Chongqing to Xian, China Friday 18th May 2018

This will be a short blog, has been a long day. It is 10.40pm, arrived at hotel 40 mins ago. Feeling pooped and we have another long day ahead of us tomorrow.

We left the river boat at 8.30am this morning.  I enjoyed our time on the boat, was relaxing and interesting watching the world go by.  Think Greg thought the 3 days were a bit long.

It was pouring with rain this morning and we had a long way to walk with our bags to get to our bus.  Fortunately it stopped raining as we left, but the ground was wet and slippery.  The conditions were not the best.  Unfortunately as we were going down the gangplank which was rather steep, Greg slipped and landed heavily on his back and elbow.  Wasn’t nice, his elbow hurt a lot.  ?  He was rather stubborn and insisted on still carrying the bags.  ? He did let me give him some pain killers.  Had some sterile wipes too.  After using one, on his elbow, what had looked like a really black bruise wiped off.  That was a relief.   After a few hours he felt a bit better, he thinks his elbow will be ok, ?? see what the morning brings.

Our flight was not until 4.50pm, so we had to “waste time” in Chongqing (tour leaders words) we were disappointed we would not be in Xian earlier as our itinerary suggested.  ? We spent time in a small museum, which did not interest me   Then went to a larger one, which was better but not much English on the exhibits, which made it harder to enjoy.  We did go into every room, which was pretty good for us.  ?

Around 12.30pm we headed to the KFC where we had to meet at 1.40pm.  There was no way we were going to get lunch there, Greg found a great little Chinese restaurant full of locals next door. Again we pointed and smiled and for $7.00 we had a delicious, more extensive lunch than we bargained on.

Afterwards we found an interesting set of shops that had lots of Chinese historical craft shops.   We enjoyed wandering around.   We also stumbled on some guys playing a card game that we had not seen before.  We watched for a while and they let us take a photo.  We enjoyed our interaction with them.

Then it was time to head to the airport.  Was a 1hr 20min flight to Xian.  Was 40 mins into town, then we headed straight to dinner.   One of the best parts of the day was driving through the old part of Xian, a walled city 9  miles square.  Was beautiful and all lit up.   So much better than Chongqing, where we started the day.  Greg has been to Xian many times for work.  I loved hearing his stories as we drove through Xian.  ?

We had dumplings for dinner, they were delicious.  Around 10pm we checked into our hotel. ?  Big day tomorrow, wake up call at 6am.  Looking forward to it.