Valentine’s Day has always been a bit… touchy for us. I don’t like the idea of love being shoved down our throats by every rose-selling clown on the streets (let’s call this my reason for being a cheapskate), but it’s hard not to get “in the mood” once V-day comes around.

Yup, even though we’ve been in each others’ faces 24/7 for the past couple of months, there is still something magical about a day dedicated entirely to looooooveeee.

After the first Valentine’s Day where I went the whole nine yards – gift, movie, expensive (for a student) restaurant (nope, no flowers), we sort of came to an agreement that we would leave this nonsense to the other suckers. We’ll celebrate Valentine’s Day any day we want to, thank you very much.

Yet, every year when February 14 comes around, we’ll inadvertently find ourselves looking for something special to do. We’ll dress up just that little bit better, and try to find that small restaurant/eatery and elusive park/beach that might possibly be just off every other courting couples’ radar.

In other words, we were idiots. Yet, year after year, we are like Charlie Brown when Lucy holds out her ball. We’ll go for the kick.

After nine years of “Aw Shucks” and falling on our backs, we’ve sort of fallen into a comfortable routine of going out for a walk and enjoying each others’ company, along with the other 1000000000000001 couples that are out with us.

This year, because Jo had to work (with no extra pay) late into the night, I ended up playing Skyrim on my PS3 on V Day (like a Boss). What other couples were doing on that day was out of sight and waaaaay out of mind.

Even so, we decided to make up for Valentine’s Day a week later.

We were able to sleep in before going for a slow Valentine’s Day meal (lunner?) at a somewhat elusive and very importantly, uncrowded restaurant (with no V Day price hike). If I wanted to, I could have gotten her flowers without having to pay through my nose. IF I wanted to.

We were even able to take a walk along the beach without squeezing with throngs of flower wielding girls and scores of boys looking for a discreet corner to make out in.

For us February 21 was a day of simple meals, long walks and huge ass Meringues.

We might have just started our first of many Cheapo’s Valentine’s Day s.

It’s going to be a Thing.

It’s a little late to the party, but here’s my contribution to the culture phenomenon that has entertained us for a little while.

Like all our (mis)adventures, our foray into Le Shan started well enough. Once we stepped off the train, we were approached by a really friendly motor rickshaw driver. The driver enthusiastically offered to bring us around the city and help us look for a place to stay for the night. He was enthusiastic to the point that we were sure he was receiving kickback from some of the hotels. However, since the places he recommended and the prices he quoted seemed reasonable enough, we decided to give him a chance.

The decision to go along with this particular driver was cemented when he (defying all known laws of physics about matter not being able to share the same area in a consistent space/time continuum) managed to squeeze our 2 humongous backpacks and barang barangs into the same motor rickshaw with us.

What we did not realize at that time was that this was the same principal he applies to other traffic on the road as well. By now, we were pretty much accustomed to the traffic conditions in most parts of China.

Bumper to (very literally) bumper traffic? Seen that.
Overtaking motorcycles carrying a family of six (and their pet chickens) by mere millimetres? Pphhhbbbbtttt….
Oncoming bus hurtling towards us at (conservatively estimating) the speed of light? Boring…

My point is, there seems to be only one traffic rule governing the whole of China: DO NOT YIELD TO ANYONE. And after two months in China, we actually became okay with that. Yet, our pansy Singaporean/Malaysian bladders very nearly emptied themselves every time Mr Rickshaw Driver Man turned around and asked us if we can believe the kind of idiots they allow onto the roads these days (all the time squeezing through the narrowest of crevices between cars whilst wildly gesturing at fellow road users).

Despite the threat of impending death, we managed to get a conversation going with Mr Rickshaw Driver Man. We spoke of the places we’d gone to and the attractions around Sichuan, but we would inevitably end most conversational threads with him saying, “I know you wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for the Big Buddha.”

Each time, we laughed it off and tried to be polite, mumbling something along the lines that we are sure there MUST be other things to do in Le Shan.

We didn’t think much about it then, but it was a theme that was going to repeat itself over the three days we spent in Le Shan. Seemingly friendly conversations with the locals of Le Shan would invariably end with them punctuating each sentence with ”I know you wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for the Big Buddha”.

We were apologetic at first. We tried to reason with them that there must be other things to do in Le Shan. Then we felt guilty because there really was not much else in Le Shan beside the Big Buddha. After a few (thousand) of these conversations, we became downright irritated.

It’s the Kübler-Ross (non) model of coping with the lack of attractions in a scenic spot.

No wonder the residents of Le Shan are moody.

According to our Chinese travel guide, Chongqing is famous for three things:

1) The night time scenery (ok…..)
2) The hottest hot pot in the entire world
3) The prettiest girls in China (a city that claims, I shit you not, you can see a Bridgette Lin every three steps and a Maggie Cheung every five steps) (三步一个林青霞，五步一个张曼玉)

In spite of Jo’s whining that she would need to survive on a diet of bread and fruits for the next few days, I was pretty excited stepping off the ship (see point 3). I wanted to check into a hostel immediately and start exploring the presumably lovely city of Chongqing (again, see point 3)

We first realized that all was not quite right in Chongqing as we were making our way to the hostel recommended by Lonely Planet. We know that Chongqing is VERY hilly and because of the mountains surrounding the city, it is almost perpetually shrouded in fog, mist and… pollutants.

We’ve read about this, yet somehow I don’t think we truly appreciated how potent a combination these two factors make. We know we’ve been pampering ourselves silly the past week or so, but panting madly after a flight of stairs is just… wrong. It doesn’t help that the phlegm we coughed out was kind of grayish. (I know, TMI, but I’m trying to make a point here).

(Un?)fortunately, the hostel (which we did not pre-book) was out of rooms. There were dingy dorms available, but I figured that after a week of cruising, we really need to ease slowly into the whole “roughing it out” routine again. When I say “we”, of course I meant “I”.

The next available hostel is a dizzying 400 metres climb up a hill.

Believe it or not, at this point, we were still willing to give Chongqing a chance, but the straw that finally broke the proverbial camel’s back was a billboard we saw on the way to the other hostel.

It read (in bold) “Chongqing: A Liveable City”.

At first, we thought it was one of those things that got “lost in translation”, but the Chinese sign actually read: “重庆：宜居的都市“ (literally, Chongqing: A Liveable City)

I think you are pretty much scraping the bottom of the barrel when the best adjective you can think of to promote your city is “liveable”. Note to the governor of Chongqing: you really should think about sacking your tourism department.

We booked the first train out of the city.

And that’s the story of how we went in and out of a city in four hours.

We did not even stop to take a photo.

Ok, we took one. The famous night scene of Chongqing which we took from the Queen Victoria the night before.

I know... not that great a photo. We really thought we would be able to take more photos once we get into the city

But what about point 3???

Well, let’s just say that I left the city WILLINGLY.

If you were to mention school excursions, most people would be able to conjure up fond childhood memories of giving hi-fives to anthropomorphic rodents/ducks/dogs in a park and stuffing their faces with all sorts of sugary junk.

If you are a child of the 80s living in Singapore (like me), there is a very high chance that the first images that slip into your mind would probably be of rats chewing on the innards of a disembowelled prisoner or watching someone getting their faces (and other less savoury body parts) cut off by demons.

Yes. Demons.

You see, we have a “theme park” in Singapore called Haw Par Villa. To be honest, Haw Par Villa is more of a sculpture garden than a theme park.  The former residence of two Singaporean tycoons, it is now a large area littered with statues which are supposed to graphically illustrate significant scenes from Chinese mythology and other stories of virtue. To a eight year old me, the only thing it graphically displayed was the content of my bladder on my bed at night.

The last excursion in the itinerary for our Yangtze River Cruise was to a place called Fengdu Ghost City (丰都鬼城). It is billed as a “Necropolis leading into the Gates of Hell where ghosts and demons abound”.

I was suitably excited. Jo… decidedly less so.

The Queen Victoria dropped us at a pier leading to the Ghost City. A county within the municipality of Chongqing, Fengdu (丰都县) and much of the Ghost City had been submerged since the completion of the Three Gorges project.

The Queen Victoria and us

From the pier, we took a leisurely golf cart ride (400 metres) up a hill (did I mention we’ve been travelling in style since we got on the cruise ship?) to the Gates of Hell. Along the way, we passed this weird structure that had been carved into the side of a hill.

The King of Hell (阎罗王) would flip in his... ermm... grave...

It’s supposed to be an uncompleted five star hotel (really!) carved in the likeness of (why not?) the King of Hell (阎罗王). The concept is that the King of Hell stands watch over all of Fengdu….

We passed by a few smaller temples before reaching the entrance to the Gates of Hell which is guarded by 18 Ghosts (each representing a different vice)

The Ghosts guarding the gates of hell. The Hungry Ghost (贪吃鬼), the Ghost of Lust (色鬼) and the most heinous vice of them all, the ermm... Wreath Eating Ghost (食蔓鬼) (?????) that has a goat nursing on her breast....

And my favourite…

Sharing a drink with the drunken ghost (酒鬼)

The Gates of Hell

We then passed through the Courts of Hell that are apparently run by a group of (dusty) demi-gods and ermm.. bureaucrats.

Demons... and some of the milder images in Fengdu

The highlight of the excursion was a diorama of the Chinese Eighteen Levels of Hell, that GRAPHICALLY depict the punishments evil (and some not so evil) doers go through after death.

Due to the graphic nature of the dioramas (and also us not taking enough pictures), I shall only give a small preview of what we saw that afternoon…

** WARNING: GRAPHIC GORE COMING UP NEXT **

Hell, yeah!

l think it speaks volumes of my upbringing when this image makes me nostalgic about my childhood.

There, I’ve said it.

No, I’m not a bratty 14 year old ashamed of my Chinese heritage, it’s just that I get a bit miffed by the occasional ”obligatory” things we need to do during the Chinese New Year.

Context : A big part of Chinese New Year is the act of “pai nian” (拜年) (literally “pai” and “nian”) where family and friends take turn to visit each other’s houses over the Chinese New Year period. It is part of the Chinese New Year tradition, but ever since I was younger, I felt that it is just a bit too obligatory for my liking. Over the years, I actually grew to be fine with it. In some ways, I even think it is necessary to be “forced” to meet up with people you normally would not have met up with (or even go out of your to avoid meeting with). The thing that bothers me about”pai nian”-ing is how it amplifies the natural dynamics in most Chinese families.

You see, an important factor of the “pai nian” process is the exchange of mandarin oranges with the host and the giving of red packets of money (ang pows) to the unmarried members of the family.

Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve observed that in the steady state, a lot of Chinese families maintain relationships much like the ones between US and the Soviets during the 80s. There is a bit of competition and some hidden spite, but all in all everyone maintains a cordial (sometime respectful) relationship to avoid mutually assured destruction.

The game changes during Chinese New Year. Everyone would probably have started out bringing two oranges for the exchange and passing out $8 ang pows. But one year, Relative A (US) would suddenly decide to bring along a box of new year goodies “just to share”. This will provoke Relative B (Russia) to rush to a nearby supermarket to buy a box of oranges and say it was “just lying at home”. Not wanting to be outdone, Relative A will then give out $10 ang pows the following year because it was “a good year”. To top that, Relative B will start giving out $12 ang pows, bring along two boxes of mandarin oranges and a box of New Year goodies. Before you know it, everyone starts arriving for Chinese New Year gatherings in rented mini vans because of the amount of gifts/ang pow money they are carrying.

At this point, Relative C (China) who had not been able to keep up will pretend to be disdainful of the whole situation, and at the same time, giving himself the perfect excuse to not go for any more Chinese New Year gatherings. All the while, the only ones who stand to benefit from the fallout of this conflict are the blood thirsty terrorists and conniving arms dealers sitting on the sidelines (Child A, B, C to Z).

Of course, the “pai nian” is just an aspect of the Chinese New Year. There are other components. Taken separately, some of the individual components of the Chinese New Year are irritating, but if you put them all together they are practically intolerable.

There’s the “Dong dong dong dong chiang”. I don’t think there’s any concrete study done on this matter, but my intuition tells me that if they do a profiling of known mass murderers, an uncanny number would have a history of writing Chinese New Year songs. I mean any song writer that choose to accentuate every word of his song with a cymbal crash should be classified as what they would call in technical terms, a psychopath.

As a former percussionist in a school band, I speak with good authority that drums and cymbals are a lot more enjoyable for the player than it is the audience. Believe me there’s always a strong sadistic temptation to interrupt the most inappropriate parts of the song with a cymbal crash. Most people don’t act on this temptation because they realize that there would be consequences. I know from first hand experience that a cymbal crash at the wrong moment often cause others to want to stuff a drum stick up your… Dong Chiang, if you know what I mean (when I say “others” I meant “fellow band members who are stuck rehearsing the same piece for hours”). I would like to take the time to clarify that I am not a psychopath. I just possess a seemingly inhuman non-existent sense of rhythm.

Next is the colour red. The Chinese believe that red is the colour of prosperity. The Green Lanterns believe it’s the colour of rage. I stand on the side of the immortal wisdom of DC comics. Scarlet is actually one of my favourite colours, but during Chinese New Year, I have to refrain from wearing it because no one could see you if you are wearing red during Chinese New Year. If Modern Warfare ever comes up with a Chinese New Year mod, the outfits for the players would be red. There actually is a life lesson in all this… There CAN be too much of a good thing, especially if the good thing involves primary colours… and Modern Warfare should totally come up with a Chinese New Year mod.

Finally, there’s the Chinese New Year food.

There’s nothing wrong with the Chinese New Year food.

Chinese New Year food is awesome.

Anyway, this is a bit late, but I’ll like to wish everyone here a happy Chinese New Year and may the New Year goodies not add any bulk to your Dong Chiang.

The highlight of the Three Gorges Yangtze（长江三峡）River Cruise is the… drum roll…. Three Gorges (surprise!!) – at least that’s what the cruise liners all advertise on their flyers.

Jo, doing the "Titanic" as we sail through the Gorges. We were on a cruise ship. Someone HAD to do it!

To be honest, Jo and I were a bit mountain-fatigued coming into this leg of the trip, so we were really just here for five days of hard core pampering. (when I say “Jo and I” and “we”, I really meant “I”) (Don’t judge! I estimate we have been climbing an average of 1000000000000000000000 flights of stairs a day prior to the cruise… give or take). But like always, in one way or another, China has a way of hitting you in the guts and taking your breath away.

We passed through Xilin Gorge (西陵峡), the first of the Three Gorges at 6.30 in the morning. Maybe it’s just me, but I personally think that anything that can awe Jo awake at 6.30 am to do this… must be doing something right.

For me, all is good in the world when you can see gorgeous mountain sceneries without needing to climb a single step.

In a weird “Inception” – like moment, Victoria Cruises even arranged to transfer us from the cruise liner to a small ferry to an even smaller sampan for our “shore” excursions to the Little Three Gorges (小三峡) and then the (really!) Little Little Three Gorges (小小三峡) There’s something serene about drifting along a river, sipping a beer and watching the idyllic townships float by.

We saw quaint little villages along the river. The vertical lines were apparently cut into the cliffs decades ago when the only way for boats to transit along the (then) shallow tributaries was by, I kid you not... (naked) men pulling them along with ropes. We were then transferred onto a small sampan - like one of those Russian dolls which you open up to reveal smaller and smaller dolls

At the back of my mind, I know it is all very “touristy” and that many of this townships are shadows of their former selves. It’s just hard not to “feel it” when you have a ferry man decked out in his best wuxia novel boat man outfit (complete with long bamboo pole) (and jeans). Mr Boatman completed the picture by singing us traditional folk songs that reverberated around the cliffs that surround us.

Our Funky Boatman

The cruise was made all the more surreal by the colonies of monkeys that scamper along the river edge and ermm.. hanging coffins (悬棺).

The hanging coffins of Sichuan. If you stare (squint) really hard, you can even see the coffins within the caves. The coffins were driven into the cliffs about 2500 years ago by the Bo people, but to this day, no one knows why they did it, or even how they did it. Bear in mind that the water level was 185 metres lower back in the day... which means the coffins were much higher above the waterline

It’s a thing.

All in all, it was a good day excursion before we were transferred back to the mother ship. We spent the rest of the day (and night) sailing through the Wu Gorge (巫峡) and the Qutang Gorge (瞿塘峡)

By “we”, of course I meant the captain of the ship. Jo and I? We spent the rest of the day eating, napping, eating, eating, sleeping and eating again.

When they put their foot down to build something, they do not mess around. They’ll look around the world for the biggest of class of the thing they want to build, and then through sheer technicalities, claim that the one that they’ve built is in fact, THE biggest in the world. (and when I say “technicalities”, I mean “lying”)

You may think the previous statement is a bit strong, but you’ve clearly not been to the “WORLD’S LARGEST…(whisper)  indoor copper-made reclining Buddha” It’s not the world’s largest Buddha, nor the world’s largest indoor Buddha. It’s not the world’s largest copper-made Buddha, nor the world’s largest reclining Buddha. But put them all together, we have the WORLD’S LARGEST (softly) indoor copper-made reclining Buddha.

Technicalities.

I believe in school we called it a good public relations hook.

One of the shore excursions during our cruise along the Yangtze River was to the Three Gorges Dam (长江三峡大坝) – a still ongoing project that is touted as the biggest dam in the world. So, understandably, we were a bit sceptical…

We’d actually heard of the Three Gorges Dam prior to going for the tour. (which is a big deal…knowing where we’re going is not as common an occurrence as you would think on a long trip like ours. Don’t judge us. We’ve got an excuse. We’re winging it!!)

Anyway, like I said, we’ve actually heard OF the Three Gorges Dam project prior to going. We know it’s “huge” and that the project “affects millions of lives”. But we’ve always thought… it’s China. The Chairman’s sneeze affects millions of lives.

So I guess it was a good thing we went to the dam on the second day of our cruise. We were old river dogs having sailed down the Yangtze for a day. Seriously, we managed to see first hand, some of the villages that have been displaced because of the rising waters brought on by the dam project. The staff on the Queen Victoria and the local tour guides that were assigned to us were also very candid when they talked about life before and after the dam was built.

The Three Gorges Dam - stretches as far as the eye could see. It might be hard to believe, but the water on one side of the dam is 185 metres higher than the other side...

This awesome "Ship Lift" is part of the Dam project. The ship is required to pass through four different "locks" over 6 hours and "lifted" up 185 metres to the water level on the other side. As an ex sea farer, I can only say that sailing within touching distance of a wall takes balls of red hot steel. Jo just thinks it's a good time to relax on a sun chair.

I think once you take away all the self censorship because of political correctness, most of the residents along the Yangtze welcome the project… or at least the younger ones did.

They were relocated into residencies they would never have been able to afford, and they were able to work in jobs they never could have found staying in the old villages. Besides increasing (A LOT of) tourist traffic to the region, the dam project allowed passage for ships along the Yangtze all year round, instead of just during the high water season. This greatly increased trade up and down the river.

In spite of all this, there is always the question of sentimentality.

A lot of the older folks in the area were reluctant to move. In their minds, they were “abandoning” ancestral houses and giving up on land that their fathers had been buried on.

At first, (to me) it seemed like a small price to pay for progress, but when you see the scale of the villages that had been submerged and really think about it, the amount of people that were force-migrated is scarily large: 6 million – that’s more than the combined population of Singapore. I know… Singapore is a small place, but that doesn’t stop it from being a scary thought. Like I said, the Chinese do not mess around when it comes to scale.

Jo - Godzilla-ing over a scaled model of the Three Gorges Dam

So, is the Three Gorges Dam the biggest damned dam in the whole wide world?

Well… I can only say that it is the dam with the most number of turbines and generates more electricity than other hydro-electric dam anywhere else in the world…

Am I upset that entries that I spend more time, thought, and dropped follicles on receive less attention than an animal who is too lazy to mate?

I shall respond with the following video.

I can face facts…

You. Just. Don’t. Fight. The. Panda… unless you’re a lab assistant at the Panda nursery.

I have no idea how they do it, but these pandas look cute even when they are sleeping. This is a good thing because that’s what they do 99% of the time, anyway.

I am not bitter.

According to our copy of Lonely Planet, one of the quintessential China experiences is a river cruise down the Yangtze River (长江).

Some background: most Chang Jiang cruises transit between two points – going upstream from Yichang (宜昌) or cruising downstream from Chongqing (重庆). An upstream cruise typically takes four nights and downstream cruise, three. There are many cruise operators at the two terminal cities offering transportation as varied as a 200 RMB catamaran ride to a 1800 RMB cruise on a internationally-run cruise liner (read: they actually give a shit about minor details such as “standing space” for all “passengers”).

Seeing that we’ve been pretty frugal so far, and that our decision will highly likely affect our mental health for the next five days, we chose the most expensive option.

On hindsight, I can only say…

Best.Decision.Ever.

The first thing that greeted us as we approached the Queen Victoria 2 was, I kid you not, a fully costumed marching band playing us a musical fanfare.

What they lack in number, they make up for in loudness. No. Seriously. The fanfare for every guest thing was not as funny when guests keep arriving till 1am in the morning

We were then shown our room. I’ll be honest, having had a taste of first class transport accommodation during our train ride to Lhasa, we did not really have very high expectations. So, we were quite surprised (actually I think “shocked” would be a more accurate word) when we were shown a VERY clean room with the most comfortable bedding we’ve had in a while. We also had our own (rather large) attached shower, a plasma TV and, most awesome of all, a river view balcony with deck chairs from which we could sip the bottle of Kahlua we’d smuggled onboard (we were on a SHIP! It’s only right that we do at least one pirate-y thing)

View from our balcony... some of the time...

Over the next couple of days, we engaged in many traditional Yangtze cruise ship activities such as having morning teas, eating buffet breakfasts, going for short (non-climbing) shore excursions, stuffing our faces at the buffet lunch, gobbling down afternoon tea, afternoon napping, devouring buffet dinners and passing out right after we ran out of verbs to describe the process of putting food in the body.

To be fair, the cruise director actually included activities like Introduction to Taiji in the program. The only problems: the lesson was at 6am in the morning and also it was physically demanding (do you know that even a little force applied on the correct spot with the correct circular motion can cause you to sweat… a lot?).

The cruise was exactly what we needed to recharge our batteries. (We have food with cleanliness that we did not really have to worry about) (lots of food)

Throughout our five days on the Queen Victoria, the only time we felt kind of stressed was right after dinner when we walked by the reception area. You see, international cruise laws dictate that on every cruise ship, there needs to be at least ten photographers with BRIGHT FLASHES camouflage themselves throughout the ship and in bushes during shore excursions to catch you at your most “candid” moments. And at night, right after dinner, the photos will be displayed on a HUGE ASS plasma screen in the grand foyer just outside the restaurant in the hope that some passengers will find these photos nice enough to purchase as “souvenirs”. And because cruise ship etiquette requires all passengers to behave like, for lack of a better word, Lemmings, we would invariably join the hoard of tourists standing in front of the plasma screen, trying to find a non non-flattering shot of ourselves. Then suddenly, flashed on the giant screen in front of all the guests, two misshapen blobs made pasty by too much time away from the sun – Mr and Mrs Marshmallow Man.

I blame flash photography.

================================================================

Sidenote: hee hee hee

Nope. The Chinese have no problems with authority.

Don’t get me wrong. As it is, things in China are relatively cheap, but there’s something about getting a bargain (even if it’s just a 1RMB trinket) that makes the shopping experience just that little bit sweeter.

While we were in Zhangjiajie, we saw billboards and posters for a culture performance called ”烟雨张家界“ (Smoke Rain Zhangjiajie????)  almost everywhere we went. So, it was kind of surprising when we heard from XiaoLi that the show was still in the pre-production phase (and apparently has been in the pre-production phase for more than a year already) (the show exists in a wrinkle within the space/time continuum where the productivity of the Chinese do not infiltrate) (probably the same dimension as all the service staff that invariably end up servicing us at restaurants).

Anyway, there are twice daily rehearsals for the performance at a theatre near Huang Long Dong (黄龙洞) (an underground cavern within the Zhangjiajie county containing more ermm… rocks) and quite surprisingly (to us), the tickets to these rehearsals cost the grand price of ZERO.

That’s one of the reasons why, even after our traumatic experiences with the dancing half-naked men of Zhangjiajie (when I say “our”, I mean “my”), we decided to stay one more day in the city to see the performance and (why not?) visit Huang Long Dong as well.

First off, Huang Long Dong is billed as a cavern containing the biggest collection of underground geological formations (read: rocks) in China. If I need to describe it in one sentence, I can only say that it is BIG. It’s so big it is surrounded by its own village and even has an underground river running through the cavern. The entrance tickets included a boat ride down the river.

The highlight of the caves is the great amount of stalactites and stalagmites formations (secondary school geography projects!) that are lighted up with more neon colours than a Chinese billboard. And as typical of Chinese attractions, even though the formations look (to our untrained eye) like phallic-ly shaped popsicles, they were all given poetic names such as ermm… I can’t really remember.

Jo and I were having too much fun (re)naming them Ice Kachang 1, Ice Kachang 2 and Ice Kachang 4. (we lost count after a while…)

Towards the end of the tour (we were not allowed to wander through the caves by ourselves), we were given an option to top up the entrance ticket to check out other sections of the caves. We politely declined this kind offer because we wanted to go to the theatre early to grab our seats and also because IT’S MORE ROCKS!

Anyway, in typical Singaporean fashion, we reached the concert hall early, and found out we were more or less the only people watching the show. On hindsight, given our recent scams-periences (it’s a thing), it’s quite surprising that our alarm bells did not go off when we saw this…

I suppose for the locals, if it’s too good to be true… it’s a scam.

I’ll just like to say for the record, that for a free twice daily “rehearsal”, the producers of the show spared no expenses. The theatre was huge and comfortable, the sets for the show were spectacular and really, kind of gorgeous. There was even air conditioning!

And they even have (more) half naked men whose only duty seems to be sending people off at the end of the show.

There really is something about Zhangjiajie and half naked men

And no… it really was NOT a scam.

I know… it’s not the cheeriest of New Year resolutions. But as we grow older, I think every New Year tends to put us in a more pensive mood.

We’re currently at a totally different place (figuratively and literally) than we were at at the end of 2010. And if you told 2010 TW what things would be like at the end of 2011, he’d probably ask you to, with all due respect, Suck it.

2011 was a year of great change for us (But then again, shouldn’t they all be?). Going into 2011, we had many unknowns we needed to face, many questions we needed answered as we stood at the brink of our grand adventures. We’ve known for a long time that we wanted to do it, but taking the leap is not easy. I’d be lying if I said that we never had any doubts about whether we were going to do it, because at the back of our minds, there was always that question:

“What about Tomorrow?”

If we don’t plan for it, what ARE we going to do about Tomorrow when she comes knocking? The story about the proverbial Grasshopper is deeply ingrained in us.

I suppose in some small ways, we’ve always known that Tomorrow is a fickle mistress and an unrelenting tease. She continually promises things to come and at the same time, she demands our unyielding worship to grant us her rewards.

Day after day, Tomorrow creeps up on us. Every second we spend unhappy, every minute we waste doing something we hate is a non-refundable sacrifice we place on her altar. And for better or worse, every day that passes is one less Tomorrow we need to/can worry about.

If anything, 2011 showed us that Tomorrow giveth in small doses, and yet she’ll do her “taketh away” quickly, silently, unexpectedly, thank you very much. She most certainly doesn’t give a damn about any of the grand plans that we’ve made.

I’m not saying don’t make any plans. It is always good to store grains for tomorrow. Just don’t do it at the expense of what you should be eating today. Always be aware that Tomorrow could just as likely bring a sunny day as it would a pink rhinoceros that would eat up everything that you’ve stored when you need them most.

Tomorrow is a bitch.

Afford Tomorrow the same trust you would the tout who approaches you at the side of a major train station.

If there’s something you’re dying to try, do it today. If there’s something you need to say to someone, tell it to them today. If there’s anything you’re not fully satisfied with, make a change today. Dance with that special someone today. Bury that grudge today. Live for today. Be happy today. Love today.

Today…. because, when you least expect it, Tomorrow just might not show up.

I guess what I want to say at the end of all this is…

Tomorrow is too damn unpredictable. Carpe Diem by the bloody Jagulum.*

Squeeze.

And don’t you dare let go.

And errr… Happy New Year and have a smashing 2012.

* yes… that is a Terry Pratchett reference

1) are able to fall (deeply) asleep under almost any kinds of condition

2) have stomachs that can (more or less) tolerate some of the weirdest shit that we have been subjecting them to (for me, that even included various forms of uncooked fruits or cooked vegetables) (don’t ask….)

Somewhere in Zhangjiajie, Jo even managed to overcome her fear of chilli and started... ermm.. selling them... although I think she just wanted to chop them up... reminds me of a Mike Myers movie...

I think throughout this trip, there’s been a sort of unofficial competition to see who is better than whom, in terms of these two points.

At the end of the day, there’s not much of a competition for Point (1). (Jo has years of practice sleeping in until 1pm in the afternoon)

But for a long time, I thought we were tied in terms of point (2) because:

I’m able to take spicy food

and…

Jo has an uncanny ability to stomach my cooking.

All that changed in Zhangjiajie city.

We were walking through a night market in the city when we heard the loud throbbing of techno music. Wanting to see where that was coming from, we walked towards the source of the music and came face to face with (again, I cannot shit about things like these…) a disembowelled deer.

Standing behind the deer were six half-naked men bobbing merrily along to the techno beats. Some of them would periodically walk towards the deer and carve out pieces of it, while the others would skewer the meat and BBQ them, all the while keeping time with the music… and shaking their excess sweat onto the BBQ pit.

just like these…

Seeing this, Jo went “I need to get me some of those meat venison!”

Dancing men... feel the beat of the tamborine...

Match. Point. Set.

We’ve just confirmed our plane tickets and should be home before 2012. We’re currently in Xishuangbanna (hur hur… yeah… Xishuangbanna…) (this doesn’t get old)  If you’ve been keeping track of our travels on our “First Impressions” page, you’ll know that we are more than a month behind for our blogging. Somewhere along the way, we decided that we should not let blogging get in the way of us looking at rocks, climbing steps and getting scammed.

We’ll continue with this blog even after we’re home (I still have a lot of little scraps of paper with squiggly notes that I need to go through). Hopefully, this China chapter will be completed before we go off again (target: after the Chinese New Year).

But I guess what we really want to say in this post is, with lots of love from us…

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

I know... Ha Ha... we have Christmas-colored clothes... tis the season!

First off, I’d like to say that we really enjoyed Xiao Li’s company during our two days inside the SenLin Gongyuan. However… the series of events leading up to how we met her were not entirely very pleasant, and we probably paid a lot more than we had to for the pleasure of having her with us. (Yes, we have to PAY to get a guide to walk us through a formation of rocks. Yes, I know that sounds stupid. Yes, I know the previous statement sounded a  bit like we hired a hooker. No, she is not a hooker).

To be fair, the times we DID NOT get scammed far outweighed the times that we did (We are in China. There is a chance to scammed around every corner) It’s just that the times when we do fail, we go down spectacularly… like a Singaporean MRT.

Take for example, our train ride to Zhangjiajie. We took an overnight train, and at 6 in the morning, I was approached by a man in a train conductor outfit, asking if I needed a guide at Zhangjiajie. I stood in awe at the brilliance of this grift. An authoritative figure (train conductor outfit) hits you at your most vulnerable (6am in the morning). These people have turned the scam act into an artform.

Knowing this, and yet unable to go against my programming of showing deference to authority, I actually went “oh, ok… that sounds… nice”.

I know… they probably have a poster of me in Scam Central with the tagline “DO NOT LET THIS MAN PASS! HE LISTENS TO ANYTHING IF IT IS SHOUTED TO HIM LOUDLY ENOUGH”

Anyway, the good news was that the travel agency (which the conductor was undoubtedly taking a huge commission from) was not open by the time we pulled into the station. We made the excuse that we really did not want to waste any more time waiting for the agency to open and we scurried off…

…into the open arms of a lady standing alongside a waiting minivan.She told us that she owned an inn just outside the SenLin GongYuan and had just dropped off some of her customers at the train station. They were hoping to recoup some of the fuel cost by picking up customers going back in that direction. All they asked for was a measly 7RMB – the same price we would have paid if we had taken a public bus.

(Before the snarky comments start, I would just like to say for the record that my involvement in the day’s shenanigans ended with the “train conductor”)

ONE of us decided that it was a good deal and we hopped onto the minivan. Fully alerted to the scammy index in the air, we keenly observed where the minivan was going, to make sure we really were headed to the SenLin Gongyuan. When we saw signs pointing us in the direction of SenLin Gongyuan, we relaxed… I think we even secretly congratulated ourselves for scoring a good deal.

And then the minivan dropped us in front of another travel agency.

We were promptly given an intense sales pitch on how it was ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY to hire a guide to go into the SenLin GongYuan because it was entirely possible to get lost and abducted by (I shit you not) Aboriginals living within the jungle who had never interacted with another other human in their lives.

Furthermore, the BOSS of the travel agency came out to personally serve us. He was willing to give us a very special price if we took on the tour with them. Even though the boss had known us at this point for less than three minutes, he had taken a powerful liking to us, so much so that he was willing to give us a price so crazily low that he would probably lose money on the deal and be forced to sell his company to become a homeless person who can only survive by selling his bodily organs. THAT is how much he liked us.

We were in the travel agency for more than half an hour, so I’m sure there was a lot more to the sales pitch, but I did not get to hear the rest of it… I had a nature emergency I needed to attend to.

What I know was that once I got out from the toilet, Jo was convinced that we NEEDED to go on the tour.

I suspect voodoo.

She was giving me one of those “I will gorge out your eyes if you do not listen to me” looks.

So was the tour worth it?

Well… for one thing, the SenLin GongYuan is a NATIONAL PARK, so the paths were pretty well marked out. And if you do wander down a stray trail, you can always get back onto a main road by using the ancient tracking method of following the sounds from the megaphones of the tour guides for the 10000001 tour groups that visit the park every day.

The price included all admission tickets and unlimited rides on the “environmentally friendly” buses, within the park, but none of the tickets for the cable cars or monorails.

Admission Tickets we needed: 1 (248 RMB)
Monorail/cable cars we needed: 6 (at 100RMB a pop)
Normal cost of a ride on an “environmentally friendly” buses within the park: 0 RMB

Yes... we succumbed and took some cable cars... between a 10 minute cable car ride and a 1.5 hours track through the "jungles", you can be sure most of the time, my first choice would be cable car

Accommodations was included in the fee, but not the food.

We did get a night’s accommodation with a farmer inside the SenLin Gongyuan. Before we checked in for the night, Xiao Li warned us that this particular farmer was known to chase out guests who didn’t eat dinner with him and his family. And yet we skipped dinner because we were stingy little bastards the “farmer” wanted to drive home the point of how much we were scammed. (88RMB EACH for one meat, one vege and one soup) (if you need a point of reference, we could normally get a HUGE ASS bowl of noodles filled to the brim with meat and vege for 8RMB)

We spent the night living in fear of being thrown out to the wilds.

And the worst part?

We did not even get to see any Aboriginals…

On the plus side, we spent two days in the charming company of Xiao Li, one of the feistiest girls we've ever met... She bounces ahead of us on the uphill trails, TRYING to make us sing Miao folk songs with her and she would very LOUDLY scold other passengers who try to take our seats in the buses

Xiao Li also doubled as our photographer during our time in the park. Only problem is... she delights in taking shots of us when we are at our most idiotic...

Allegedly,the Hallelujah Mountains were based on a real place in China. If the government officials of Zhangjiajie （张家界）are to be believed, James Cameron MUST have based his idea of the fictional mountains in his blockbuster on the peaks of Wulingyuan （武陵园）.

When James Cameron visited China to promote Avatar, he said he actually got his inspiration from Huang Shan in Anhui. Of course, the government officials of Zhangjiajie heard this and they promptly responded by rearing Andy Serkis in the mountains. No, seriously, they renamed one of Wulingyuan’s peaks as the “Avatar Hallelujah Peak”. They had a marketing strategy and they were not going to let any snooty director destroy it.

I did not know about Zhangjiajie or Wulingyuan prior to our visit to China. But we’ve heard so much about it from other travellers that (even though I know it would probably involve more stairs and staring at more rocks) we felt we just had to go for a visit. Going to Zhangjiajie was part of the reason why we decided to abandon going to Xinjiang, and also why we went through a big detour east to Xi’an in the first place. (Xi’an is a transport hub that allows us to travel from the Gansu province to Hubei where Wulingyuan is in)

Anyway, the first part of our trek through the Senlin Gongyuan （森林公园）was pleasant enough. We walked through a forested area surrounded by obscenely sized (and shaped) karst formations, and for most of the hike, we have with a nice stream running along beside us.

金鞭溪 or Golden Whip Stream - partly named because the fishes in the stream, defying all known laws for fish survival, will periodically flip over and literally FLASH everyone... including eagles and other birds of prey

Walking along the stream, dwarfed by huge karst formations and Monkey! playing with monkeys

Not walking was apparently an option too... for a price, of course

As expected, our guide, Xiao Li would stop periodically and point out rock formations such as “The face of Ji Gong”, “Piggy snatching his bride”, and “Journey to the West” to us. But I think after the umpteenth time she caught me rolling my eyes, she used the mother of all cover up phrases – that looking at the formation requires “30% seeing, 70% imagination”.

"The face of Ji Gong", "Piggy Carrying Bride" and "Man drinking water"

This was also when things started to get a bit… interesting. We reached a fork in the road, and Xiao Li gave us the option of ascending to the higher levels via the Bailong Sky Elevator (百龙天梯) at 100RMB a pop, OR we can walk uphill for 1.5 hours via 999999999 steps WITH NO VIEW.

Literally hitting the wall early at the foot of the stairs

Being the cheapskate that we are, Wanting to challenge ourselves, we of course chose the steps. What we did not realize was that this meant Xiao Li would have to climb with us too. Apparently, being our guide, she could’ve gotten a free ride up if we had taken the elevator. However, she gamely trooped up the stairs with us, teaching us how to sing Miao folk songs all the way up… never mind the fact that I had problems catching my breath as it is.

Xiao Li bounced on ahead of us, singing the whole way... How do you spell R-E-S-P-E-C-T?

I think all of you probably know by now that I am going to go on about how the view at the top of the steps were gorgeous and the how climb was totally worth it. But the climb was actually worth it for another reason.

At the top of the steps, we saw Andy Serkis.

No, seriously, we saw tonnes of Chinese tourists posing on top of polyester Ikran birds, and getting their faces Photoshopped onto Avatar posters. There were also many tourists who were (seriously) crowing/squawking at the top of their voices. I think they were trying to get the attention of pubescent birds in the area.

But yeah… the views at the top of the steps were gorgeous and the climb was totally worth it.

It was really foggy when we reached the top of the stairs. Honestly, I thought we were screwed... but the fog started to clear...

And the scenery was fully revealed. Turns out the fog was the best thing that could happen to us. Seeing the largest concentration of karst formations IN THE WORLD amidst the mist was kind of surreal. It makes us think that we are not really on earth anymore...

It also showed us how high we really were... you'd think that we wouldn't be surprised given how many steps we've just climbed

But the view is truly gorgeous... and includes such classic rock formations as "Number One Natural Bridge Under the Sky" (their words, not mine) and my personal favourite "Open Door See Mountain"

Jo and I are not what you would consider foodies. When we are hungry, we find food to fill our stomachs. It’s a bonus if the food tastes nice (or if it’s even food in the first place) (You can never be too careful here in China). So it was kind of surprising (to us) that one of the reasons we increased our period of stay in Xi’an was for the food.

Xi’an was the starting and ending point of the Silk Road for centuries. For a very long time (I love how phrases like these take away the need for research), merchants and travellers from the West made Xi’an their home upon reaching the end of their journeys. Because of the mixture of ethnicities, Xi’an has some of the most unique dishes we’ve seen so far.

The best place to soak in the unique culture mix of Xi’an is definitely the Muslim Quarters. Built around the Great Mosque, the streets are crammed door to door with trinket shops, butcheries, craft shops, and of course, tonnes and tonnes of eateries and push carts selling all kinds of food imaginable (and a lot you can’t).

Although it’s called the Muslim Quarters, the shops are as multicultural as they come. Singapore always prides itself on being a melting pot of different cultures. Now imagine combining Singapore’s China Town, Arab Street, Geylang Serai, Clarke Quay and Little India into a two kilometre by two kilometre space, add in a generous dose of livestock and spit, and you’ll have about half of what makes up the narrow streets of Xi’an’s Muslim Quarters.

Like many other Chinese cities, the streets of Xi’an are very well planned and organized. All roads run in North-South, East-West grids. Yet at the heart of it all, there is the Muslim Quarters, whose rogue streets seemed planned by a city planner who had one too many sniffs of the happy smoke. The winding cobblestone streets are laid out haphazardly, with little alleyways thrown in for good measures that run into dead ends and (I swear this is true) canals.

Yet, that is one of the appeals of the Muslim Quarters. It is easy to get lost within it, finding surprises at every turn. For us, we got greedy and couldn’t keep our grubby hands off all the food that we saw… to the point where I didn’t even have the capacity to push away spitting old men (and women) (an essential skill here in China). Don’t judge us.

Can't get enough of the street food!

One of the specialties of Xi’an was the Yang Rou Pao Mo (羊肉泡馍). It’s a dish where patrons are asked to pinch a big bun into tiny pieces that would then be soaked in a huge bowl of lamb (or beef) broth. The general idea is that the smaller the pinched pieces, the tastier the dish would be. It was hard work pinching the dough, but we were suitably motivated by the potential awesomeness of the dish, and more so by another patron sharing our table. He actually got his dough returned, and for his efforts, received a sound scolding from the waitress to get serious with the pinching.

Awesome Chinese customer service strikes again!

The last but possibly most important reason for us extending our stay was because of the hostel we stayed in.

We had wanted to keep our expenditure low for this trip by scrimping on the cost of our accommodation, and couch surfing when we have to. We figured that since we SHOULD be out exploring during the day, we just needed a sleeping surface for the night, and (hopefully) some hot water to shower with.

So far, we’ve not really been that good at keeping with the plan. The cities we’ve visited in Gansu are not what you would consider major cities, so it was a bit harder to find hostels or people letting out their couches. Furthermore, it was off season, so there were steep discounts at most of the hotels in town. We figured we could afford to spend that extra S$2 each a night for internet access and room service.

The thing about hotels is that they are all trying so hard to achieve a certain “standard” that after a while, they all feel the same. There is nothing really unique about most of them, so much so that it seemed like they have no “character”.

All that changed when we reached Xi’an. We could not find a couch to surf on at the last minute, so we decided to search out Han Tang Inn, a highly recommended hostel in Lonely Planet. We did not manage to find Han Tang Inn, but we found Han Tang Hostel which was along the same street instead.

I know… our initial thought after checking in was “Chinese Counterfeiters strike again!” too. But eventually, we found out that Han Tang Hostel was a new sister establishment set up by the people from Han Tang Inn. (in fact, it was so new that renovation work was still being carried out while we were there)

Being new, the facilities at the hostel were awesome, and the pricing reasonable, but more importantly, the service staff at the hostel were some of the friendliest we’ve managed to come across so far.

It just feels nice to have a place to “go back to” after a day of exploring – a place where you get to meet people from all around, a place where you can exchange stories, and more importantly, a place that serves cheap alcohol just below where you sleep.

Kudos to Joyce, Sasha, Fox, Alex for going out of their way and doing their part to make our stay in Xi’an unforgettable.

Jo and I are neither big fans of museums, nor the most ardent of students when it comes to history. Jo prefers the outdoors and natural sceneries, and I prefer the outdoors and natural sceneries that I can view from the air conditioned comfort of a coach.

In that sense, Xi’an was not on our radar because we knew it only as “the place with those old Terracotta dudes”. The only reason we were in Xi’an in the first place was because it was a transport hub and seemed like a reasonable stopover before continuing to our next destination. Before you fans of History Channel start having fits and breaking stuff with your remote controls, we know NOW that we were wrong. In fact, we changed our initial plans of staying in Xi’an from three days to five days – and one of the reasons for doing this was to look at old stuff other than the Terracotta dudes.

Beside Han Yang Lin and the Terracotta Warriors, we also went to the Forest of Steles (碑林) because Jo was convinced we would be able to pick up some kungfu writing moves by looking at more calligraphy. Whilst that did not really happen, we did pick up the ability to overcome great boredom… We spent almost three hours going through the collection of more than 2000 stone tablets (or as they say in Mandarin “Na shi a shitload of stone tablets”). Again, I am sure these tablets have great historical and cultural value (there are tablets written by Emperors and master calligraphers, and the collection even includes the famous Nestorian Stele that depicts the coming of Nestorian Christianity to China), but I’m just saying that 2000 stone tablets are probably 1999 stone tablets more than we were able to stomach for, give or take, a decade.

At least the surroundings of the Stele Forests are nice...

Beside the Stele Forest, we also spent a lot of time at the Big Goose Pagoda (大雁塔) because there was a nice Musical Fountain there (again, History Channel fans, watch that pulse rate), and more importantly, we actually spent a day wandering through the Shaanxi Museum because it was… Ermmm… Free! (limited to 1500 tickets a day)

Even to us, I have to say the collection of artefacts were pretty kickass given that

1) it was free

2) We didn’t really know what was going on most of the time. We were too cheapskate to get the audio guide. We figured we’d have a lot more fun trying to figure out what the translated tags in front of the displays mean. In the worst (best?) case scenario, we could always make up our own meanings for the display. Great fun!

Having fun at the museum - aka Clueless

We got closer to the (replica) Terracotta Warriors at the Shaanxi museum than we ever did at the Terracotta Warriors Museum. We could actually see the individual faces of the warriors

One of the oldest things on display. Jo with a replica of the Lantian Man (蓝田人). The Lantian Man's fossil was found in the Shaanxi province, and is estimated to have lived about 1.7 million years ago in modern-day China. Fun fact? Lantian Man is actually Lantian (Wo)man

One of these nuisances are Touts, or as I like to call them, no offence to anyone, lying scums.

Touts are parasitic creatures that breed in parts of cities that contain a high concentration of the tout’s natural prey – the Tourist. Most of the time, the Tourists do not stand a chance. Most Touts have honed their predatory skills over centuries of skulking in the same area, observing the behavioural patterns of the Tourists.

After long periods of observation and intense field testing, the Touts have somehow come to the conclusion that the best way to make the Tourists like them enough to buy something from them is to subtly grab them by their arms (or any outlying baggage/body parts) and gently screaming (for example) “DO YOU WANT TO SEE THE TERRACOTTA WARRIORS???”

This is usually Step One of what I call the Tout’s Masterplan. This main purpose of this step is to get your attention.  The killer move is actually Step Two where they’ll wait for you to show the slightest bit of interest in what they are hawking (by “slightest bit of interest”, I mean glancing in their general direction and/or not briskly walking away whilst violently shaking your head and frantically waving your arms), afterwhich they will hang onto you like (again, no offence to anyone in particular) the blood sucking leeches that they are.

Every traveller has a different way to deal with Touts.

Take me for example. When faced with a Tout who is screaming loudly into my ear, and raining spittle on my face, my impulse is “Wow, he sounds authoritative, let’s hear what he has to say.”

I blame my military training.

On the other hand, given the same situation, Jo (who is normally the sweetest person in the world) turns into Michael Corleone.

“I’M gonna make HIM an offer he can’t refuse”.

I’m not saying all touts are bad. I honestly believe that some of them are really out to make a decent living, and that there is a possibility we might all come to mutually beneficial agreements. I have a very good reason for this faith. My brains are made of boogers. So, that is how, after one and a half month of giving our best impressions of the “Squinting Bobble-Heads with frantically waving arms”, we got conned for the first time (we think) in China.

The Terracotta Warriors are the highlight of most travellers’ visit to Xi’an and we were trying to make our way to see them as well. According to Lonely Planet, we were supposed to make our way to the central train station to look for “Bus 306″ that would take us straight to the Terracotta Warriors.

Good news, visitors to Xi’an! All the entrepreneurial (and weasel-ly) Touts near the train station must’ve read Lonely Planet too. Almost all the buses at the train station were labelled “Bus 306″ (I couldn’t make this shit up), and their attached tout would promise to bring you to five attractions, inclusive of the Terracotta Warriors for the princely sum of 7RMB. Most of the Touts also like to emphasise that unlike their weasel-ly competitors, they state upfront that the ticket prices to all the attractions would not be included.

It sounded fair and I was even tempted to ask “Are you sure you guys are making money from this?”.

Jo, on the other hand went Tony Soprano on all the touts’ ass. “We don’t want to see any of the other shit, just bring us straight to the Terracotta Warriors!” For some odd reason, this was not possible with all the touts that approached us.

Eventually, Jo was (semi) persuaded by my argument that “We will let the other suckers on the bus go to the paid attractions. We’re badass enough to just squat in the bus until they bring us to the Terracotta Warriors”.

We were herded to a mini bus parked at the side of the road. After a 15 minute wait in the empty bus, we were told that there don’t seem to be any other travellers going on the tour today, so they’ll move us to a smaller car to save fuel.

Jo was suspicous and suggested we give up the 14RMB we’ve already paid and bolt. I am not proud to admit this, but my thought at that point in time was “Groovy, now we don’t even have to wait for the other lame ass tourists! It’s like paying a bus ticket price for our own private car!”

(I know, many of you are already thinking “What an idiot!”, and to that I have to say… ermm..  I’ll get back to you once I can think of a witty retort.)

So, the two of us got into a car and we were first driven to a Jade Emporium where we were told we would be able to buy jade at a “special price”.

(Even I could sense something was not right at this point. My exact thoughts, and I am totally not making this up, was “If we don’t buy any of the jade, we’ll be getting a free introduction to the unique local jade of Shaanxi… COOL!”) (Again, I am not proud).

After our 30 minute tour of the Jade Emporium, the driver started to drive us towards the Terracotta Warriors. Along the way, he told us how awesome the other four attractions were and strongly recommended we go to take a look at them since they were all on the way ANYWAY. Seeing that we (when I said “we”, I meant “Jo”) were firm in ONLY wanting to see the Terracotta Warriors, and “we” were slowly losing our patience, he stopped the car at the side of the expressway.

He told us (in not so many words) that he NEEDS us to go to the other attractions for him to cover his fuel fee. Apparently, he “knows” people at the ticketing offices of the attractions who will let him and his “guests” into the attractions for free. He would then take the entrance fee we were supposed to pay the attractions.as his “fuel cost”. Much as it would pain him, if we didn’t go to the attractions, he would HAVE TO let us go… at the side of the expressway.

We were being blackmailed!!

So, this is the story of how we went to Li Shan (骊山) to see… ermm…

The temple with the BEST fengshui in China, where for the small sum of 100RMB you can rub off some of this Fengshui by praying with “1800-DIRECT-LINE-TO-GOD” joss sticks (if you can’t trust your tout, who can you trust?)

Blessings and Good Fortune do not include a ward against touts

Remonstrance Pavilion (兵谏亭) where Chiang Kai-shek was caught by Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng (both generals of the Republic of China) and forced to fight against the Japanese invaders during the Anti-Japanese War. Interesting factoid from our tout, the pavilion was previously called “Catching Chiang Pavilion” (捉蒋亭), but the name was changed when the Premier of Taiwan visited Xi’an a few years ago. Don’t you just love to see political hypocrisy in action? I mean between us and our tout…

Chiang Kaishek climbed up the cliff and hid in the hole behind me.... ok, I have to admit... this was actually kinda cool

We also ALMOST saw Hua Qing pool (华清池) where Emperor Xuan Zong used to spend his leisure hours with Lady Yang Gui Fei. Yang Gui Fei’s bathing pool was supposed to be made entirely of lantian jade. I wish I could upload some pictures of this amazing pool, but quote from our tout (again, I cannot make this shit up): “There’s no point going in and squeezing with the crowd, you can peer over the wall and see the pool from the top of this hill too!”

Oh yeah… the Terracotta Warriors were kind of great too… I think…

By the time we reached the pits, we only had two and a half hours left to browse the exhibits before closing time.

Silver Lining: Maybe it's good that we don't get to spend too much time with the Terracotta Warriors... there was a real possibility that we might break something...

We also didn't have time to make our faces into Terracotta ones... ok... this one is listed under "Not a bad thing" too

We saw the most impressive pit in almost total darkness.

The legends are true. The faces of the Terracotta Warrior were individually sculpted. No two Warriors share the same face... at least that's what the display signs tell us. It was kinda dark for us to see...

Real (Terracotta) Warriors don't need lights!

Xi’an has been at the centre for so much of Chinese history that any quack archaeologist could point in a random direction and hit an ancient burial site or parts of some old city wall. We heard from a source well known for their unwavering honesty (our tout/taxi driver) that the Xi’an subway project took 4 years to complete, mainly because instead of blasting right through, they had to do most of the tunnelling work using brushes for fear of accidentally destroying some historical artefact. (True story)

Xi’an is one of the largest tourist cities in China, and a lot of Xi’an-ites rely on tourism to make their living. (90% of whom tried to convince us to join their Terracotta Warriors tours). Yet the people of Xi’an proudly declare that “there are no nice sceneries within 1000000000000 miles from Xi’an” (a very rough translation).

Tourists come to Xi’an to see the historical sights and to walk the path of the ancients. Because of this, most tourists (like us) coming to Xi’an “just to see the Terracotta Warriors” normally end up visiting an insane amount of archaeological sites and falling asleep at museums.

I’ll be the first person to admit that I am not a fan of most “archaeological finds”. Before you history buffs get your terracotta panties in a bunch, let me stress that I KNOW I AM AN UNSOPHISTICATED LOUT. I know many of these objects that have been dug up contain huge historical, artistic and cultural value, and that they retain essential information, crucial in the piecing together of the stories of our ancestors.

I’m just saying that, to me PERSONALLY, seeing huge display cases of vases, pots and pans makes me feel like I am walking through the crockery section of Giant Megastore.

Having said that, even an uncouth barbarian like me was suitably wowed by the Han Yang Ling Museum and Mausoleum (汉阳陵).

Some quick facts: Han Yang Ling was built in 126 BC for the fourth Han Emperor, Han Jing Di, Liu Qi and his Queen, Wang Shi. Like many other archaeological finds in Xi’an, the tomb was discovered in the outskirts of Xi’an when a quack archaeologist pointed in a random direction and dug in. Han Yang Ling Museum was built for exhibiting, protecting and studying the relics unearthed from the mausoleum.

I know… it sounds kind of boring and a lot less sexy than Qin Shi Huang’s Terracotta Warriors from this description, but believe me, it is one of the most awesome museums we’ve been to.

For one thing, Han Yang Ling is very much a work in progress. Excavation work is being carried out as we speak. The museum is built over the burial pits and glass floors are built over the pits so tourists can peer into the half uncovered burial items. On working days, real life archaeologists allegedly can be seen excavating the pits. Jo not so politely reminded me that Dr Henry Jones would probably not be at the excavation site as I hummed the Indiana Jones theme song while we walked through the displays.

Standing over the Emperor's tomb. Someone DEFINITELY walked over his grave

Being less of a big name draw than the Terracotta Warriors also means that there are a lot less people at the museum. It’s kind of tranquil, walking in the huge grounds and gardens around the museum without the blaring of tour guides on loud speakers in the background. It also helps that we were able to have most of the displays to ourselves instead of having to peer at them over other people’s shoulders.

A walk in the park.... with NO STAIRS!!

Most importantly, the displays themselves are not that shabby. True, the clay figurines of Han Jing Di are A LOT smaller in size than the Terracotta Warriors, but they are definitely no less impressive in scale or in detail. In fact, the meticulousness with which the sculptors made each statue is kind of awe-inspiring.

The nude bodies of the Han clay figures were first moulded (complete with genitalia) (tee hee hee), each statue would then be fitted with clothes and moveable wooden arms (Han Jing Di was a big fan of action figures), before having individual faces fitted on and painted… or so the display signs tell us. After years of being in the tombs, the wooden arms and elaborate silk clothing had mostly been corroded away and the paint oxidized off. So what we see now are these…

Weird armless, naked statues.

I hope Han Jing Di enjoys nudist soccer in the afterlife.