We are currently in Xining and about 10 kgs heavier after our visit to Xi'an. We had a fantastic four days there.
Despite the glorious food, the major tourist pull to Xi'an are the Terracotta Warriors, and as sceptical as I am about visiting famous tourist attractions (cutting off my nose to spite my face perhaps), they were indeed very impressive - I particularly liked the horses. We hired an English speaking guide who gave us a great tour around the pits and museum, but unfortunately also took us to the souvenir shop and tried to force jade and mini warriors onto us. I would have quite liked to buy a mini warrior horse, but because Tom got so riled up about it I thought it wise not to.
The other major thing we did while in Xi'an was to climb the sacred Taoist Hua Shan, otherwise known as the 'Number One Most Precipitous Mountain Under Heaven'. Here is a link that describes the track: http://blog.hotelclub.com/huashan-trail-worlds-most-dangerous-hiking-trail/ It was only 6 kms to the first of the five peaks, but boy was it a gruelling climb. There were times when I thought I would just have to be left on the mountain, flaked out under some tree or rock. Realising that there wasn't any patch of ground where I would be able to lie without rolling down the mountain, and realising once again that the scenery was indeed spectacular, I pushed on.
We stayed the night on the mountain top but didn't get much rest, as we were in a dorm with 18 other people, including the world's best chainsaw impression whilst snoring. Needless to say I was grumpy when we rose at 4:30 to make our way to the East Peak (which included a vertical climb up a cliff face), but the sunrise was spectacular. It was somewhat of a relief to get the cable car down the side of the mountain a couple of hours later.
Leaving Xi'an, we arrived in Xining yesterday and have spent most of the time relaxing and setting up our Tibet adventure. Tomorrow we catch the highest train in the World into Lhasa, and will spend about 10 days making our way to the Nepalese border.
