Merry XianMas

That really doesn't work, does it?
Anyway, Xi'an is great and I'll post pictures when I can. The Terracotta Army does exactly what it says on the tin (and I bought no replicas for the fear of buying one piece and arriving home with several less attractive ones). The Tomb of the Emperor Qin was interesting for what it will be rather than what it is (not yet excavated for fear of damaging the contents which, according to period documentation, will be astonishing).
And the hot pools, while belittled by Lonely Planet, were very interesting. Especially the headquarters of Chiang Kai Shek, where the Xi'an incident occurred.

The city is what I imagined China to be: busy, colourful, loud and smelly. It is very good to be here. And by all accounts, it is slow, tasteful, quiet and fragrant compared to my next destinations. Train tonight is only 12 hours. Hardly worth the effort after my recent escapades!

I cannot access the comments at the mo, so if you have pithy/witty/otherwise observations please send them straight to me if you actually want me to read them! Sorry.

And my Mandarn stinks, but it's fun. I still get laughed at by everyone.

Gobi-smacked

I crossed the Gobi today. Well, a bit of it. In a car. And I wasn't driving (thank goodness: I don't think I'd survive that experience).

This is Jiaohe. A very old place (near Turpan). It's a clay city, once housing 10,000 people and is stunning, an absolute marvel

The centre piece of the Forest of pagodas (actually they are called something else, but tha's what the guide told me and I can't remember the correct word offhand: look it up).

The view down the main street from the temple (see below)

Big temple.

It was abandoned when Genghis Khan reared his ugly head. Despite this city being surrounded by gorges, it just wouldn't have been enough.
The Flaming Mountain. From Journey to the West (The Monkey King)

The thousand buddha caves near there. Massively defaced by historians and cultural cleansing, these are still beautiful

The river that flows through. It's a desert, so it is seriously dry. Duh. The irrigation system (Keriz) in Turpan is worthy of a column on its own. They dug a series of wells and climbed down to join them into an underground tunnel at a slightly less steep gradient than the hillside. This effectively set up an underground stream which spings forth down near the town. Fascinating, and gawd knows how they worked it out!

Urumqi

Just the one night here. Tomorrow I'm on another slow sleeper train, this time to Xi'an. Terracotta warriors etc. These were, typically, in London when I was there, but I figured it would be no substitute for the real thing and bided my time.

Uruqi is the near east of the far east. It is a middle eastern city, but it looks Chinese. An interesting blend.

Does this look like a special effect or what?

A real, live Bactrian camel. Okay, it's in a cold, cold city, but even so...

These are love-locks in the park in Urumqi. Basically, lovers walk together up the path and fix a padlock to the fence. How sweet.

And lanterns adorning a descent from the park.