Roads, relics and riding a tandem.

Our first sleeper train was to be expected. Bunk beds, nice room mates and difficult toilet times. Having ear plugs was possibly the best thing I ever brought. I personally enjoy the top bunk, as your above the hassle and bustle, plus you get to pretend your 12 years old and King of the world.

When we were awoken by the train attendance at 6am. We jumped off our train exhausted. Then was thrusted into an incredibly difficult taxi journey. Our driver decided after 20 mins he had no idea were he was going and decided to drop us off nowhere near our hotel which we paid the pleasure for. Distressed and baggy eyed we asked a hotel for some help who not only came out to the street to hail a taxi for us but spent a long time explain to the taxi where are incredibly difficult to find hostel was. This is a typical example of travelling. Where you go down you will come up. Patients is key and it's always great being reminded of how helpful people are.

We could see why our address has caused so much trouble. Down an

alleyway away from everything we saw the heartland hostel. Perfect to our hipster taste, off the beaten track and covered in graffiti. My favourite item was the round bed and glittery fringed curtains it was enclosed in.

Shoulin monks

The next morning we took the slowest public bus in the world to the shoulin monks. This is a personal journey to us as we love martial arts infused children haha. We went to there living and school place were you could walk around and watch their teaching . We also saw a show which they performed the level of martial arts skill they were at. It was said many years ago the first son of each family was given to the shoulin monks, for the love of there religion and tradition. This is not so in the modern age.

We snailed back to the town to the night street food market. Where we tried Louyangs specialty foods. we ate yummy tripled cooked sweet potato chips to then be creeped out by grubs on the next stool. This we didn't try. Followed by hand made dumplings which were delicious and a herb filled lamp kebab. Topped of with a coconut covered deep fried banana. We then rolled home to enjoy our glittery enclosed round bed.

The next morning we made friends with a lovely Australian teacher called Anne who ran schools in Malaysia and was similar age to my mum, which obviously brought me fond thoughts. We all caught a taxi to the longman caves and shared our travelling tips and conversed about the wonders of the world.

Longman grottos

With lack of knowledge about this excursion we were pleasantly surprised at how epic it was. It consisted of thousands of man made little caves. Chipped and carved into Buddhist statues. The detail was exquisite. There was no space for miles with out some kind of diety carved graffiti. In the middle was a humongous Buddha that took our breathe away. Shamefully many of the faces were smashed to smithereens due to the dynasty wars and the French, some have

been returned but a lot are still in Europe as artefacts or art pieces in collectors homes.

Bullet train

A little on the expensive side but we see no expense wasted when there's a new experience to be had. From Luoyang to xi'an we covered 600 km in 2 and a half hours. Reaching a top speed of 350 km an hour. Pretty cool.

Terricotta army

Our second (modern)wonder of the world in only a week. We got to see this wonderful and outrageously expensive mad mans dream. The first emperor of China funded this mad funeral art in 210–209 BCE the whole purpose was to protect the emperor in his afterlife. Some

even say he wanted to take over and rule the after life with the help of his army. We got to see the archeological digging of the Terracotta Army. Some items still laying where they have been for the last 2500 years. The Terracotta Army held more than 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses. Other terracotta non-military figures were found in other pits, including officials, acrobats, strongmen and musicians. The emporer died by trying to find the elixir of immortality. In doing so he took Mercury pills believing this was his cure of death and died shortly after. One of the tombs have still not been open as it has a colossal amount of mercury inside and is too dangerous to open.

City wall tandem ride

After a lot of walking we decided to grab a tandem bike, whilst I pretended I was a hopelessly romantic daisy. This really was one of

the most relaxing experiences we'd had in awhile. One thing whilst travelling I find, is all your senses are heighten by everything that you forget to take it in and enjoy the ride...pun intended. So it was lovely to ride on the wall taking in the views and marvelling at the atmospheric change during the sun setting. Going from hot, bright and sticky to this eerily but pleasant darkened sky filled with the city lights and Chinese laterns.

Muslim quarter

Another night food market, which was equally as colourful. Unfortunately we didn't have as much luck with the taste sensation this time. What we thought was a soft sponge cake was more of a rice sponge shaft covered in date juice. A soup that was saturated in Sichuan pepper that our mouths went numb. Although, the nut bars where impressively made and tasted like mr Toms. It become our staple desert on long journeys.

Xi'an museum

With a day to spare we went to the cities free museum. There were Artefacts older then I could ever imagine. Models of homo Saipan skulls. Tools that cave men's used. It was quite impressive but unfortunately me and Jez grew tired of this and headed out to town

to find some yummy street food.

Another train journey

On our train journey we met a charming English traveller who was full of beans and informed us of his exciting trip up a mountain. In the morning he shared his recommended Chinese chicken foot snack with jez. The first night in chengdu we met up to try our first hotpot together. It was great to share this traditional 1000 year old dish. It consists of an oily Sichuan pepper broth in the middle of the table that is boiling so you can cooked your meats and veg in front of you. Delicious.