This country is filled with history!

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!