Xián is out tour guides home town, althought Dodo did say she doesn't like to stay there for too long! The weather here was pretty gloomy for the 2 days we spent there, so the view from the city walls wasn't really worth a picture sadly. I was definitely feeling a bit washed out at this point as we had done so much in so little time and now the weather was bad I just wanted to get into bed for a day or two! However we had loads to see so we got on with it and made the most! The Terrocotta warriors was the highlight of Xian, and although there were not as many as we had expected, it is worth the visit. Each one has a different expression on the face and each hairstyle varies according to rank. You have to view them from quite a distance though, so when its busy in high season I would imagine that its tricky to get good pictures.

The next destination was Chengdu where wetried the famous Sezchuan hot pot. Jack and I did not enjoy this dish as it was overwhelmingly spicy and you had to cook the bits of meat and veg yourself in a bubbling pot in the middle of your table! This seemed like a lot of effort and the taste wasn't great! On our final morning in Chengdu we visited the pandas which we had both been looking forward to since booking the trip. Knowing how few of them there are in the world, it felt quite special to see them there, especially the new borns in their little incubators ;)

Next we took a 6 hour hard seat train to Chingqing where we picked up the mini cruise liner to visit the lesser three gorges. The boat was really nice and we had lovely little cabins with on board entertainment. Our guide had told us that we were meant to be on a different boat which was dirty and had rats, but we somehow had managed to get this new one with all the mod cons! On day 2 of the boat trip we got to go on a little pea-pod boat which took us through some of the narrower gorges. Here we could see the suspended coffin which the locals used to hang up high in the cliff crevices years ago.

Yichang was our last overnight stay before catching the train to Gulin. Yichang however will always stick in my mind due to the weird entrance procedure you have to go through before you can pass. Once leaving the ship to enter the city, you encounter a newish road that has been built by the locals. The government had asked the locals tobuild this on the promise that they would get apid for their efforts. However they did not and so they decided to claim the road fort heir own and charge a fee to anyone who wishes to get past! Dodo had warned us that last time she did this there were ''big men' waiting to claim the money (around 5 yuan/5op!) We were quite looking foprward to the scary men, but we were a bit shortchanged as we had a polite looking woman in a suit! :)