All in all, the trip was a huge success. We left on Friday, October 2nd and flew on a plane to Xi'an (a city in China known for the Terracotta Warriors). After being in Nanjing where the cabs run on meters, we weren't used to bargaining for our cab rides and so we ended up getting completely ripped off for a cab to drive us about half a mile. After we checked into the hostel, we headed straight to the train station and were extremely relieved to find that they had train tickets to DunHuang (think Gobi Desert) on Sunday morning. Afterward, we walked around the area surrounding our hostel, talking and celebrating the fact that we were finally on the trip that took much trial and tribulation to plan. We had a delicious noodle dinner and returned to the hostel to sleep.
The next morning, Saturday, October 3rd, we found a bus to take us to HuaShan, which is one of China's Five Sacred Daoist Mountains. After a two hour bus ride, we ate lunch and were upset to find that the English menu they gave us listed the same dishes that were on the Chinese menu, except that they were more expensive on the English menu. We spent the next hour trying to find the mountain. Finally we found the "tourist center" and we had to buy another bus ticket that would take us to the cable cars. Upon seeing the line for the cable cars, our reaction was that it was worse than Disney World. We waited in line for the cable cars for over 2 hours! Finally, we rode the cable cars up to the top of the mountain, which was over 5,000 feet high. It was magnificent and a wonderful experience to be seemingly suspended in the air. When we reached the top of the mountain, we were confronted with a huge crowd of people waiting to ride the cable cars back down. After waiting in the congestion for another 30 minutes, we discovered a way to climb up to one of the peaks of the mountain. We had to use chains on the face of the mountain to climb up. We decided we didn't want to wait another 2 hours to ride the cable cars back down, so we decided to walk down the mountain. The entire path was cement and there were extremely steep stairs all the way down. However, we moved quickly and it only took us an hour to get to the bottom.
We were exhausted when we finally returned to the hostel, and the next morning, Sunday, we began our 23 hour train ride to Dun Huang. We were only able to get tickets for the top bunks, but luckily we also made friends with the Chinese people who were sitting on the bottom bunks. They gave us food. It was awesome. We played Chinese chess, read books, chatted, looked at the Chinese countryside out the window and played video games on one of our computers. At 10:00 pm they turn all the lights out and everyone went to sleep. When we woke up the next morning and looked out the window, it seemed as though we had landed on Mars-- or a Star Wars movie set perhaps. It was Monday morning on October 5th and we had arrived in the Gobi Desert. A few hours later, we found our way to Dun Huang, checked into the hotel, and made our way to the MoGao Caves, which as I said before, have murals of Buddhist art. In one of the caves, there is a huge Buddha that is 33 meters high-- it was magnificent!
The next day, Tuesday October 6th, we relaxed and walked around exploring the small quaint town of Dun Huang. We discovered a beautiful but small park in one part of the city and we sat and enjoyed its beauty. That night we also went shopping at the Night Market, which is awesome when you're looking for souvenirs and other Dun Huang tokens. The city also had what we called a "food court" which was basically a huge pavillion with a bunch of small restaurants underneath. We also ate donkey meat and yellow noodles, which apparently Dun Huang is famous for. It was delicious! The next day was Wednesday, and we went to MingSha Shan which is home to the largest sand dunes in the world. We rode camels up to the top of one of the mountains and we bought inflatable innertubes and rode down the side of the mountain! I also rented an ATV and rode around the dunes with a guide. Afterward, we rode our camels to the Crescent Moon Spring, which is a famous lake in the middle of the sand dunes. It was a beautiful oasis!
The next day, Thursday, we chilled around Dun Huang again, played some bumper boat laser tag, and then caught a night train to Lanzhou. The next morning we arrived in Lanzhou, and we were nervous that we were going to get stuck in Lanzhou, but soon after we arrived, we scored train tickets to Xi'an that left about 30 minutes later. We didn't get a sleeper train, but it was only 10 hours (yay!) so we played cards and played Chinese chess to let the time pass by. Finally, we arrived back in Xi'an the evening of Friday, October 9th. On Saturday morning we saw the Terra Cotta warriors, which were of course amazing and fascinating. On Saturday, we caught a train back to Nanjing. We were only able to get a slow train so it took us 19 hours to get back to Nanjing. We arrived this morning, Sunday October 11, around 2:00 pm. We totaled over 66 hours on a train but it was great fun! Actually, getting to talk to all the Chinese people on the train, as you are often forced to do when you're sleeping across from a total stranger, was one of my favorite parts of the trip. The friendliness and hospitality of the Chinese people is most apparent on the trains, where they will give you food (always a plus) and let you sit on their bed. They are also very curious, always asking where you are from and why you are in China.
This trip made me want to travel even more!
Sounds great!
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