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What else can you say about Xian? You go there to see the Terra Cotta Army…period. The formation of thousands of warriors, horses and chariots that guard the tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang is truly a world wonder. Xian,
itself, is a busy, industrial, polluted city. You wouldn’t want
to live there but it has a fascinating street life. My traveling companions
(several from Indi Guilin Guilin,
today, lives for tourism. It is a place that the Chinese bureaucracy
seems to have gotten right. Guilin boasts a new airport, a fine main
road built by the Malaysians and is very clean for China. It even has
a few tidy toilets. (It is easy to find a restroom in most of China
because you can smell them a block away). The countryside around Guilin
is remindful of Bali. No wonder the mountains that line the Li River
-- with names like Folded Brocade Hill --inspired watercolorists. "It is unusual for me to be looking at so many 'round eyes' at once," he said. "Think about it, if your Adam and Eve would have been Chinese, they would have eaten the snake". We didn't eat snake on our Li River boat trip although we did sample some snake wine...which is supposed to make a man more of a man.
Ah, but my friends from New Zealand had the right idea. Traveling independently in China can be a great experience. I spent an evening with mother and daughter. We hired a trishaw instead of following the crowd…talked to people on the street. China has a wonderful variety of cuisines that you will not discover in the tourist mess halls. Traveling about China independently is still not easy, but is doable and can be extremely rewarding. My Kiwi friends took the train on their final leg from Guilin to Hanoi, a grueling 30 hours, they told me, but well worth it even though a train wreck delayed them for hours.
Go
to Shanghai |
a)
were so tired of boring tour group food that we walked 45 minutes one
night to The Indian Restaurant (that’s the name of it) run by some
folks from Bangalore. The street scene along the way was almost as tasty
as the food. 
I
once attended a conference at which a Chinese man was the speaker of
honor. He looked out into the audience and noticed very few of his race.