades old.

We did stroll around the park and see people playing card games, and some of them were kicking this huge shuttlecock around, boats on the lake and all the venders selling everything between souvenirs to food and snacks. We did try some of the meat skewers which were good and these fried dough thingies which were really good!

On our way back to our hotel, we met this lovely lady who was out with her family, and who wanted to have a chat with us to practice her and her children’s English. They invited us with them to an mall they were going but we opted to call it a night.

On our only full day in Chengdu, Casey was going to show us what Chengdu is famous for. The Giant Pandas in the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, or more familiarly, The Panda Base.
As well as tourism, the Panda Base also concentrates of the studying and wellbeing of these goofy animals. And goofy they are, have you ever seen videos of baby pandas and their caregivers? Imagine that fluffy little goofball climbing on the tree when he can’t even stay upright most of the time on the flat land. Or clinging to their caregivers leg while their human tries to clean up their clutters. They really make their humans work to keep them safe! Did you know that the baby pandas have the same caregiver for their whole life? Talk about a committing to your job!

There are lots to see in the area. The area is so vast that they have these little busses moving people around. Including giant pandas there are also red pandas but the baby pandas were my absolute favorite!

After the Panda Base, Casey took us to Chunxi Road to do a little shopping. Affter futile attempt to find me a new jacket (the zippers are starting to fail on me), we had coffee and I tried those berry-skewer thingies I have seen all over China. I couldn’t decide which one to get, so I got both, strawberry and grape, and the guy selling them were nice enough to give me the blueberry one to try for free! There is glazed sugar on top of the berries, so they were very sweet but good. I liked the strawberry one the best!

Wuhou Temple area was next on the agenda and, even repeating myself, I enjoyed walking around there. It is historical, but not religious memorial site, which honors Shu Han Emperor Liu Bei and strategist from the Three Kingdoms period, Zhuge Liang. Zhuge Liang is told to winning several battles by only by his wits (is told to had won? Now my english is failing me, hopefully you understand what I mean. And if don't, feel free to correct me!). Once he made enemy spending 100 000 arrows on empty boats. There were figures made of straw in the boats to look like enemy forces. Another time he knew to be outnumbered so he ordered the fort to be evacuated and stayed behind. At that time, he was already known as a great strategist so when he was alone playing a stringed instrument, enemy thought that he is so sure of his upcoming victory that they fled without attacking.

After the Temple we took a stroll in Jinli Street. It was very similar to the ones we had visited in Singapore (The Old Town) and in Linhai (Walled City of Taizhou Fu) but fun nonetheless.

Even if we only had an glimpse of Chengdu it was nice surprise for me. I hadn’t anticipated liking it so much so I am glad that I was “forced” to stay there. Definitely wouldn’t mind to go back someday!

Same goes for Laos where I am writing this entry. As I mentioned in the beginning, we are leaving tomorrow for our next destination. Even here being hotter than I am truly comfortable being in, I still loved our stay! As per usual, I liked the smaller cities/towns better than the bigger ones, and I am glad to add Laos to our ever-growing list of countries visited.

Okay guys, how do you do it? Manage the heat while travelling? We changed a city but are still in Laos. And it’s still hot! I have been fighting with an travellers belly for couple of days and today I decided that I am not going to spend one more day cooped up inside of our apartment.
And out we went. And lasted whopping 30 minutes or so…It was so hot! All we did was walk a little bit and I was soaked! And now I am back cooped up inside. At least my tummy is mostly quiet so that is something. And our 21st story-balcony is on the shade side. Albeit I am sitting inside under the AC-tree.

But back to the story. I wanted to tell you about was our Himalayan adventure. This trip has been so far our only splurging on our budget. Only trip booked from the travel agency too. We mostly want to travel by ourselves without a guide but…Everything started when I was planning our trip some time ago. In my first plan (now we are on plan X or something like that, hah) the route was something like this India – Nepal – China – Vietnam. I wanted to travel via land as much as possible and part of that was the Friendship Highway from Kathmandu to mainland China via Lhasa. When I was looking the options, I was sucked in to the “google rabbit hole” and ended up booking a trip including Bhutan. So, the trip with driver for couple of days morphed in to 2 weeks itinerary with guides. Oops!
Need for these guides came mostly because of Tibet and Bhutan. I am not 100% sure do you still need a guide while travelling in Lhasa but you most definitely need one if you want to go in to Bhutan. And by needing one I mean it is mandatory to have one if you want to travel there.

But here I go again, hopping ahead in the story.

Switching my original plans meant that we needed to take a flight from Xi’an to Lhasa.
I don’t remember ever feeling so bad on the airplane and it was little bit surreal to see a first aid station almost immediately walking out of the plane. Lhasa is situated in 3 650 meter from the sea level and that high up is real risk of altitude sickness. Neither of us has never been this high up before. Luckily neither of us felt bad enough for need that firs aid station and we found our guide, Mr. Rocky, and driver Mr. Yen, easily enough.

This was one of the plusses when travelling with the guide, you really don’t need to worry about logistics at all. They welcomed us to the country and took us to the hotel. Also they gave us oxygen bottles and instructions how to minimize the effects the altitude might have on you. And also what to do if the effects are really bad. Basically if you feel like being in hangover (headache, little bit ill or lazy, or all 3) you need to rest and acclimatize, drink lots of water and take it easy. But if you can’t catch a breath even when resting, vomit or feel dizzy, you need to go to a hospital. Something in the between, you can try to feel better by taking extra oxygen.

There are actually these help clinics where you can get oxygen if you need it. Also the hotels have oxygen bottles and I would think that the staff are capable helping too.
I was faring better than Toni, just little headache and breathing was more difficult than back home, but not hard enough to be alarmed. Toni had quite bad headache and both of slept very restlessly.

When I made our itinerary I chose a relaxed one, neither of us enjoys if we are running from place to place just that we can say that we have done this and this and this. By choosing I mean that I pruned and tweaked an ready made one to suit to us. Allan from Asia Odyssey Tours have my everlasting gratitude for his patience dealing with me!

So both, because of our preference, and so we could get used to the altitude, we had a late morning and left to our excursions good way after the breakfast. First stop was making incenses while learning Tibetan culture. Incense making was fun and the culture part fascinating. Religion is huge part of everyday life and Tibetan Buddhism still have some elements of old shamanistic practices. Their language is based on Sanskrit, one of the oldest known languages in the world and Buddhism originally landed from India.
We were also served tea which was really good, and our cups were topped several times.

From there we headed to Barkhor Street and Sera Monastery to see monk debate. It is one of the largest and oldest monasteries in Tibet and it is one of the places where monks go to learn about their religion.

What I imagined monk debate would be like, and what it really was, were very different. I thought monks to dignified calmly debating about things. Well, they did debate. It would have been interesting to understand what they were talking about but it was interesting even without deeper understanding of it. What I know is that during morning the young monks are having lessons and during afternoons they memorize them by doing the debate.
Monks pair up, one sitting down and one standing up. The one who is sitting are asking a question and the one who is standing claps his left hand with his right one while answering the question. Left hand is representing a hell and right hand a wisdom. In hell there are no wisdom so by clapping with right hand the monk are helping someone in hell with wisdom. After that, the other monk is asking another question relating to the answer he was given to the first question.
All this clapping made the debate much louder than I had anticipated but passion of these young monks was contagious. I left the monastery in very good spirits.

Next day was the day of the trial. Trial being Little Old Me vs. High Altitude.
We would visit the Potala Palace.
432 steps.
Approximately 100 meters.
Doesn’t sound too bad.
But the altitude made it much harder than just climbing a few stairs..

But I did it!
And it felt awesome!

Some people were even taking some oxygen on the way up, but luckily I didn’t need it. The weather was excellent too, sun was shining.
Originally Potala Palace was called something else and it belonged to the King of Tibet. In the 7th century in Tibet, there were several kings fighting for the land and a Khan from Mongolia came to help The King. He conquered all the other kings and gifted the Palace to the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet. From that day forward until 1959, when the Chinese came, Potala Palace was the winter residence of the Dalai Lamas. Current Dalai Lama is exile in India.

Potala means compassion in Sanskrit and the palace had had been extended to its present state. And its present state is big. In the palace there are personal apartments to all the Lamas (10) who had been living there and also funeral Stupas to all but one (the 6th) Lama. His body has never been found.

Nowadays Potala Palace is a museum but monks are still keeping the religion alive up there. Just like in Sera Monastery, incense and butter are constantly burning in the shrines. It is said to bring good karma to have that flame burning day and night, and people are bringing butter from home to give to the Buddhas and deities. The smell of incense I liked but that butter..Well, lets leave it at that. The main feeling both in here and in Sera Monastery was peaceful. And little bit sad. Think about all the history, and now the current Lama most likely will never be able to come back home.

We also visited the summer palace of the Lamas, Barkhor Street again and a Jokhang temple. Barkhor Street are street that circuits Jokhang temple. People are walking the street clockwise, spinning prayer wheels or counting the prayer beads. Some of them are even doing the full body prayer where they “walk” the street by first kneeling, then stretching their hands as far as they go on the ground, bringing their feet to their hands, standing up and kneeling..Whether you walk with the prayer wheel, do the full body prostration or just walk, this is called Kora.
Barkhor Street is said to be the heart of Tibet and you can really feel and see the peace that practicing Kora and religion in general gives to the people.

I think Tibet would have lots more to offer to me, but I might need little bit longer to adjust to the altitude. Something to keep in mind if I wander to these parts again in the future! For now I will keep dreaming about that colder climate while sitting under my AC tree in Laos and waiting for the sun to set so I might dare to step outside again. It will still be warm but maybe not as stifling as it is in broad daylight!

Okay, before I start, I will have to do some complaining. Maybe it will help. We are currently in Vangvieng and it is so HOT in here. So so so hot! We have rented a cool little house at the outskirts of the town, there are waterbuffalos (or maybe cows? Some bovine animals for sure!) grazing in our backyard. Our back deck is facing fields and there is also little pond. Fish are jumping in there making splashing sounds. And if you didn’t know, that is the sound of summer! But the heat..Sun is shining directly to the deck and there is absolutely no shade at all. I burn easily so I had to escape inside and am clicking at my laptop in kitchen, waiting for the shade to reach my chair so I could get back outside.

Alas, it’s not just yet. So, I will continue my story. We left it in Zhangjiajie. Now we are heading to Xi’an, with a little stop on the way in Changsha. Again we are using trains, from Zhangjiajie to Changsha it was only 1 hour 45 minutes but from there to Xi’an it was almost 5 hours. But both shorter than the one we took from Shanghai to Zhangjiajie which took over 7 hours! But the trains in China are comfortable, the seats are good, ride is smooth and if you get hungry there are food carts moving along the aisles so you could buy snacks or even food food if you are more than little bit hungry.

I didn’t have any expectations for Changsha. We made a 2 night stop there just to avoid overly long train journey, the 7 hours we did earlier was little bit too much. Even if I enjoy watching the scenery go by enough is enough. First night, after living almost solely on noodlecups, we went for a pizza. And it was good! But I don’t know if it was the fact that we had been eating almost nothing else than noodles or that there was something wrong with the pizza but almost immediately after getting back to the apartment Toni needed to charge in to the toilet. And not long after that me too. We had to fight over the dominiancy of it for a while too..

Luckily, both of us felt fine for the next day so we went for a walk to see the big head. Or more respectfully, the monument of Young Mao Zedong. It is huge! It is situated in Orange Island and is 32 meters high! The island is beautiful and really nice place for a walk. Albeit, you need to walk on the bridge for a while to get there and that was crazy! The mopeds are zooming by you on the same line. True Asian kind of traffic. Visiting Orange Island was all the activity we did in Changsha, but just that took several hours, so day well spent!

The next city was the one I had waited maybe most in China. Xi’an. My high expectations weren’t met but I had fun, and our apartment was one of the best we had stayed in on our whole trip so far. We had big one bedroom, 2 toilets, 1 bathroom (with a tub!) and open living and dining room with an kitchen. Very comfortable, reasonably priced and grocery store was close enough! But other wise, the location wasn’t great, we were far from the nearest metro and our neighborhood, for the lack of better word, was boring.

On our stay we did see the Terracotta army, Xi’an city wall and the Giant Wildgoose Pagoda. And strolled around a lot. One day we just walked in the park. I liked that really much. There were people with karaoke machines singing karaoke! That is something you don’t see in Finland. Probably partly because of the weather (over half of the year is too cold to just sit around outside) and partly because of our personality. We like privacy, children are thought from the young age that you shouldn’t bother people. And making noise outside is bothering to some! We are a quiet nation. Something that is very common in Asia, like karaoke in the park or listening music without headphones in the train is just something we don’t do! But I have came here to broaden my horizons and I enjoy these observations I am making.

We had planned to visit the Terracotta army on our own. The minute we walked in the gates towards the ticket sellers we were approached by a lady offering guide services. I thought that yes maybe, but we couldn’t understand her speech. Partly doe to the accent, partly because she was speaking so quietly so we told her no. While we were trying to decide what kind of tickets we need and where to get those we were approached by another lady. Her English were perfect and even Toni still wanting to go by our selves agreed that we could get the guided tour. Our guide, Cici, gave us an excellent tour of the place and afterwards I was so glad we had a guide. The place would have been quite boring without the commentary she gave us. And all the people, talk about crowds! I haven’t felt overly crowded anywhere else in China just yet, but in here were just so many people in quite small place!

Terracotta army were discovered in the 70’s by an farmer who was digging a well in the area. This army is guarding their emperor’s tomb. That tomb is unopened but four pits of soldiers have been excavated since the farmer tumbled upon them. The current figures have been restored since the site had shown great evidences of looting. The missing weapons being a huge clue pointing towards that. The soldiers no standing there have been built of fragments found on the site. Cool that some people have the intellectuality and the imagination to look at pieces of terracotta and deduce that

A. It isn’t pile of rubbish.
B. What has it been before.
C. Why it has been what is has been before.

That’s just astounding!

If we would have came here before visiting the Southern Wall in Linhao, walking on the Xi’an City Wall would have been better experience. And on top of that the weather was grey. Me saying that it would have been better, doesn’t mean that it was bad though. It is one of the best reserved old city walls in whole China. Being built in 14th century, it has been refurbished several times. First emperor of Ming dynasty was adviced to build a fortification around the city. During the Qing dynasty in 18th century the walls took the outlook they have today the original ones have been built of tamped earth. Now it is stronger been first strengthened by blue bricks, and then added with crenels and drainage features with other modifications. All in all the city wall is approximately 14 kilometers long and you could even rent a bicycle to tour it. On the most parts it is wide enough for bikes even being somewhat crowded. We didn’t rent a bike nor walk all the wall but walked 2 sides and called it a day. All ready seen the Southern Wall and having weather as grey as we had we thought that we have seen enough.

Area around the Giant Wildgoose Pagoda was a nice surprise. We didn’t visit inside of the pagoda itself but explored the gardens around it.
The pagoda is big Buddhist temple which stores sutras and figurines of Siddhartha Gautama. He is referred as a Buddha, and was travelling spiritual leader. As many old structures, also this one have has had to had some restorations. Originally build in around 649 it had 10 stories but earthquake in the 1556 knocked 3 stories making it the 7 storied building it is today.

Now I have been sitting here at the kitchen table telling you stories for a while. And I am still hot, but my chair outside is in the shade now so I will end this story-time and go watch some waterbuffalos! But before that, couple more photos of our walkabouts!