We have not visited many places on Monday, 20th of July in Xian. And that was good, because I got cold yesterday at Bingling Si. I guess it was not warm enough for shorts and T-shirt for me. On the other hand it was really hot in Xian. So I was not in mood to explore exotic places.

Our train arrived to Xian at about 7am. Train station was overcrowded as we had not seen before. We had to keep together to or risk to get lost. We went out rather slowly, it was crowded also there. Slowly, we went around barrier and then back on other side to join our local guide. Then we walked for about 1km to place where our bus was waiting, because it is not possible to park directly at train station.

Xian is very old city, former capital of China and it has nicely preserved city walls. Our hotel was inside the walls, near to Bell Tower. It took us about 20 minutes to get there in the traffic.

We got keys to our room quite quickly, but the room was not ready yet. It was still before 8am, so we could hardly blame them. Contrary, Rich was able to get breakfast tickets for us, so we could spend time surrounded by nice meals ;-) (I still had no problem with Chinese-style of breakfast, but there were also toasts, eggs and everything).

Click here for complete text

Saturday 18th of July. The thin crescent of the Moon is directly above our heads surrounded by blue sky when we are getting to the bus for today's journey. It is getting thinner and promises it will cover the Sun in a few days.

We are leaving Xiahe, nice small town we nearly were not allowed in. We are heading to Lanzhou, ugly industrial town. We would have nothing to look forward to, fortunately we are going through amazing country side and we will visit couple of strange mosques (well, they are not strange in China).

Click here for complete text