China - Xian

4 - 5 May '08

After 12 hours on the overnight train and with little sleep, we arrived in Xian - home to the Terracotta Warriors. These clay soldiers (it was believed they were built by the Emperor to continue conquering in his afterlife) dating back 2000 years were being restored piece by piece after their destruction. That night we re-energised ourselves with a dumpling banquet (hmmmmmm).

Whilst in Xian we decided to work off the calories from the previous night's dumplings by going on a 13.7km bike ride along the city wall (built as a defence from the Japanese invasion). This was great fun and we would recommend it to anyone coming to Xian.

Our next town was going to be Suzhou and for this we would once again need to board an overnight train - this time for 15 hours.

After 5 days in China, the one thing that we found continually annoying was the way in which Chinese people would have the urge to spit everywhere (in streets, in internet cafes, in toilets...wherever - mostly, it was the constant sound of their phlegm collecting that would make us cringe - be warned!)