Xian, Chengdu

We're currently in Chengdu trying to sort out a permit for Tibet which is proving pretty difficult.  We have found 5 other travellers who are keen on going and were put in touch with a guide through an Australian couple who we met in Mongolia.  Still, communicating and coordinating everything through email is time consuming and stressful.  Although we don't yet have confirmation that our permits will be ready, we have gone ahead and booked our tickets on the train so that we don't miss out.  It seems like lately we (well, at least Paul who is mainly in charge) have been spending most of our free time trying to sort it out...

Between emails though we've managed to spend a few days each in Xian and Chengdu.  Xian was really nice and had a lot of atmosphere.  We stayed at a great hostel near the Muslim quarter and went out in to the back streets every night to get food off the streets.  We had some very interesting food there that we never had before, including hand made noodles which were really delicious.  I suppose it was a little bit like watching someone make a pizza - when you ordered they pulled the noodles by hand right in front of you and dumped them into a big pot of boiling water.

Of course we checked out the terracotta warriors which was interesting.  We were relieved that we went on the local bus instead of on a tour.  It wasn't that hard to get there in the end (especially when you have Paul to read the signs on the bus).  We stopped on the side of the road across from the warriors to buy some local pomegranates - they were everywhere around Xian and were really nice.  Other than that we just checked out a few sights around town before moving onto Chengdu.

Chengdu is not as atmospheric as Xian but it does have the pandas going for it.  We spent more than AU$10 to get in before we realised that we could have gotten in for just 1 yuan with a special promotional card you can pick up around town - I think it's supposed to boost tourism after the earthquake.  The pandas were very cute, especially the little babies - one of which was lying in a humidicrib - so sweet!  We also tried to local super hot hotpot which is full of peppercorns and chillies.  We were a bit weak and we went for a combination hotpot which had a mild soup as well as the really spicy one.  It's amazing how much different food there is in each region of China.  We also had an interesting snack set which was lots of different little snacks that are a specialty of Chengdu.  The tea houses are also really famous here but as Paul doesn't really drink tea we haven't tried one out yet.

Nothing else of huge interest has been happening as Tibet has been consuming a lot of our time and energy.  We will all be so disappointed if it doesn't work out so fingers crossed that it does happen after all....