Xi’an and Lijiang

This story was posted under the categories: Big Asia Trip, China

After exploring the foodcounters in the Moslimquarter for almost the whole afternoon I could finally convince Gregory to do what we came for, visiting the Terracotta Army. Eventhough there was lots of competition from Hua Shan Mountain (one of China’s 5 sacred mountains) we decided to go and visit the army. How can we visit Xi’an and not go to the Terracotta Warriors. As we decided to fly to Lijiang on Tuesday there wasn’t enough time to do both of them.

Okay, I have to admit… there is not so much to see, but eventhough we had the chance to take some very nice pictures (but there’s no USB on the PCs so we cannot upload them). What suprissed me most, was the fact that there are so few soldiers uncovered yet. At the entrance of the site the Chinese state that there are some 6000 soldiers, but as far as I could see, there were only some 1500 (or did they bring them all to belgium?).

Besides that it still remains a tourist attraction (as everything in China), meaning that you can not get close to the soldiers and that you  have to share your discoverings with troups of chinese tourists. 

To save some time we flew from Xi’an to Lijiang. Otherwise we would have spend 37 hours in the train followed by 14 hours bus… worth the 1000 Yuan plainticket we thought. Lijiang was one of our favourite destinations in China, as it is host to the famous Tiger Leaping Gorge trekking. THE reason why we wanted to come to china, THE reason why we started hiking every weekend, …

After arriving late in the evening in Lijiang and having a 2 hours search for the hostel in the soaking rain we already had a hunch about the next days… Rain … rain and more rain…

Lijiang turned out to be a nice and cosy town, but cramed with souvenir shops from beginning to end. And not to mention hundreds of Chinese tourists with umbrellas going crazy on every little spot they discover… 

Due to possible landslides Tiger Leaping Gorge trekking becomes very dangerous when it rains a lot. And as hiking in the rain isn’t that fun neither we decided not to do the trekking and go straight to Shangri-La, a Tibetan village at the foothills of the Himalaya.