Monday 8th February

Yesterday after posting our parcels (lots more shouting and the boxes being opened and all of the Chinese newspaper we had used to wrap it being confiscated- we had no idea you are not allowed to send it) we decided to go to the Hanyangling Mausoleum. We had read in the lonely planet that it is the best place to go in Xian apart form the Terracotta warriors although it is hard to get to so very underrated. They weren't exagerrating. We had to pay for a taxi to go there which was a bit expensive as there was no public bus but it was worth it. The museum itself is really well done and so strange as it is completely empty.

We somehow got allocated our own English speaking guide despite all the descriptions of the exhibits being in English as well as Chinese so we would have been fine. It was great to be able to chat to someone though and we spent most of the time asking her completely irrelevant questions about everything else. The funniest comment from her was when I said that I didn't eat meat "don't eat meat? So you are like a goat just eating grass" she laughed. When we told her that it was quite common in the UK for people to be vegetarian she said "well what I don't understand then is why you are all so fat if this is the case!" we assured her that this was not due to meat eatoing and had some questions for her ourselves about how you can be so thin when everything you eat is sitting in an inch of oil.

Anyway the mausoleum- it is the joint tomb of Liu Qi, the fourth emperor of the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-220AD) and his empress- After her death in 126BC she was buried there alongside her husband's tomb. Construction of the mausoleum took 28 years starting from the year of 153BC to the death of the empress and the site itself is huge- around the mausoleum in all directions are 81 different sized auxiliary tombs. From these tombs they have unearthed approximately 60,000 burial objects, including painted nude pottery figurines, utensils, chariots, weapons, and a large number of pottery animals. In addition, the largest human sacrifice graveyard that had ever been found in China, was discovered here as well. A total of 5,000 sacrificial burial tombs have been verified, and the graveyard covers a total area of 3.5 square km.

This emperor was known as thrifty because instead of full life size warriors he just had mini replicas made a third of the height. There were thousands though and they were different because these used to have wooden moveable arms and when buried were dressed in fine silk clothes. Obviously those bits have gone now but you can still see lines and lines of them. The best bit about the museum was that it had a glass floor above the excavation area so you were walking directly over it and had a fantastic view of everything below- it was a great place to visit.

After heading back into town we got our things together and grabbed a super quick bite to eat before getting the bus to the train station to catch a night train here to Chengdu. The station was absolutely heaving- huge huge crowds and queues of people outside but as foreigners we were waved straight through by the police! We found our way up to the waiting hall and got in line for our train. Where we waited whilst the time it should have departed past and hoped that everyone else was going to the same place as we didn't have a clue what was going on. It turned out that it was delayed and eventually we got let down onto the platform where the guides were shouting at everyone and hurrying them along onto the already packed train. There were loads of people who didn't even have seats and were sitting on cardboard between the carriages on the floor- for at least 18 hours! And people complain about not getting a seat on the tube! We found our compartment and 3 people already in it- a very sweet older couple and another guy. This caused a bit of confusion as there are only four spaces in each carriage but very conveniantly it turned out that he was a translator called Aries! it turned out that he had bought the wrong ticket and was supposed to get off at Xian but he still had 2 hours to go to get home- this was seriously good news for us as we were able to use him to understand everyone!

Through him we learnt that the older couple in our compartment had already been on the train for 27 hours and were on their way to Chengdu to see their son for the first time in seven years. They were very impressed and excited to learn about our trip and then promptly went to sleep snoring away. We headed out into the corridoor where Aries had been banished to when the ticket inspectors came round and soon gathered quite an audience of passangers, train staff and police. They all huddled around us asking us questions- foreigners are pretty rare, let alone ones with a translators so they all wanted to get theirs in. "who has more power in England the Queen or the Prime Minister?" Answer- umm well we vote for those that want to have power... oooooohhh "Why do you want to come to China" Answer- to see all your beautiful sights and meet the people- much happiness and laughter- "What are the trains like in England" Answer- expensive. "How much did you pay for this? And this? And this?" "what are the differences between Chinese police and English Police" Answer- corruption nooooo don't translate that! Then finally, typically, from the police man "Do you have any English money?" I went to collect a small bag of change that we had and he was very happy to receive a 10p coin. He also wanted to know what compartment we were in so he could make sure that he protected us.

It was nearly time for Aries to get off the train but before he went we had a chance to talk to Aries about how he felt about China. It was very interesting. Everywhere else we had got "our government is great, Mao is the best leader, the Communist party is fantastic" etc etc but he broke from the norm. He spoke of how it was so frustrating to not be able to speak out about things and how lucky we are to live in the UK, which we definately feel. Before he left I pulled out my Ipod to take his number as he asked us to call him if we needed any help at all. Although we had seen a lot of fake iphones and ipods here it attracted quite a bit of attention. "How much was this" we replied that it was about 2,000 RMB (200quid) Much excitement. Apparently China Mobile (the only phone company) is owned by the government and charge a fortune for even the most basic model. The anmount I paid for my real Ipod touch would probably only buy the most cheap rubbish phone here and is about the price you might pay for a fake one... what a surprise- we thought everything was cheaper in China! So then Aries left and it was back to being silent again and nodding. We had experienced 2 hours of such fun and excitement at being able to communicate with people it was fantastic and we seemed to miss it all the more when he had gone- although we were so happy we had the experience and everyone on the train was our friend after that.

We went back to our compartment, remembering to lock the door as Aries had told us about 100 times (the Chinese all feel that those in Western China are all thieves and devious- I guess we have the same stereotypes in England about people from certain areas) and climbed into bed. After reading for a bit I was dying for the loo so put my boots on and went down the corridoor. After coming out of the lovely squat toilet (let's not start on Chinese toilets I'm sure you can imagine it) I was washing my hands at the basin when I felt a hand on my shoulder that made me jump (and a little scream!) It was one of the guards who was pointing to his mobile phone and then my pocket- he wanted to see my ipod as he had heard the rumours! I went back to the compartment, retrieved it and walked back down the corridoor to show him. He was happy and I went back to bed! At 7am the radio blared into life with adverts but as I had my eye patches on and ear plugs in and was out of the way on the top bunk I drifted in and out of sleep until 9. Charles was not so lucky as he was sleeping on the bottom bunk in the equivalent of the kitchen area. Having been able to smell a horrible bowl full of rotting onions that was being stored under his bed all night he was roused at 7 with noodle making for breakfast and them being enjoyed with loud slurps and burps.

The door to our compartment was then opened to let some air in and again we were considered open for business. Children and grown ups came to have a good look at us and everyone wanted their photo taken posing next to us- you really do feel like a celebrity- it was quite tiring first thing in the morning! I gave out a few more coins that went down really well and we were given two sweet miniature figures by the train guards and some girls that seemed to be with them and took the most photos in return. The couple in our compartment seemed to be enjoying it organising who sat where and encouraging them to come in and sit next to us- for all we know they could have been charging people! They still didn't quite seem to grasp that we didn't speak any Chinese so we nodded away as the babbled at us. At midday today we arrived in Chengdu and got off the train feeling that we had enjoyed a wonderful journey. It felt great to be able to get to know people and also funny that we had the kind of experience people expect to get in a hill tribe village in the middle of nowhere on a train full of people in the country that undoubtedly will be the next superpower- it sounds funny to say it but it was one of the highlights of our trip!

Wednesday 10th February

Yesterday we went for a walk around Chendgdu up to the biggest monastry. We didn't pay to go in because we are going to see loads in the next week in Tibet but you could see over the wall that it looked very beautiful! Around there were loads of little old streets that were really nice to wander around in. Lots of shops selling dumplings and cured meat and also their mooncakes for the spring festival and Chinese New Year. Everywhere in China looks lovely at the moment with red lanterns decorating the trees and buidlings and the streets full of people preparing. When we came back we went down the road from our hostel to get a massage as it had been recommended. It was quite funny- we went into the shop and lay down on some very dirty looking home made beds with a hole hand cut out for the face. We were then massaged by two girls chatting away to each other- one of whom did a lot of talking on her mobile at the same time! Charles was offered "Chinese medicine" for his shoulders for an extra pound and this was liberally sprayed on out of an air freshener bottle. Still at 5 pounds for both of us you can't really complain!

We spent the evening chatting to some Chinese people that we met in our hostel which was really interesting. They were both studying in Shanghai and it was nice to get to know their views. The guy complained that independant thought was not encouraged and that freedom of speech should be given more of a priority, however he said that many of his friends disagree and say that the development of China is the most important thing. He spoke of his shock when he realised that an American teacher at his school was given a vote in the US election depsite being "from a peasant family" which really made us realise how lucky we are to live in a democracy. The other interesting thing that we discussed was racism. China is such a homogenous society that they really find anyone different very strange. Recently Obama visited and it was reported that he was met with quite a frosty reception. When we asked them about this their answer was that "Chinese find black people a bit strange and do not want to sit next to them- we think that they smell funny. And we also wonder about whether you could squeeze the oil from their skin as it looks too shiny." Hmmm so quite a long way behind us then even though we have a long way to go. This was said by someone who said she was not racist at all and that it was mostly the older generation!

Thursday 11th February

After staying up very late talking it was not easy to get up at 7am except when we remembered we were going to see the giant pandas! They like to have their breakfast early and then get off back to bed so you need to be there first thing in the morning. We climbed into a mini bus very bleary eyed but were soon woken up by the cold air coming through the window which the driver had constantly open to spit out of repeatedly! We arrived at the Chengdu breeding and research centre which was started in 1987 with just 6 pandas and now has over 100. In the wild Pandas are still foudn in the Sichuan province although they are an endangered species and are becoming more so with their habitats and precious bamboo food being deforested all the time- they think that the nukbers are down to as little as 1000 left.

Anyway we saw loads munching away. They are superbly cute, definately amongst the most adorable animals I have ever seen. most of their time is taken up with eating bamboo and sleeping although we did see a couple move about 2 metres! You can tell they are Chinese with their loud chomping away as they strip the leaves from the bamboo and then hold a bunch in their hands. Sometimes the strain of eating and sitting up becomes just too much and they roll over onto their back to enjoy their breakfast lying down. We walked around the enclosures which were very well done and not at all zoo like- no cages just electric fences which makes a huge difference. We also saw the red pandas which don't look like pandas at all but more like raccoons- they were very sweet too though. I could go on and on about how gorgeous they all were for hours but you can see for yourself from the pictures!

We came back, checked out of our room and went to find some lunch. We decided to go to a place that we had seen always looked busy. When we got there we sat down and quickly realised that the menu was a list of Chinese- none of the pictures we had come to rely on! Luckily a girl who was eating there with her mum came over to help us. It was a hotpot restaurant she explained and said she would order us some good things to put into it. We could then dip the stuff into more oil (sesame this time) coriander, ginger and other condiments- one of which was MSG! A huge bowl of steaming red oil was brought over to us, packed with chillies and peppercorns. This we would put the ingrediants in until they cooked and then fish them out and enjoy them- a very traditional Sichuan meal. First some beef arrived for Charles, and lettuce, and mushrooms and potatoes and then.....a plateful of raw chicken feet. Hmmmm not really our cup of tea. I'm afraid to say we didn't even try them and luckily the waitress didn't mind returning them to the kitchen and coming back with some fish. We put all the ingrediants in and then ate away...to say it was spicy would be an understatement. I mean we knew that the area was famous for it's chillies (we even saw chilli condoms in the chemist yesterday- I mean why?!!) but I couldn't describe this taste to you. Despite that it was really yummy though and as usual we managed to eat about half the food that was brought to us- the portions are so big here and the wastage immense.

So our stomachs well and truely heated I am writing this as we wait to get the train to Tibet- something we are really excited about- it's a 2 day journey on the highest railway inthe road with some parts going up to 13,000 feet. We've got our pot noodles and some fruit for the trip and have our fingers crossed for nice cabin mates that don't cook next to Charl;es' head first thing inthe morning- let you know how it goes!