Week 113 - Ulaanbaatar, Ulan Ude, Olkhon Island (Mongolia, Russia)

After realising the Russian woman in our cabin wasn’t traveling with the man with verbal diarrhea, (it was the pillow over the head and pretending to be asleep that really gave it away), we managed to get a couple of hours of sleep before we arrived at the Mongolian border. The train pulled in and we sat at the station for nearly 4 hours.

Immigration was pretty straight forward and we had plenty of time to get out and stretch our legs on the platform. You could tell we were now on a train with Russian attendants, they were a little scary and intimidating and the man walked around in his pyjamas all the time grabbing us to tell us to get out the way and ordering us back to our beds. The border station was in the middle of nowhere and there wasn’t anywhere really to go. The most exciting thing to happen was the realisation that all the other train carriages had disappeared, as had our engine. We had been expecting to find black market money changers at the border and were disappointed to find there wasn’t anyone there to meet us, no money changers, no food carts, nothing.

Our lonesome carriage, abandoned at the Mongolian border.

Finally, we got a new engine and rolled over the border to Russia. The immigration procedures were pretty straight forward again but with more intense searches of the train. Along with an English and an Australian couple from the cabin next to ours, we headed straight to the loo as you can’t use those on the train when in stations, and we had another 3 hours before we’d be moving on. It turned into a big drama since you had to pay for the loo and no one had any roubles. There was absolutely noting or no one around again apart from the odd Russian van driving passed and a sweet shop across the road.

At last we were joined to another 3 carriages and we set off to Ulan Ude. It had been snowing and everywhere was white, the trees, the hills, the roads, the rooftops. We gazed out of the window, trying to keep distance from the smelly man in our cabin, as the train zigzagged over the Selenga River and skirting around Goose Lake.

We’d spent most of the daylight hours sitting at border stations and it wasn’t long until darkness fell and people started getting ready for bed. Luckily for us, we were getting off the train that night. We rolled in to Ulan Ude, grabbed our bags and escaped to the platform. With all the strong lights the snow sparkled like glitter and although it was bitterly cold it looked quite magical, until I slid down the stairs. Unhurt, we continued and before long were at our hostel.

Immediately we could tell something was odd about the place. Our room backed on to a dirty common room with plates piled up in the sink and on the table and TV blaring. Our room had windows on two walls and no curtains so half of Ulan Ude could watch you getting changed and the shower room was some bizarre communal set up with a toilet in the middle. It felt more like a halfway house with strange old Russian men hanging around and walking in to our room looking for lighters. We popped to the 24 hour shop downstairs to buy our first bottle of Russian vodka and locked our door.

The next day we decided to have a chilled day. We stayed in bed late, found a breakfast cake and an egg had been left on the table for us, then ventured out to the central square to see a giant statue of Lenin’s head. The statue is 7.7m high and weights 42 tonnes and is one of the only tourist sites of interest in the town. We were a bit unprepared for just how cold it was and after walking around in circles a few times trying to find a supermarket, we walked back to the hostel, buying sausages, cheeses and breads on the way, for dinner.

The giant Lenin head, Ulan Ude.

The next day we had to check out of our room at lunch but had 10 hours until our train was due to leave for Irkutsk. Not being able to bare the thought of sitting around the hostel we decided to don our thermals and head to the Ivolginsky Datsan, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery that is the centre of Siberian Buddhism. Although our hostel had given us the wrong information, a nice bus driver picked us up and took us to the bus station (an empty car park) for free and pointed us to the right bus. After changing to another bus in the village of Ivolga we arrived at the entry gate. The complex was a lot smaller than we’d imagined. Built in 1946, it’s pretty new and only took us about 20 minutes to complete a lap, spinning prayer wheels and entering a few of the buildings that were open. It felt like quite a journey for nothing too spectacular but considering how little there is to do in Ulan Ude it was a good way to while away a few hours.

One of the buildings at the Ivolginsky Datsan, near Ulan Ude.

Back in town we decided to walk along the pedestrianised street to the Virgin Hodegetria Cathedral. I’d hoped we’d pass some of the beautiful wooden buildings we’d seen elsewhere and from bus windows while I had the camera to hand but the buildings were modern. The wooden buildings have door and window frames carved so intricately that they appear to have lace cloth drapped over them. We found the cathedral, saw it was much smaller than we expected, peered in the door, took a photo of the golden bulbs mounting the white spires and continued to try and find the Trinity Church. It was -21C and every bit of exposed skin was hurting from the cold. We couldn’t find an easy route to the church and gave up to go back to the warmth of the hostel.

It was as weird as ever at the hostel and we didn’t want to sit there in the dirty kitchen feeling unwelcome for the next couple of hours. We discovered a ‘lounge’ in the same building where you paid for the time you were there, had free coffee and biscuits, good music playing and fast wifi and settled in, returning to collect our bags and eat our left over sausage and cheese before going back to the lounge to wait for the train.

We didn’t fall in love with Ulan Ude and other than giving us a chance to catch up on sleep there wasn’t a whole lot to do. The city is the capital of the Buryat Republic, a federal subject of Russia and it was interesting to be in a Russian city, with stereotypical Russian people with their full length fur coats, fur hats and boots alongside the Buryat people, a subgroup of the Mongols. The Buryat’s share a lot of customs with Mongolia (including nomadic herding and using gers for shelter) and speak a Mongol dialect. 

The Russian Federation is made up of 85 federal subjects, 22 of which are republics that mostly represent areas of non-Russian ethnicity. The Republics have their own constitutions and their own official languages. The parliamentary assemblies of the republics have even enacted laws which are at odds with the federal constitution although Putin has tried to reduce their autonomy and impose the supremacy of the federal constitution (got to love Wikipedia).

Finally, it was time to head to the station where our train was waiting on the platform. After a bundle at the door to get our tickets checked, we were allowed on and settled in to our carriage, for once being lucky enough to share it with a non-snoring lady. We settled in for a few too many drinks as the train rolled out of the station. Other than the heat (Russian train attendants seem intent on cooking you in your sleep), we slept ok, just not for long enough and before we knew it we were being woken to hand our sheets back in.

When we reached Irkutsk, it was still dark. We had directions to take a tram to the minibus park by the central market and headed across the river and in to the city. We still had a couple of hours before the bus was due to leave and found a small coffee shop, to hide from the cold until the sun rose, where wet omelette was on the menu.

Finally it was light enough for us to find the bus park and check we could get seats. Passing a glove stall we realised we weren’t prepared for the cold and ended up buying super thick gloves (which with the state of our tatty clothes are probably the nicest things we own) and making a short lap of the food market to waste time. The bus had free seats and we were directed to settle in with our luggage on the back row. We’d hoped to nap on route but being over the back wheels on a bumpy road didn’t give us much opportunity. The journey went smoothly, taking 5 hours including a very scenic albeit short ferry ride over to Olkhon Island with the only scare being when the driver ordered us out of the bus at a loo stop and then disappeared, with all our bags and passports still on board. Thankfully he returned 20 minutes later. 

Me at the ferry pier, heading to Olkhon Island.

By the time we reached the town of Khuzhir, a cluster of wooden buildings on the lakeshore, we were tired and ready to be in a warm room with a comfy bed. We’d reserved a place at Nikita’s, the most famous homestead on the island and in no time had our wish. We were taken to a separate building set away from the main compound, where there were about 10 rooms around a courtyard with their own canteen - the main buildings owned by Nikita seemed to be closed for maintenance.

Rather than explore that evening and bearing in mind we only had an hour or so left of sunlight, we relaxed in our room before dinner was due to be served. The food was far better than we’d expected, we had fish broth, fresh bread, dumplings, lots of beetroot and a plate of chicken and rice. Impressed, we went to bed with full stomachs, glad to be at an all inclusive homestay where we’d get to try some good Russian food.

Olkhon Island is the largest island on Lake Baikal. It’s about 70km long and 15km wide and is sparsely inhabited, only getting electricity in 2005. It’s a mixture of grassy steppes, woodland, sandy beaches and towering cliffs with views across the water to the rolling mountains on the mainland. For 3 months of the year, the lake is frozen up to a depth of 3 metres and you can drive to the island. As winter was only just beginning, we could see the ice starting to form but couldn’t drive across. Instead, we crossed by ferry and contented ourselves with peering at the icicles hanging from the cliffs and the small iceburgs floating in the lake.

Lake Baikal, known romantically as ‘the blue eye of Siberia’ is one of the world’s largest freshwater lakes and holds 20% of the planets fresh water. If every other source of freshwater were to dry up, the water held in the lake could still provide for the entire population of the world for 40 years. At it’s deepest, it reaches 1,637m and its about 400 miles long and between 20 and 40 miles wide. The lake is a UNESCO site and is ringed by nature reserves, but it is still threatened by factories flushing their rubbish in to feeder rivers and oil and gas pipelines nearby (there is fear that a pipeline might rupture as it’s an earthquake zone).

After a great sleep we had breakfast in our canteen before dressing in our thermals and heading out. As the hours of daylight are short there was no point setting an alarm to be up early. We had decided to walk south in the morning, return for lunch, then walk north in the afternoon. By the time we started walking it was gone 10am but the sun was still very low in the sky. Over the first cliff, we reached the Khuzhir pier and were stunned to see the ice covering the wooden structure. Inches thick and with thousands of delicate icicles it was beautiful. 

The coast by Nikitas, Khuzhir, Olkhon Island.

Rhys on the frozen Khuzhir pier, Olkhon Island.

We continued along the coast, following the frozen beach to the promontory to peer into the next bay, glad that the temperature was much kinder than it had been in Ulan Ude. It seems so bizarre to see the beach covered in inches of ice and you have to keep reminding yourself that it’s fresh water and in a month, the whole lake will be one sheet of ice. It was incredibly peaceful and we only saw a few other people as we walked. 

Ice ont he beach south of Khuzhir, Olkhon Island.

At the end of our exploration south, we came across a frozen pond, about the size of half a football pitch. Rhys tested it out and as the ice was ridiculously thick, I followed. It’s the first time either of us has walked on a completely frozen pond like that. 

Rhys braving the frozen pond, Olkhon Island.

2 1/2 hours later and we were back in our cabin and it was time for lunch, another Russian feast. We didn’t waste much time before we pulled our boots on again to wander north along the coast. Close to Nikita’s, was Shaman Rock, a rocky outcrop with a curving beach and spectacular views. We continued along Long Beach, as always, picking up a dog on route to accompany us. The scenary was breathtakingly beautiful and peaceful and was only disturbed by the odd snowball or us stamping through ice overhangs on the shore.

Shaman's Rock, Khuzhir, Olkhon Island.

By the time we arrived back in the village we’d been gone for another 2 1/2 hours. Before going back to our cabin we walked along the track that acts as the main road and found one of the only shops that had stayed open passed the high season. We bought a couple of litre cans of Tuborg (made for giants, Tim, you’d love them) and bought a treat for our dog.

Back at Nikita’s we tried to book a trip to the northern most point of the island for the following day, supposedly the best trip offering spectacular views, but it being off season and there not being many people around, when we were told the price for two people we balked and decided against it. Our dog found it’s way into the compound and followed us back to the cabin where it sat outside pining for us while the sunset turned the sky a bright fushia.

After dinner we stole outside with pieces of bread for the dog and then just as we were starting to get ready for bed there was a knock at our door. A couple at another homestead in the village had called Nikitas, keen to go on the trip north the following day. Excited, we agreed and paid for our seats.

We slept late the next day and rolled out of bed in time for a quick breakfast before the van arrived to collect us. We were delighted to see it was another UAZ-452 Russian van (although abit more road weary than our Mongolian one). We jumped in and claimed the best seats. The other couple were running late but finally we were on our way, bumping and rattling along the islands dirt tracks. There are no tarmac roads on the island and the further north you go, the worse the trails get. The van had no problems though and was sprinting up steep, ice covered inclines and swerving around trees onto the flattest paths, our driver was brilliant.

We stopped 5 or 6 times over the course of the day, first traveling up the east coast, before stopping at Cape Khoboy, the northern peninsula of the island and returning along the west coast passing through acres of forest and kilometre after kilometre of windswept steppes along the way. We drove past Long Beach, where we’d walked the previous day and stopped at Crocodile Rock (that did really look like a giant crocodile) and other rock formations before reaching Khoboy, the most sacred part of the island. The whole island is considered one of the five global poles of shamanic energy by the Buryat people and there are coins, lighters and even spark plugs scattered around the rocky peninsulas. 

Coastal view on the north coast road, Olkhon Island.

Out in the snow, me and the north coast route, Olkhon Island.

Rhys at Cape Khoboy, Olkhon Island.

After a picnic lunch in the van with delicious fish and our happy driver gesturing and pointing at things (it wasn’t soup, it was tea), we had a couple more stops before we began the drive back, along the islands spine and through the pine forest to Nikitas. As the sunset had turned the sky such a bright pink the night before, we asked to be let out at the top of the hill overlooking the village incase it was repeated. Sadly it wasn’t and by the time we made it back to our room we were cold through. 

Frozen beach and the last stop of our northern Olkhon tour.

The next day we were up and waiting for the minibus to take us back to Irkutsk. It arrived 30 minutes late and we were squashed in to rubbish seats. It took about 40 minutes to drive to the port where a ferry was just pulling in. Thinking we’d be across and back on the mainland in no time, we were surprised when our van didn’t move. 4 hours later and we were still sitting there. The ferry man had heard there was a storm coming in and didn’t want to sail. We were getting increasingly uncomfortable, cold and bored, and were disheartened when the 3 vans waiting made the joint decision to turn back to Khuzhir. Luckily, as the ferry wasn’t running, no new tourists could arrive and our room was empty and waiting for us. 

We’d missed lunch so we dropped our bags in our room and went straight to the shop, accompanied by our favourite island dog who was rewarded for her loyalty with biscuits. By the time we got back to our room, the sun had gone down. We had a few hours to waste with cups of tea and Russian vodka before dinner, then we headed to bed, hoping to make it back to Irkutsk the following day to catch our 4pm train.

Week 112 - Beijing, Ulaanbaatar, Semi Gobi, Terelj (China, Mongolia)

Our train left Beijing just before midday to begin the Trans Mongolian leg of our journey. Excited, we dropped our bags in our cabin and headed to the front of the train to take some photos. The train was pretty empty and until we reached the China border we had the cabin to ourselves. We whiled away the hours reading, watching the world go by and enjoying the included, basic lunch and dinner in the dining cabin. From the craggy mountains around Beijing, the landscape flattened as we headed towards Inner Mongolia. We reached the neon lights of the border at Erlyan just before 10pm.

Waiting for the train to leave, Beijing.

After the guard collected our passports, the train started moving again and we found ourselves in the sheds. The Chinese railway system operates on standard gauge which is 3.5 inches narrower than the five foot gauge in Mongolia and the former Soviet Union. Once in the shed, all the carriages were separated and while we peered through the tiny window at the end of ours, giant hydraulic lifts raised the carriages and the bogies (undercarriage) were rolled out and replaced. After we’d been lowered back to the track, the train returned to the platform and our passports were returned. All up, the process took about 3 hours.

Watching the bogies being changed, Erlyan.

The train left Erlyan and 30 minutes later we rolled into Dzamyn-Ude, the Mongolian border. Customs officials collected our passports again and after they were returned, we settled down to get some sleep. Just our luck that the guy who had joined us at Erlyan was a snorer and a fitful nights sleep ensued. At one point I had to wake him up to ask him to roll over and Rhys had to keep slamming the door to make enough noise to stir him. 

The train continued through the night and when we woke we found ourselves in the Gobi Desert. Although the train tracks don’t pass the huge rolling sand dunes that you’d expect to see in a desert (sand dunes only cover 5% of the Gobi), the views were spectacular with vast, endless grassy steppes and sky of the clearest blue, seemingly brighter and crisper than normal. The Gobi stretches 1000km north to south and 2400km west to east and lies in the rain shadow of the Himalayas. The Gobi is a cold desert and it’s not unusual to see frost and snow on the dunes. We passed scattered ger, tents inhabited by Mongolian nomadic herders and herds of cashmere goats, sheep, really fluffy horses, cows and a few camels.

Train ride through the Gobi, approaching Ulaanbaatar.

Rhys discovered a window near the back of the train that we could open to take some photos (the train windows were filthy) and we took it in turns to wander back there through the twenty or so doors that separate each carriage, passed the coal burners that heat the rooms and the water.

We arrived in to Ulaanbaatar in the late afternoon and were collected from the station by our hostel, Sunpath. We checked in to our warm, cozy room and took warm showers before heading out to find a cash point and a mini market. It was much colder than it had been in Beijing and after a quick visit to the Sukhe Bator Square in the heart of the city, dominated by the Parliament House, we hurried back to the hostel. The city is the coldest capital city in the world with average annual temperatures of -1.4C (plunging to -30C in winter) but has 260 days of sun each year meaning it is crisp and blue rather than grey and miserable.

Parliament House, Sukhe Bator Square, Ulaanbaatar.

We’d booked into the hostel mainly because it’s tours get rave reviews and with limited time in Mongolia and knowledge that the roads and public transport are sketchy at best, we decided a tour would maximise what we could see. You don’t want to be standing by the roadside in the middle of nowhere, in temperatures below freezing, hoping a bus will come that for some unknown reason decides not to run that day.

At 8:30am we were up, packed and ready to head out. We met our tour guide and driver and were excited to see we’d be traveling in a old Russian van, a UAZ-452. With 6 seats in the back we had plenty of room and the windows allowed us 180 degree views as we drove along the bumpy roads. The heater was roaring the whole time and we were toasty inside and made ourselves at home. The vans are favoured by Sunpath as they are extremely reliable and the drivers are constantly cleaning and checking them over. 

Me and our van.

Mongolia has traditionally had a strong relationship with Russia and Soviet troops were deployed to help Mongolia following the 1919 Chinese invasion. Soviet influence soon became dominant. Wealth was redistributed, the nobility exterminated, religion suppressed, and Mongolian culture denied expression (Mongolian script was even replaced with Cyrillic as in Russia). The Stalinist repressions in Mongolia climaxed between 1937 and 1939 with the execution of 3% of the population and hundreds of temples and monasteries were destroyed with metal statues shipped to the USSR for scrap. Although the Russian presence had helped Outer Mongolia obtain independence from China, the history and culture was being erased. In 1992 a democratic constitution was adopted and Mongolia’s relationship with Russia weakened. 

Our guide told us that in the last 20 years, Mongolia has moved from a country of nomadic communism to democratic city dwellers with increased foreign investment, particularly in mines leading to less ground available to herders. Ulaanbaatar has changed dramatically. The population has increased and the city is now home to 40% of the Mongolian population (the total population of Mongolia is 2.8mil, just shy of the 3.1mil in Wales but the country is 75 times larger than Wales). In response to the population increase there has been a construction boom and apartment blocks are rising everywhere you look. With 4 power plants in the city and coal the main energy source, Ulaanbaatar has become the 2nd most polluted city on the planet (the first is in Iran) and you can’t help but notice the layer of smog that hangs on the horizon as you drive away and out in to the country. 

Mongolia currently has very few tarmac roads and the government has recently revealed action plans to increase coverage to link more remote areas of the country. At present, there are only two main tarmac roads and we spent about 3 hours driving west along one of them. We stopped for lunch at a road side cafe and our guide ordered for us. It was delicious, a carb and meat heavy dish of beef, gravy, potatoes, pasta, bread, rice and cabbage, washed down with salty, extremely milky green tea. The food on our 3 day trip was to be one of the highlights. Having a Mongolian guide with us meant she could suggest local specialties for us to eat taking the stress out of ordering food when you’re unable to read the menu. As vegetables are hard to grow, the food revolves around meat and it’s all free range and incredibly meaty tasting, no part of the animal is wasted. For a country of less than 3 million people, there are more than 45 million animals.

We had another 2 and a half hours to drive to camp, the last hour being off road and including a frozen stream crossing, but the time flew as we watched the majesty of the steppes rolling past from the van windows. As there are no trees it’s incredibly hard to gauge perspective and until you see a herd on a hillside as specks in the distance you don’t realise how big and empty the place really is. It’s easy to understand why Outer Mongolia has become a byword for ‘the middle of nowhere’, it’s a wilderness like you can’t even imagine. Despite there not seeming to be much about, there were hundreds of buzzards and falcons and Siberian hamsters running around. We even saw a couple of groups of vultures feeding on road kill. It’s only when you start noticing all the bones and skulls scattered around that you start to understand how harsh the environment is.

View from the Ger camp, Semi Gobi.

By the time we reached camp the sun was getting low in the sky. We were staying in the guest ger of a nomadic family, a husband, wife and their 9 month old baby who was in a stroller tied up in the family ger so her parents could get on with their chores without worrying about her burning herself on the central stove. After tea with the family and an incredibly hard piece of dried curd to suck on, we were shown our ger. It was a 6 sided, round tent with conical roof. There was the main wooden structure, coated in felt, then a waterproof layer and then a layer of white cotton with patterned material hung up around the inside for decoration. In the centre there was a wood burning stove and 6 beds were arranged around the edge. The furniture in the gers reminds me of the gypsy style we have at home with bright coloured paintings.

We didn’t have long to relax before we had to put on our thermals and mount our horses. It wasn’t quite the ‘ride’ we’d expected, more like a donkey outing on Brighton beach. We were walked around the scrub surrounding the ger and as the horses live wild, they’re a bit skittish and we couldn’t take photos of the surroundings incase it scared them. Back at the gers we swapped our horses for camels and were grateful to dismount, the wooden saddles were incredibly uncomfortable. The camels on the other hand were crazy comfy, wedged between the two fluffy humps, it was like sitting on a heated car seat. 

Me on my camel, Semi Gobi.

By the time we returned to camp the sun wasn’t far from setting. We had a flask of tea brought to our ger and stoked the fire with more dried dung to warm it up. As the sun dropped, so did the temperature and it was bitterly cold, below -10C, not the best tent weather. We had mutton fried dumplings brought to our room for dinner and with nothing left to do after popping out to admire the stars for as long as we could bare the cold, turned in for an early night, huddled under three layers of sleeping bags and fully dressed.

We had expected to be woken by the sun but hadn’t factored in how late it rises in the Gobi, (we experienced near on 12 hours of darkness) and instead we were woken by the local lady making up our fire. Once we emerged, we had rice pudding with more mutton dumplings for breakfast before walking out to the back of the camp to see the camels, who had frozen nostrils after a night in subzero temperatures. Our guide brought us some clothes belonging to the nomads for us to try, then we took some photos while the sun rose of the herd of sheep and goats, who had been rounded up to the front of the camp to keep them sheltered and safe from the wolves and then climbed back in to the van to head back to Ulaanbaatar, discovering the bottle of water we’d left in the van had completely frozen solid. 

Frozen camel, Semi Gobi.

The herd outside the gers in the early morning, Semi Gobi.

Me and Rhys wearing the nomads clothes outside our ger, Semi Gobi.

As we’d driven the same road the previous day and it was just endless steppes, it was starting to get a little repetitive although still spectacularly beautiful and we spotted more foxes and gazelles. We stopped on route for lunch again, this time at a different stretch of roadside cafes, where we had hearty mutton dumplings. Unlike delicate Tibetan momo’s, these dumplings were heavy, juicy and very very flavoursome.

Once we reached Ulaanbaatar, we drove to the south of the city where we stopped by the river side at the Zaisan Memorial, built by the Soviets with panoramic views of the city to celebrate Russian-Mongolian co-operation in WWII. Our guide pointed out where the buildings used to finish and rolling hills started, now the memorial is surrounded by building sites.

Leaving Ulaanbaatar behind, we drove an hour and a half west to the Gorkhi-Terelj National Park, following the frozen river with kids skating, that runs through the city. An alpine valley crisscrossed by icy streams and lined with stunning, huge, rounded boulders. By the time we reached the park, the sun had dropped behind the mountains. We still had a few hours of sunlight and on our way to the ger camp, stopped at the much photographed Turtle Rock, which for once, actually did look like a turtle. Our guide pointed out a small crevice that we could shimmy through to emerge at the other side of the rock for views of the valley.

Turtle rock, Terelj National Park.

Next we found our camp amongst the many camps in the valley and joined the family in their ger for tea and more dried curd. They had a three year old kid dressed up in local clothes and when he wasn’t dragging their cat around by it’s tail, he was trying to get us to play with him. When kids are tiny here they wrap them up against the cold, so they’re nothing but a bundle of fabric and they can’t bend their arms or legs, then, when they get older, especially the boys, wear traditional clothes and they look adorable. When you’re out of Ulaanbaatar, nearly everyone still wears traditional clothes but in the city western styles prevail and this has resulted in back and kidney problems as the clothes aren’t warm enough.

We had some spare time before dinner and our guide suggested we take a walk up the hill next to the camp. Although the sun was low in the sky the view was still impressive and quite mystical and the walk allowed us time to collect wood for the fire in our room. Dinner of homemade noodle soup was served in the families ger then we retired to our own ger to read in the warmth of our beds. The temperature was no where near as cold as it had been the previous night and we slept comfortably.

The next morning breakfast wasn’t until 9am so we had some time to venture out to explore. The sun was just hitting the top of the valley when we wandered up to the top of another hill nearby with a huge round boulder teetering on it’s edge on the peak. We watched the sun come up with two dogs we’d picked up on route before heading down to warm up with breakfast rice pudding and tea. It’s refreshing to be in a country where they respect dogs, believing they get reincarnated as people in their next life.

Rhys by one of the boulders on the hill top near our ger, Terelj National Park.

Rhys admiring the view, Terelj National Park.

We still had the full day before we had to head back to the city so our guide took us on the short walk to the Aryapala Buddhist meditation retreat. It was only a small building with a few prayer wheels but after our guide left us we had a few hours before lunch and decided to walk up the mountain behind the monastery. We were aiming for a crevice that looked like the easiest route but as there were no paths (Mongolian’s aren’t really into walking and you have to make your own way through the undergrowth), we ended up getting separated and it took us a while to regroup. Rhys made it to the top of the mountain while I waited below having come across a sheer rock face on the path i’d chosen. Lesson learned, next time, follow Rhys up the mountain.

Aryapala Meditation Retreat, Terelj National Park.

View of the valley from the mountain behind the Meditation retreat, Terelj National Park.

We hadn’t left ourselves enough time to get back to camp for lunch and had to apologise for being late, only for dinner to be served an hour and a half later than expected. The late lunch did give us a chance to watch the lady cooking, sheering off chunks of meat from a huge frozen slab with a super sharp cleaver. This camp was a lot more touristy than our first ger, with the family making money primarily from tourism compared to the animal husbandry of the nomadic family and being closer to the city the availability of ingredients for food and the standard of furniture in the gers (this was a permanent camp unlike the seasonal one in the desert) obviously benefited. 

After lunch, we packed the van and headed back towards the city, stopping at a huge shiny, silver, 40m tall stature of Genghis Khan on horseback (called Chinggis Khan by Mongolian people) topping a small but interesting museum building. The museum and statue were well worth the stop and were intended to be the centre piece of a huge complex but money ran out and now all but the centre feels like it’s been abandoned with cracked paving stones and overgrown grass.

Genghis Khan statue, near Ulaanbaatar.

Once back in the city, we checked back into our hostel and said our goodbyes to our guide and driver. We cooked dinner at the hostel and spent the evening chatting to the three other people staying there, over a bottle of local vodka.

Having had a busy couple of days we had a lay in the next day, venturing out at lunch time to find the food court in the State Department Store. Ordering food was a stressful event and the meal was pretty mediocre. The best outcome of our trip was the discovery of a supermarket where we could actually buy enough ingredients to cook a proper meal that night, and of a BHS (that’s right, British Home Stores have made it to Mongolia). We collected our train tickets for the following night from a travel agency in town and wandered back to the hostel to get out of the cold.

We had a night train the following day and luckily our hostel let us keep our room for a late checkout. We spent the morning watching TV and chilling in the lounge. After lunch, I walked to the National Museum of Mongolia which, despite a lack of info in English in some of the halls, was very well laid out with a particularly impressive collection of Mongolian costume.

We ate dinner at the hostel before a free transfer to the train station. We boarded our train at 20:25 and found we were sharing our cabin with a Russian woman and a Russian man who I originally thought were traveling together. I was wrong and the woman was as exasperated as we were with the man who had some serious hygiene problems and hadn’t washed in a year and who had the worst case of verbal diarrhea i’d ever come across. He did not shut up for the entire 26 hour journey and when he wasn’t chuntering away, he was snoring. He didn’t seem to care that we couldn’t understand a word he was saying and was content to talk at us.

Week 111 - Wutai Shan, Datong, Beijing (China)

After our manic night trying to find a bed in Wutai Shan, we treated ourselves to a lay in. When we did venture out, we realised just how closed up the town was. The season ended a week previously and it seemed like everyone had packed up and left. We waited for a shuttle and before long an empty bus pulled up to take us a couple of stops to the centre where we bought chairlift tickets and headed up to Dailuo Peak for views over the valley.

View from the chairlift to Dailuo Peak, Wutai Shan.

Wutai Shan is a sacred Buddhist mountain range, with five peaks enclosing a small, grey, bland tourist orientated town, with a river running through. The area is thought to be the earthly abode of Manjusri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, and in the Ming Dynasty, Tibetan Buddhists, for whom Manjusri is important, starting arriving and building new structures in place of the hundreds destroyed in the 9th century official persecution of Buddhism. Now there are still over 50 temples in the valley and dotting the surrounding mountains, with a high concentration in the town itself. Since we only had one day we decided to concentrate on seeing the larger, most important sights in the centre. 

After Dailuo Peak and a wander around the temple at the top, we walked back down to the main road and headed north. We stumbled upon a newer, brightly painted temple where we were the only visitors, before walking further to a couple of striking pagodas in a disheveled complex. Turning back towards the centre and after an expensive lunch stop at one of the only places that seemed to be open, we found the white stupa of Tayuan Temple, shown on every poster of Wutai Shan, and walked around spinning the prayer wheels, before discovering the entrance to Xiantong Temple. Xiantong Temple was beautiful with huge buildings set around serene courtyards with the central halls painted with murals and filled with golden statuary and a small Bronze Hall cast and gilt in 1606 and weighing 50 tonnes. 

Tayuan Temple stupa, Wutai Shan.

Inside one of the temples in the Xiantong complex, Wutai Shan.

The Bronze Hall, Xiantong Temple, Wutai Shan.

By then, Rhys was tired and jumped on a shuttle bus back to the hotel. I wandered around a few other smaller temples in the centre before visiting Shuxiang Temple where the main hall was closed but the sounds of the monks inside chanting and drumming reverberated around the courtyard. Next, I decided to hop on a bus a couple of kilometres south to the Nanshan Temple. The bus dropped me at the side of the main road from here I had a 20 minute walk up a steep hill through the forest with no one around, it was incredibly peaceful. The temple was worth the walk, with steep staircases leading though stone carved arches to seemingly never ending courtyards with views across the valley.

Nanshan Temple complex, Wutai Shan.

By the time I was finished at Nanshan the sun had dropped behind the Western Peak and it was time to head back to the hotel, struggling to find a shop open and selling anything but mushrooms to pick up pot noodles for dinner.

We had the alarm set for an early start as we hadn’t been able to find reliable information for bus times online. We ended up waking up the hotel staff to refund our key deposit before walking the kilometre south to the bus station. We had a very cold hour wait at the station before the minibus left and in -6C temperatures, lost the feeling in our toes. Thankfully, they turned the heater on on the bus and before long we were roasting and content, passing through stunning mountain scenery and frozen streams, to Datong.

Once in Datong. We jumped off the bus and made our way to the hotel we’d booked. Although a little far from the centre, we were impressed with the room, considering our hotel in Wutai Shan was supposed to be 4 star, this place had a lot more going for it, including 24 hour hot water and a heater in the room.

We were only in Datong for one night and for one reason, to visit the Yungang Grottoes. After getting directions to the bus stop using a translator app with the receptionist, we headed out to brave the cold. The bus took about 30 minutes and at the end of the line we wandered around until we found a ticket office. We then had to enter the complex through a brand new theme park-esque temple area. The grottoes date from the 5th century and contain upwards of 51,000 statues, the oldest collection of Buddhist carvings in China. 

Buddhist carvings in the Yungang Grottoes, Datong.

Although not as big as the Longmen Grottoes, there were more larger statues, some set in niches and some inside caves. Out of the 45 caves open to the public (there were originally 252 caves), there were two that were particularly impressive, one with a 17m high golden Buddha surrounded by hundreds of smaller images with carved and painted surfaces, and one with a square pagoda you could walk around with every inch of surface carved and decorated and with more giant Buddhas in niches. 

Huge carved Buddha, Yungang Grottoes, Datong.

Once out of the park, we caught a bus back in to Datong and having not eaten all day, were drawn to the stalls of fruit and cakes lining our road. We ended up buying bags full of goodies and spending the rest of the evening in our room snacking and enjoying the hot shower.

The next day an English speaking guest at the hotel wrote the name of the bus station we needed to head to in Mandarin for us to show to a taxi driver. Before too long, we were at the station and buying tickets for the next available bus to Beijing. We had an hour to wait, grateful that this time the station was heated, before boarding our coach for the 5 hour drive. Once away from the huge coal mines and chimneys that surround Datong, we drove along spookily dead modern highways, passed field after field of yellow, dry crops edged with perfectly straight, leafless trees and sandstone mountains in the distance. 

The bus pulled in to the station and we followed the signs to the metro. Before long we were at the hotel. Rhys loves duck and we figured being in Beijing, a Peking Duck dinner should be on our to do list. A bit of research and we found a restaurant in walking distance of our hotel with great reviews and it didn’t fail to impress. It was a small restaurant with not much atmosphere on a back alley but the duck was delicious despite the screaming Chinese family next to us. Rhys finished the meal with the duck brain, considered a real delicacy.

The next day we decided to head over to the Forbidden City, one of the biggest tourist attractions in Beijing. The City was home to the Ming and Qing dynasties and for 500 years, entry uninvited was forbidden and punishable by death. It was a playground for the ruling classes. After queuing for 30 minutes with thousands of people to buy tickets we were herded through the main gates and into one of the huge courtyards that fill the complex. The sheer size of the place was impressive but we found it got quite repetitive with alley after alley of orange, green and terracotta walls punctuated by courtyards centred with huge halls. We probably would have got a lot more out of it with an audio guide but we just meandered through the maze of buildings and gardens, stopping at a clock exhibition and a treasures exhibition, trying to avoid the crowds for a few hours before deciding to head back to the hotel.

Me in the Forbidden City, Beijing.

Posing by one of the many orange, green and terracotta walls, Forbidden City, Beijing.

For dinner that evening, we walked around trying to find a night market we’d read about. When we finally found the right street, we were a little disappointed, unlike Xi’An it was very regimented, all the stalls looked identical and were in purpose built carts and the food they were selling were more curiosities than good food, starfish, spider, snake and scorpion kebabs and overcooked meat and tasteless dumplings.

Unidentifiable meat kebabs at the night market in Beijing.

It was Sunday the next day and i’d read about a weekend market that sounded like our cup of tea, we’d been talking about buying yet another vase and had enjoyed the time we’d spent browsing antique markets in Xi’An and Pingyao. We caught the metro south and found the huge market which took us hours to work our way around, astonished by the number of beads stalls and stalls selling nothing but polished walnuts. The walnut craze has been something we’ve seen everywhere we’ve been in China, they sell for stupid amounts of money and people buy them as status symbols, looking for perfect symmetry and age and then roll them in their hands to aid circulation. A vase had caught our attention early in the day but we were quoted £150 so left it to look elsewhere, when we couldn’t find anything we liked as much we headed back to try our bargaining skills, walking away with it for £40, feeling rather chuffed with ourselves.

Browsing the antiques market in Beijing.

After stopping back in our room for the afternoon, we had tickets for an early evening acrobatic show at the Chaoyang Theatre. The show only lasted an hour but the time was filled with men tumbling through hoops, women balancing and twirling parasols with their feet, contortionists, 12 people on a bicycle and then the finale had 8 motorbikes in a cage, lit up and somehow managing to dodge each other.

Still talking about what we’d just seen, we jumped in the metro to find another restaurant i’d read about, Mr Shi’s, this time one of the highest rated dumpling restaurants in the city. It was in a lively area crisscrossed with hutongs (alleys) to the north of the Forbidden City with lots of bars and restaurants. When we arrived we were surprised to find it empty (until we realised it was the second restaurant and the original was few doors up), but again, my research had done us well and we ended up ordering a second helping they were so good.

We had to collect our tickets to Mongolia the next morning and walked over to the CITS office. As most of it was closed for the APEC meet, we’d been given instructions to pick them up from a guy in finance who didn’t speak English. 

Next, we walked over to Tiananmen Square. Although we’d been nearby when we went to the Forbidden City we hadn’t actually seen it. The Square is the world’s largest public square and is nothing more than a concrete grey expanse, with serious security, surrounded by Soviet style buildings with a giant poster of Chairman Mao at one end. Although visually it wasn’t very appealing, everyone has seen the videos of the 1989 army tanks standing off with pro democracy demonstrators and we felt we had to visit.

Giant flower arrangement, Tiananmen Square, Beijing.

Guards, flags and a Chairman Mao portrait, Tiananmen Square, Beijing.

Rather than spend longer in the centre, we then decided to take the metro out to the Summer Palace on the outskirts of town. It was nothing like the Forbidden City. Set around a large lake, there were pavilions, bridges and gardens with the southern bank lined with temples, palace buildings and intricately painted corridors. We made the error of circling the lake first so by the time we got to the buildings we were getting tired and only picked a few of the larger ones to visit.

Me on one of the bridges by the lake of the Summer Palace, Beijing.

Pagoda on the southern bank of the lake at the Summer Palace.

We had another sightseeing day planned the following day, this time to one of the Seven Man-made Wonders of the World, the Great Wall of China. Although we’d initially hoped to get further out to less restored, quieter areas, as it’s a fair way from Beijing and not easy to get to in off season, we opted for a tour from the hostel around the corner from where we were staying. After a free breakfast, we boarded a bus and spent 2 hours driving out to the Mutianyu section of the wall. We paid extra to take the cable car to watchtower 14, to allow us more time on the wall and immediately knew we’d made the right decision. Far from being a busy touristed and overly restored stretch, the wall was quiet. Our guide had recommended walking west, passed watchtower 23, the boundary to the Mutianyu section, and passed the signs telling tourists not to go any further. From this point on, we were on the unrestored 700 year old wall and it was beautiful.

The first version of the wall was built during the Qin dynasty in 221-207BC, when China was unified for the first time, joining together smaller walls from previously individual kingdoms (the same guy who ordered the Terracotta Army for his tomb). The wall was intended for defense but performed better as an elevated highway. The wall was rebuilt and strengthened several times over the coming centuries and was eventually abandoned when the Manchu armies invaded. The tourist industry has saved it from turning to dust and there are sections that have been heavily restored with theme park-esque additions, for the domestic tourist industry. 

Rhys on the restored section of Mutianyu, the Great Wall of China.

The section of wall we visited in known for it’s Ming Dynasty guard towers and mountain vistas with the wall snaking off into the distance, winding over craggy peaks. It was far more popular with westerners than domestic tourists so was free of shouting tour group crowds. After we passed the tourist-no-go signs, we found ourselves on a crumbling, overgrown path and at one point the wall became so steep and was covered in crumbling loose rocks that we practically had to climb on all fours. We set ourselves a target of reaching watchtower 29 in the limited time we had and ended up walking so fast, to ensure we had as long as possible on the unrestored part, that we made it all the way to 37 before having to turn back to meet our group for lunch. The view from 37 was the highlight of the whole section and well worth the hike.

Me clambering up one of the unrestored sections, Mutianyu, Great Wall of China.

We had a decent Chinese buffet for lunch and a chat to some of the other people on our trip before boarding the bus again for the drive back to Beijing. 

As it was our last night in China, we’d already decided to go back to the hutong duck restaurant for dinner and were treated with pancakes as good, if not better than the first visit and with out the accompaniment of the screaming Chinese family we had the previous time.

Week 110 - Luoyang, Huashan, Xi'An, Pingyao, Wutaishan (China)

By midnight our train had been 4 hours behind schedule, by the time we pulled in to Luoyang station it was 8 hours late. We’d been on the train for 20 hours with the only pro being we had our own cabin and an electric point. The full day of sightseeing we’d planned to squeeze into our 13 hour change over in Luoyang went out of the window.

Out of the train station we found a bus that took a ridiculously long time to take us across town to the highspeed station where we dropped our bags after some language difficulties in the left luggage room and jumped in a taxi. We still just had enough time for a quick run around the Longmen Grottoes before we had to be back at the station. Luckily the entrance wasn’t far from the station and a fast walk through 600m of souvenir shops and food carts selling nasty pancakes and we arrived at the ticket booth. 

As we were buying tickets Rhys realised he’d left his itouch in the taxi. Leaving me to go into the attraction as we’d already paid, he ran back to the taxi rank on the off chance it might still be there. I’m told lots of shouting ensued with the group of taxi men just laughing and telling him to go to the police if he wanted.

While he was having difficulties with the taxi men, I had time to run around the site before it closed. The 1,500 year old grottoes are niches cut into the rock face along a 1 km stretch of the Yi River. Filled with more than 100,000 Buddha images, the site is considered one of China’s few remaining masterpieces of Buddhist rock carving. It was impressive to see with the star cave, the Ancestor Worshiping Temple, centered on a 17m tall Buddha with 8 other huge statues guarding him.

View of the Longmen Grottoes across the Yi River, Luoyang.

Leaving the grottoes we took a taxi back to the train station. Our bullet train left on time and reaching speeds of 305kph, we were whisked to Hua Shan where we caught another taxi to our guesthouse. We were dropped at the junction on the main road and after asking a few locals, found the right neon lit shop front that the rooms were behind. By that point it was getting late and having eaten at Luoyang station, we settled in for the night.

The next morning we woke early to catch a taxi to the ticket office where after a bit of confusion we purchased our extortionate entry tickets (all national parks in China cost a fortune to visit, this one was £28 for entry, bus to the cable car and cable car ticket). Although it’s possible to walk up to the North Peak, we opted to take the cable car to give us time at the top to complete a circuit of the East, South and West peaks before walking back down to Hua Shan village. 

Me on North Peak, Hua Shan.

Hua Shan is one of Taoism’s five sacred mountains and sees hordes of tourists visiting everyday to walk the trails, lined with pine trees and chain barriers covered in padlocks and strips of red material, with views of the valleys stretching out below. As the cable car ascended, we passed through a cloud and couldn’t see more than a couple of metres in front of us and were worried it might stay that way all day. Luckily, the peaks were above the clouds and we were rewarded with mystical scenes of mountains floating among the clouds. Even though we’d decided to skip most of the climb, we were still faced with hundreds of stairs and steep ascents to reach the other peaks, the South being the highest at 2,160m with the cable car only taking us to 1,615m. The further we got from the North Peak, the fewer tourists there were and we managed to get away from all the shrieking to enjoy the scenery. 

Clouds at Hua Shan.

One of the biggest draws for us that took us to Hua Shan in the first place, was the Plank Walk on East Peak and when we got there, there was no queue and only a few people on the trail. It’s known as one of the most dangerous hikes in the world but since the introduction of harnesses, is perfectly safe. The path only stretches for about 50m and is a mix of niches cut into the rock face, steel bars fixed to the walls and planks of wood to balance on, with sheer drops of hundreds of metres to the valley below, just the kind of thing me and Rhys love to do.

Rhys balanced on the Plank Walk, Hua Shan.

Rhys on the Plank Walk, Hua Shan.

By the time we’d walked back down to the village we were tired and our legs were shaky from all the steps, from North Peak to the gate there were over 3,000 and that’s not including the steps between the peaks at the top. We grabbed a late lunch and walked back to our room, getting a bit confused on route and walking into the wrong building first. After an easy, fast food noodle restaurant dinner, we turned in for an early night.

We had a bit of a lay in the next day before our 10:30 train to Xi’An. We had booked in to a dorm at a top rated hostel and looked forward to being in one place for 3 nights. Xi’An is a walled city and was once the terminus of the Silk Road. It’s now a modern bustling city but tucked in amongst all the shiny buildings are narrow cobbled streets, pagodas and temples. We arrived at lunch and ate in the coffee shop at the hostel before walking south, passed the Bell Tower to the South Gate of the Walls. The 18th century Bell Tower is on a traffic island and originally held a large bell that was rung at dawn while a drum, at the Drum Tower further along the road, was sounded at dusk.

Once at the South Gate, we paid and climbed to the top of the wall where we hired bicycles to cycle a full circle of the old city. Built in 1370 during the Ming Dynasty the 12m high walls run for 14km and although they have been heavily restored, it gives a feel for how imposing the city would have been.

View of Xi'An from the City Walls.

Rhys cycling on the City Walls, Xi'An.

We walked back to the hostel via the Drum Tower and stumbled upon the entrance to the Muslim Quarter, an area of narrow, cobbled alleyways, full of souvenir and food stalls. After a few laps we headed back to the hostel, tired from another active day.

The Bell Tower, lit up at dusk, Xi'An.

The next morning we took the metro south of the city walls to the ZhuQueDa Antiques Market, the largest in Xi’An. We’d decided we wanted to buy a blue and white vase while in China and hadn’t seen anything that really took our fancy in the souvenir areas. It turned out to be a great experience. Xi’An has quite a lot of Western tourists but all of a sudden we found ourselves to be surrounded by locals as we wandered along the road where stall owners had spread their wares out on blankets on the floor. We spotted a few pieces we liked and bargained as hard as we could with no Mandarin skills. It was only later, back at the hostel that we realised we’d missed the bulk of the market, but had still managed to spend 2 happy hours with the stall owners delighting in dealing with white people.

Traders at Zhuqueda Antique Market, Xi'An.

Back at the hostel we had a quick turn around before heading out again to catch a bus to the train station. From there, we had directions to find the bus to the world famous Terracotta Warriors. The bus took about an hour and dropped us in a car park from where we muddled our way to the ticket office. After a rubbish 360 cinema, we ended up at Pit 1, the most impressive of the three open pits. We joined the masses and entered what looked like a huge aircraft hangar, built to protect the ongoing excavations. The sheer amount of warriors, all standing in rank in separate channels was staggering and it was interesting to see areas where they’re recovering and piecing together fragments of yet more statues. 

Pit 1, Terracotta Warriors, Xi'An.

The Terracotta Warriors, Xi'An.

Lines of Terracotta Warriors, Xi'An.

The other two pits held other figures, horses and chariots with Pit 2 having five soldiers in cases for you to see up close and the exhibition area showing soldiers where the colour with which they were originally painted is still visible and two solid bronze, half size chariots unearthed nearby.

The Terracotta Warriors are a life size army built by the first Emperor of a unified China, Qin Shi Huang, to stand guard over his tomb, he died in 210 BC. Although history suggests he was a tyrannical ruler, his achievements were great, standardising measurements, currency and writing, introducing a centralised government and greatly improving infrastructure by building thousands of kilometres of roads and canals.

No one really knows why he ordered their creation, but for archaeologists, they offer a great insight into the world of ancient China, following their discovery in 1974 when a local farmer was sinking a well. For something so old it really is incredible to see the level of detail and realism in the warriors and it really makes you wonder what was going through the Emperor’s mind. It’s even more incredible when you realise how little of the site has actually been excavated, the tomb itself hasn’t even been opened yet, although they believe it was looted shortly after the Emperors death.

Leaving the Warriors and the stalls of dog and cat furs behind, we caught a bus back in to town and back to the hostel where, after trying a persimmon (squidgy tomatey fruit), we headed back to the Muslim Quarter with one of the girls from our dorm for a street food dinner. We walked up and down the alleyways sampling skewered meat, breads, tofu, noodles, stretched sugar candy, burnt sesames and pomegranate juice, a little off put by the sight of a skinned dog in a butchers, before it was time for bed.

Dinner in the Muslim Quarter, Xi'An.

The next morning we’d booked on to a trip through the hostel to see the tomb of Emperor JingDi, a Han dynasty emperor who died in 141BC. You can’t get to the tomb easily by public transport so we joined two other people for a private car. Within an hour we were at the complex and we donned the obligatory plastic shoe covers and entered the museum. 

As at the Warriors, only a small portion of the site has been excavated so far, about 21 of the 81 pits that have been found surrounding the burial mound of the Emperor. The building has glass floors that allow you to walk over many of the pits peering at the slightly eerie doll sized terracotta figurines below - all missing their arms as they were originally made of wood and have disintegrated. Over 50,000 figurines are thought to be buried there including warriors, servants, eunuchs and domesticated animals. We sat through a random holographic short film and came out not really knowing any more than when we’d gone in but still enjoyed our visit. On the way out, we walked around the burial mound to the south gate of the mausoleum, taking in the sheer size of the plot, before getting back in the car for the drive back to the city.

Terracotta figures, Jing Di's tomb, Xi'An.

We were back in Xi’An earlier than expected and after lunch at a cheap Chinese buffet on our street, we walked to another antique market, at the Western Gate of the City Walls. This time it was an arcade of proper antique shops with real antiques and high prices to match. We wandered around pointing out pieces we liked before getting sucked in and buying yet another vase to add to our collection, fingers crossed that they all make it home without cracking.

Happy with our purchase we wandered back to the hostel where we had a couple of hours to relax before dinner. Although we intended to walk back in to the Muslim Quarter, we decided we couldn’t be doing with the crowds and instead I took Rhys back to the Chinese buffet where i’d had lunch.

Although we’d really enjoyed Xi’An and could definitely have stayed longer, we had a train booked to Pingyao the following day and took an early morning metro north to Xi’An’s highspeed train station where in three hours we found ourselves 486 km north. 

As always, the highspeed train station was in the middle of nowhere. We left the building and found a bus in the empty parking lot and asked the driver if he was going to the Old Town, showing him on a map. He said he was so we boarded and tried to work out how much to pay him. When we reached the outskirts of the town the driver told us to get off. We had no idea where we were and walked along a highway towards the city walls. When we finally found a road to cross through the wall we discovered we were at the southern entrance, our hostel was in the north. A 40 minute walk with our backpacks feeling ever heavier, we finally found the right place.

We didn’t stay in the room long before wandering back to the main pedestrianised street to explore. Pingyao is an ancient walled town and is considered to be the best preserved in the whole of China, bursting with beautiful buildings, alleyways and courtyards. Founded in the Ming Dynasty, it wasn’t until the Qing Dynasty that Pingyao really began to thrive when it became the home of the first banks. The streets are all cobblestone and lined with lanterns. It’s pretty touristy but wasn’t crazy busy and we spent a couple of hours browsing the antique shops in the centre, laughing at the English translations of menus (stewed maternal grandmother anyone?) and eating strange egg wrapped meat parcels.

Browsing the shops, Pingyao.

The main street with the City Tower in the distance, Pingyao.

Back at our room we had a couple of hours to chill before dinner. The temperature dropped and we had to get in to bed fully clothed waiting for the central heating to be turned on.

That night we wandered back into the centre, passed streets lined with lanterns, to find somewhere with English menus or pictures we could point at. Rhys had been craving sweet and sour pork so we found somewhere with it on the menu and ducked in, after being laughed at for trying to order rice we were a bit on edge and happy to be walking back to the hotel.

Lanterns in the centre of Pingyao.

The next day we bought tourist tickets which permitted entry to 19 historic buildings within the town. The old city walls are only 6km in circumference (with 72 watchtowers!) so enclosing an area about a mile square and easily walkable. We spent the whole day walking up and down the main cross roads stopping at every building we came across included on the ticket. We visited many merchant houses, Government offices and the first exchange house, all with series of courtyards and basement safes. Pingyao was at the centre of Ming and Qing dynasty trade routes and after issuing the first remittances to put an end to the dangerous practice of carting huge amounts of gold and silver all over the place, the town became the centre of the banking industry. The restored buildings hold museums and artifacts from the towns, and key families, histories. And in case that’s not enough, there were a few temples just to top it off. 

Rhys at one of the may temples, Pingyao.

By the end of the day all the buildings, although beautiful, were starting to look the same and we decided to stop for a coffee before walking back to the hotel to collect our bags.

We had an evening train heading to Wutai Shan and walked around the city walls to the station. The train we boarded was crowded and we were grateful to have ticketed seats, although we were less happy about the amount of staring we attracted. We’ve been looked at and laughed at in so many countries for looking different but here it feels uncomfortable for the first time, the people we’ve come across are so rude and think nothing of shoving a camera in your face without saying a word of warning or just staring for hours without even a smile, and Rhys had a guy practically sitting on his lap trying to watch his laptop over his shoulder for most of the journey.

We reached Wutai Shan train station which is actually 50km from Wutai Shan at around 11pm. We’d hoped the shuttle buses in to town might still be running and since there’s a real lack of any sort of information, hadn’t been able to find out otherwise. When we got there though it was clear we weren’t getting any further on public transport and ended up taking a taxi. 

The roads were empty and the driver roared around the mountain passes at full speed until we reached the ticketing office and road block. To enter the Wutai Shan area, you have to buy a ticket and me and the driver ended up knocking and shouting at the kiosk until the lights came on and I was able to buy one. 

The next piece of fun started when we arrived at the hotel we’d booked. The driver luckily knew where it was and took us straight there, but it was all locked up. We managed to wake someone who didn’t speak a word of English and we have no idea if he was a guest or the owner. Who ever he was, he practically threw us out of the courtyard miming that we couldn’t stay there and the taxi driver took it on himself to find us a bed for the night. We ended up at another, supposedly 4 star hotel that was twice our budget but the staff, when we woke them, were incredibly friendly and checked us in and gave us a warm room. We were so lucky to have the taxi driver we did otherwise we would have been at a loss and when the temperature is in the minus outside you can’t just camp out until morning.