For the end of my sabbatical (see Mongolia trip for beginning), I toured the famed Silk Road in Western China. Jake agreed to go with me, and 2 of his coworkers joined us as well. We were originally going to end in Xinjiang province at Urumqi (the name of the street we lived on when we first moved to SH), but we cancelled that part due to the Muslim unrest. I booked the tour thru Travel China Guide, a top PayPal tour company (meaning one of my customers). We were able to completely customize our tour, which we did over 40 some emails, and pay with PayPal!
Overall, a truly amazing trip back into time. The tour guide in Xian explained that if you want to see 300 year old history, you go to Shanghai. For 1000 year old history, Beijing. But for 3000 year old history, Xian. Also, after the 9 hour jostling drive in Mongolia, all the drives on this trip were easy in comparison.
8 Days Tour of Xian - Lanzhou - Jiayuguan - Dunhuang
Oct
10(Fri) - Xian
Flew into Xian, and our English-speaking tour guide Tina met me
at the gate. We checked into the Hyatt. Very cool driving out thru
the huge walled gates to the evening dinner show. Horrible traffic; even
worse smog.
"This evening you will be entertained with the marvelous
Tang Dynasty Dinner Show in Tang Dynasty Palace."
Very Westernized meal but excellent show.
Accommodation: Hyatt Regency Hotel (5 star) - downtown
(Add: No. 158 Dongda Jie, Xian; Tel: 86-29-87691234)
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Oct 11(Sat) Xian - Mt. Huashan - Xian It takes an hour and a half to
be at the foot of
Huashan Mountain,
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Of course, the highlight is the visit to the Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum. However, I felt that this site has been overexposed so the amazement was a bit lessened. Also, I had seen a very good replica of this site at the Shenzhen Splendid China years ago. Afterwards, we went to the Huaqing Hot Springs, where I was disappointed to learn that we weren't actually going to enter the hotsprings. There's a 5 star hotel nearby which do have the hotsprings to enter, but we ran out of time.
We then flew to
Lanzhou,
a 3.2 MILLION person city that I had never heard of. We ate a surprisingly
delicious meal of Lanzhou beef noodle soup at the hotel restaurant. |
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We visited a 3rd century tomb and the Wei-Jin Mural Brick Tomb. |
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