The Warriors

Just to give you a sense of the size of the site

A good view of what you see when you first come in.

The reconstruction area

Another view

Xian and the Terra Cotta Army

Our last stop in China was Xian, home of the famous terra cotta soldiers. In 1974, four farmers were digging in their field when one of them struck something strange with his hoe. He dug up a pottery shard and immediately knew he had found something very wonderful. This was the beginning of the excavation of a vast army of life-sized terra cotta soldiers who had been buried underground for more than 2,000 years.

In the year 206 BC (or thereabouts), the Emperor Qin, in preparation for his eventual death, had thousands of craftsmen construct out of clay an army of soldiers who would be buried with him in his tomb to protect him in the after-life against enemies and marauders. It is said that 700,000 workers lost their lives building the tomb with all of its accompanying treasures and the clay army. Then, several years after the emperor died and he and the soldiers had been buried, an insurgent group of disgruntled peasant farmers broke into the tomb, unearthed the soldiers, set fire to them and broke into pieces as many as they could. The tomb was never re-built and the Qin dynasty ended.

Fast forward 2,000 years and imagine the excitement of such a discovery. Archaeologists came from all over the world to examine the dig and to date about 7,000 soldiers have been unearthed and re-constructed. We were told that only one soldier, an archer, was discovered intact; the rest were all broken to a greater or lesser degree. But when you think that they had already been decimated by the peasant insurgency in 200-something BC and that they then had to endure the ravages of two millennia underground—it is incredible how well preserved they are. The soldiers are gray in color but when they were discovered they still had vestiges of their original paint. The paint disappeared when air hit it, before the very eyes of the excavators.

We knew this was going to be a highlight and we were in high anticipation when we finally reached the museum. Our new guide, Minnie, probably the best of the lot in terms of her ability to speak English, was very knowledgeable and gave us quite an education about the various emperors and especially the Emperor Qin. At the risk of getting my facts wrong, I won’t elaborate too much here, but this is another fascinating tale that would be well worth looking up if you are interested.

When you approach the museum, you immediately notice the scale of everything. Just like in Beijing, the buildings are huge and the walk from the parking lot to the front of the principal building is long and impressive. We all had seen pictures of the soldiers on the internet, but at the risk but being tiresomely repetitive I must say that once more we were not prepared for the reality of the spectacle in the “flesh.” When we finally entered the first building—Pit 1 they call it—we were all struck by how beautifully displayed the soldiers are and how easy it is to see them.

The building is a large dome-shaped edifice with walkways all around the perimeter, skylights in the ceiling, and lots of windows for natural light. The soldiers are literally in a “pit” lined up in military formation just as they would have been when they were buried with Mr. Qin. Of course, they all had to be painstakingly reconstructed from the shattered states they were in, and one can only wonder what a delicate and time-consuming process that was.

The soldiers are life-size--bigger actually, some as large as 6’5” which would have been larger than life-size at that time. They supposedly are all from the same mold, but all different in terms of facial expressions, hands and feet, poses and other distinguishing features. There are cavalry soldiers, infantry soldiers, officers and archers, plus magnificent horses who were pulling wooden chariots. The chariots of wood did not survive the 2,000 year entombment but the archaeologists have figured out what they looked like and in a few places there are impressions of chariot wheels in the excavated dirt.

We had told Minnie that we were very excited about seeing this particular wonder and she nodded and said yes, she had had one woman who, upon first sight of the soldiers, was overcome with emotion and burst into tears.

I wasn’t driven to tears, but I must say it is one of the most impressive things I’ve seen in my life. The dignity, the grandeur, the sheer number, even the mono-chromatic gray color all conspire to produce a definite visceral reaction. It’s an ohmygod of the first order.

We spent quite a while just walking the perimeter, reading the explanatory plaques and looking at the soldiers. About two-thirds of the pit is comprised of about 6,000 soldiers lined up as they would have been when buried, but the last one-third is the “reconstruction” area. This part shows how the soldiers are pieced together and has areas that show what the pit looked like when it was first unearthed and the soldiers were in fragments.

The next building is a museum which showcases individual soldiers that survived in the best condition, including the archer who was discovered intact. Although behind glass, here you could really get up close and personal and examine the soldiers from all sides. There was also a display of weaponry and precious artifacts that were found at the site along with the soldiers.

Afterwards, of course there is the obligatory “gift” shop, and I must say it is next to impossible to come away without buying a terra cotta reproduction. They had them in all sizes—full size (about $3,000 including shipping), half size, coffee table size, all the way down to small figurines. Mary and I both bought repros of the archer, hers a little bigger than mine, but mine was all I felt I could cram into my already overstuffed luggage.

But the best part was yet to come. Minnie had told us that of the four original discoverers, two have died and two are in their eighties and sometimes one or the other of them will show up at the gift shop to sign books. Well, this may have been a put-up job, but sho ‘nuf, there he was smoking a pipe, looking quite sullen and unfriendly, and with a big sign NO PHOTOS on his desk, signing books. Lurking on the periphery of the crowd was a Big Nose woman surreptitiously trying to take his picture; he saw her and this made him even more angry looking. He covered his face with his hat. But in spite of his rotten attitude, it was impossible to resist, and so Mary and I took the bait, bought a book each and after the old fart signed mine he practically threw it at me, with a scowl that was frightening to behold! Still, it’ll be a fun conversation piece and the signature is bona fide Chinese.

A Few Random Pictures

This little lake was right outside our hotel in Yangshou. One morning, Mary and I came out to hit the shopping street and caught this cormorant fisherman unaware that we were taking his picture. We had seen him the day before on solid ground with two of his birds, charging people to have their pictures taken with him. We were on a small bridge looking down at him so he either didn't know or didn't care that we were getting freebies.

After we left Yangshou we had a couple of hours to spare before our plane to Xian so we went to a zoo in Guilin that houses 1,300 (yes, that's right) tigers and 6oo bears as well as other animals. I have about a million pictures of tigers and bears.

Now here is one relaxed bear. Note the tongue.

This man approached our guide in Xian and asked if he could have his picture taken with Mary. What am I? Chopped liver? Only kidding, it was really cute and afterwards we all smiled and bowed and shook hands.

More of Yangshou

The view from the restaurant where we had lunch after the rafting trip.

Before our cooking class, we went to the local market to buy the ingredients. This woman was picking out a chicken for her family's dinner. Talk about fresh!

Kelly, the chef, looks with approval at her appreciative students.

Now that is a perfect dumpling! Made by Chef Sara

Hill dropped us at the hotel after the rafting trip and Mary and I made a beeline for the shopping street, while Tom and Neil scouted for a restaurant for lunch. We met at the appointed hour and went to the restaurant they had picked which overlooked the river and according to the guys, was frequented only by Chinese and no Big Noses.

The food was excellent. We had Chinese eggplant with pork, one of my favorites and the best I’ve ever had, and local shrimp that were so tiny you could eat them shell and all. We also had more of the beer fish which is an elaborate fish dish cooked in beer and served in a beautiful skillet surrounded by vegetables and covered with a divine sauce. We were congratulating the guys on their fine choice when about mid-way through the meal, in walks a whole busload of American tourists. It was so funny, because if they had been there to start with we would have turned up our noses and refused to eat there. They were actually the only Americans we saw in Yangshou.

Hill was going to pick us up again at 3:30 for our scheduled cooking class, so we had to hurry. If you remember, we had a class with Miss Vy in Hoi An, Vietnam—a wonderfully classy affair with white linens and carefully arranged platters of raw ingredients and the beautiful Miss Vy to explain and illustrate the techniques.

This cooking class was no Miss Vy. It was a little rough around the edges, but still worthwhile if only for the cultural experience. First, we went to the local market with “Kelly,” our hostess/chef, to buy some of the food—a trip to the market seems to be part of every cooking class but it really is just to show us the market and to be able to point out some of the strange foods. We all love markets and roaming them has been a highlight of the various countries we have visited. This one, though, was a little too authentic even for my tastes. There were live animals in cages—chickens, rabbits, all varieties of fowl, snakes, frogs, wriggling baby eels, and some creatures unidentifiable. And the locals were shopping earnestly, picking up pheasants and chickens and hares to check for plumpness. Some of the things that were available I don’t even want to put in the blog because of innocent eyes. Suffice to say our worst fears about the eating habits of the Chinese were realized. Kelly just shrugged at our shock and talked about the Yin and Yang of eating.

After the market we went back to Cloud Nine, the restaurant that Kelly claimed had been featured on the Yan Can Cook TV show several months ago. I’ll have to check that. The actual class was an open air affair on the roof of the restaurant, where Kelly demonstrated the techniques while we dutifully copied her. We made eggplant with pork (we had it for lunch!), Szechuan chicken, and some really delicious dumplings that are now going to be a permanent part of my repertoire. I definitely had a knack with the dumplings!

I thought it was kind of fun, but Mary and Neil and Tom to some extent hated it and pronounced the food greasy. The alert among you will have noted that we had two big meals within about four hours. Not to worry, we are now world class, Olympic quality, championship eaters.

More of the Raft Trip

Truly beautiful scenes

We stopped to sample a fish from a streamside fish fry. That's Hill on the right.

We only got one fish for the four of us. Big mistake. It was the BEST!

Songs of he done me wrong and ain't it a shame and where is that drinkin' cheatin' so-and-so

Rafting on the Li River

This is the type of raft we rode up the tributary of the Li.

Just one of many boatloads of happy Chinese waving and shouting Hello! How are you!

A cormarant fisherman. The birds were tethered to the boat, the man would slap the water with an oar and one of the birds would dive in and instantly pull out a big fish (one to two feet long!). The bird couldn't swallow the fish because he has a metal ring around his neck. The fisherman gently (or not so gently) eases the fish out of the bird's gullet and puts it in the basket. Then the whole process starts again.

A scene on this beautiful river.

The next morning we were scheduled to take a raft trip up a tributary of the Li. This too was a surprise. I knew the river would be beautiful, and it was, and I hoped it wouldn’t be too touristy, but it was—in a good way! The river was full of happy Chinese doing exactly what we were doing—enjoying a beautiful morning drinking in the scenery and having fun. Every boat we passed would wave and cry Hello! Many if not all of the rafts had, in addition to the boatman, a lady singer dressed in local costume singing traditional river folksongs in their eerie high-pitched voices. Of course, we couldn’t understand the words but one can imagine that the words must be tearful accounts of unrequited love and sad tales of loss and unfulfilled dreams. Just like country and western, I would think.

Guilin to Yangshou

The underground lake in Reed Flute Cave, Guilin. It's hard to see but it looked like the skyline of a large city at dark.

A typical scene of the karsts as taken from the car.


The main shopping and dining street in Yangshou. It reminded us of a Chinese Bourbon Street before the hurricane.


A typical souvenir shop, as you can see, something for everybody.

After we drove the two hour drive back to Guilin from Ping An and did a little local sightseeing, we proceeded on to Yangshou, where we would spend the next two nights. We had pictured Yangshou as another sleepy village plopped into the middle of the karsts and the rice paddies. If I didn’t mention it, Hill, our guide, while sweet enough, was fairly clueless and couldn’t explain very well what was coming next, so we had a few surprises on this leg of the journey, Ping An being the first of these. Hill, which is the translation of his Chinese name, is 25, his English was pretty poor and his pronunciation almost unintelligible. This was unusual because all of our previous guides spoke good to excellent English.

But sometimes it’s better not to know what’s in store because then your pre-conceived ideas can take over and color your attitude pro or con. It was kind of nice to just relax and take what comes.

When we drove into Yangshou we were surprised to find that it was not a quiet little village, but a booming resort town where mostly Chinese come from all over China for a little R and R. Our hotel, the Paradeso, was at the top of the main tourist street which teemed with people shopping, eating, drinking, and socializing. There were some Big Noses, but not many. Yangshou sits on the Li River, a beautiful meandering waterway surrounded on both sides by the legendary karsts, so the scenery alone would be a reason for its popularity. But there is more there than the scenery.

We arrived late afternoon and Mary and I couldn’t wait to investigate what looked like the best shopping opportunity we had had in some time and maybe the last of the trip. We were not disappointed. When evening came the four of us started to explore the street and look for a restaurant, but the shops were most tempting and it was hard to think about food. Eventually, though, husbands prevailed and we found a sidewalk cafe that wasn’t too crowded and ate some local food (beerfish) and drank some local beer and enjoyed some of the best people watching of the trip. The shopping would have to wait.

The Lian Lodge and the Long Haired Ladies

This is the entrance to the hotel. The hanging things are real bamboo roots.

Our room, the Celadon, with windows on both sides and spectacular views.

One of the antique wood carvings in the hotel. The artwork was amazing and I wish I had taken more pictures.

This is as close as we got to pictures of the long-haired ladies. The real long hairs had their hair wrapped and pinned up but you could see how much hair it was. They looked top-heavy. I don't get it myself, why anyone would want that much hair...

Ping An Continued

I might be overdoing it on the pictures of our trip up the mountainside, but I'm so fascinated by the whole process. This is at the beginning when we are still unaware of what lies ahead. At first, the guys said Ok you ladies can get your luggage toted, but we will carry our own and walk. Why spend money on such indulgence? Mary and I thought it was silly to scrimp on such a small thing and we won. Believe me, this was the best money we ever spent! If you are curious, it was about $16 each for the sedan chair ride and about $3 each way for the luggage toters. A major bargain if you ask me.

Two of the sedan chair "drivers." Don't they look like they are thinking, "Wait a minute, we need to charge by the kilo instead of by the person!" They did stop to rest two or three times on the way up.

This was my luggage lady. She was very protective of my precious stuff and the next morning she immediately grabbed the same suitcase and computer case and took off down the hill.

Look how easy they make it look! We told Rosely that we felt guilty letting them carry us because it seemed so unfair, but she said they do it every day and it is their choice. I wonder.... By the way, I hope it's clear that we walked down the next day under our own power. Aren't you proud?

More Pictures of China

This picture will give you an idea of what Ping An looked like while we were being carried up to that wonderful hotel.
The buildings are mostly of wood and quite densely situated.
More of the rice terraces.
A woman working in the rice fields.

After we left Beijing, we flew to Guilin which is the area of China that is so famous for the limestone karsts and terraced rice paddies. We didn't stay in Guilin, but went directly to Ping An, the perched village I've already told you about. The scenery from Guilin to Ping An was spectacular, although the weather was a bit hazy so a lot of the pictures didn't turn out very well. The people in these small villages are living just as they have been for hundreds of years. What a hard life it is but they seem really happy. One of the villages is famous for its women who supposedly have the longest hair in the world. They only get it cut three times in their lives--once when they are 18, once when they are married and one other time (can't remember when), but even then it is only cut a little bit and their hair is many feet long. They approach you and say Long Hair Long Hair you want picture? Then they charge you if you take a picture. We were feeling a little exploited by that so we didn't bite.

China the Unexpected

China! What an amazing pleasant surprise! Quite frankly, in the initial planning of the trip I was lukewarm about including China at all. I felt we had to at least hit a few highlights, but I didn’t expect to really like it all that much. I was going for the “educational” experience. I expected drab clothing, long faces, gray buildings, dirty streets, military bearings, and…well, you catch my drift.

Not so! China is alive with color, smiles, cleanliness, beauty, happy people, HIGH fashion, amazing architecture and sights like we’ve never seen before.

Beijing, as you may remember, has been chosen as the site of the Summer Olympics in 2008, beating out, among other cities, our own Big D. After seeing Beijing and the preparations that are underway for the Olympics, all four of us agree that the very idea that Dallas could compete in the world arena with a city like Beijing is both ludicrous and naive. Of course, we love Dallas, but let me explain.

Beijing, a city of 13 million people, is so big it defies the imagination. Everything is huge—the buildings, the squares, the parks, the boulevards, the hotels, the billboards—everything. Although the buildings aren’t as tall as New York, it makes New York feel smaller because the scale is so much more grand. You don’t walk across the street in Beijing—there are underground passageways. Otherwise you would cross about 10 lanes of traffic, which, like most cities in Asia, don’t pay attention to lanes anyway. Happily, our hotel was within walking distance to Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City (thank you, Gwenna), but a walking city it isn’t. You would walk your feet into bloody stumps before you would get anywhere.

You could eat off the streets in Beijing. I don't think I've ever seen a city so clean. In spite of a massive building campaign, everything is neat and tidy. We saw a few of the new stadiums that are being built for the Olympics, as well as the structure which will be the site of the opening ceremonies (the bee hive, I think it's called) and they are so impressive. New hotels are going up, there are signs everywhere advertising the Olympic slogan, One World, One Dream, and the energy fairly vibrates throughout the city. Unlike Bhutan, where we sadly question whether the necessary renovations will be complete in time for the coronation of the king and the attendant ceremonies, Beijing WILL be ready and the world is in for a treat. It is clear the the Beijing Olympics will top anything we have ever seen before.

In our short time in Beijing, we didn't even begin to scratch the surface of what the city has to offer. . It would be worth going back to.