After affording ourselves a little lie-in we checked out of our 'home from home' for the last time. I headed out to find a bookstore containing English books for the gruelling 17 hour train we were about to catch and Dave went to search for more high quality goods to fill his house and fridge door. i wandered the streets for a while, taking in the mass of humanity that was swarming around making the most of their October holiday. I eventually found a bookshopand ...

After a bit of a lie-in and a session getting back in touch with civilization on the internet we headed out to walk the old city walls of Xian. They are apparently the widest defensive city walls still standing in the world (up to 18 metres at the base in places) so we set out thinking it would be an interesting walk. Unfortunately, however, we found the only attraction is the wall itself as the view down into the city is pretty charmless. If we hadn't been to Pi...

As we rose & packed to get ready for the trip to Luoyang the hostel was already starting to feel like home. We handed our main rucksacks in for storage and pottered about for the day, wandering the streets and using the local internet cafe, on the 6th floor of a shopping mall. As afternoon hit we headed for the train station and felt like celebs as we were ushered into the designated soft seat lounge (we'd been warned about the ubiquitous 'hard seat' section ...

I was really looking forward to our tour of the terracotta warriors and excitedly boarded the bus with a motley crew of fellow travelers and an insanely perky chinese tour guide. The warriors are part of the tomb of the man credited by most historians as China's first true Emperor and the man who built the great wall Qin Shi Huang. It is a matter of debate whether they were to guard his tomb, follow him into the afterlife to help him rule there or a huge decorati...

The hostel we'd found online was a nice cosy place just by the South gate of the Xian city walls. There were many Western tourists and the staff all spoke good English, it felt very much like a rest after the trials of the past few days. Sadly, however, Taiyuan would keep rearing its ugly head in the form of dodgy stomachs that both Dave and I were suffering from for over a week afterwards. Indeed, my first toilet experience in Xian ended in the sacrifice of a pa...