Lisa and I left Beijing seperately: She caught a flight to Chengdu to take some Qi Gong classes and I boarded an overnight train to Xi'an the next day.

Chinese trains are very clean and efficient for the most part and I settled in to my 16 hour journety happily. Before long I had met some english-speaking chinese travellers and was passing the hours in friendly conversation. I tried, however badly, to practice and learn some chinese from them, but thankfullly they had a much firmer handle on my mother tongue than I had could hope to have on theirs.

I arrrived in Xi'an, the ancient capital of China, in the early morning and found accomodation in a dormitory not far from the station. I spent the day poking around the city. Despite its rich history I found that, much like the rest of China, the city seemed eager to shed its old shell and run headlong into the 21st century. New 5 star hotels and nameless office buildings were being errected somewhat haphazardly and threatening to crowd out the ancient wall that still surrounds the old part of the city.

Still, from my vantage on a bicycle (hired for about $1 per day) I was able to zoom around several of the citiy's interesting neighborhoods, including the Muslim quarter where I spent some time snacking on some delicious food at the numerous store-front kitchens.

The real attraction of Xi'an lies outside the city proper however at the amazing army of terocotta warriors and I paid them a visit the next day. It really is an entire army of life-sized ceramic warrors built as part of the emperor's burial entourage in 300 BC. The soldiers lie almost 2km from the actual tomb and the army was only discovered in the 1970's when some local farmers were sinking a well in the area.

Today the area is a national treasure, proclaimed by some as the "8th wonder of the ancient world," and protected by a stadium-like enclosure. Despite the hype though they are still an impressive site.

From Xi'An I took another overnight train to Chengdu in the Sichuan Province in southwest china. This time I was accompanied by a canadian and his korean girlfriend I had met. That night we went out to sample the local dining sensation "hot pot." The center of the table is a boilding pot of water, oil and spices in which you cook your selection of food. There is a chinese saying that China is the place for food and Sichuan is the place for flavor. Flavor in this instance apparently means spicy because even a lot of the locals seemed to be suffering from the intensity of the hot pot.

I stayed another two days in Chengdu mainly so that I could visit the excellent Panda reasearch center just outside the city. Any chance to an an exotic animal like this continues to be a major high on this trip.

On my last day I went to the local people's park that afternoon hoping to spend afew quiet hours over a cup of tea and a book. Instead I found a mob of locals singing and dancing and I was drawn in. I met a local man named Damon (his "english" name anyway) and we talked for a while about movies. Before I knew it we were singing "Eidlweiss" karoke-style in front of the crowd and a few dancing couples! Although I was mostly drowned out by the music and my co-star the locals seemed to get a real kick out of this foreigner. I had to be careful though as they take their karoke very seriously in this country.

I boarded an early bus the next morning to head deeper into the south west part of the Sichuan province on the border with Tibet. Although the area today is technically part of the Sichuan province it was once known as Kham - part of what was formerly the seperate state of Tibet. Indeed the elevation, mountain scenery and local culture is all evocative of a Tibetan postcard.

Originally I had intended on doing some trekking in this area, but time and weather were not on my side. I was delayed by rain and had to take more time to acclimatize than I had planned. Instead Lisa rejoined me and we took a wild bus ride to Litang - a wild cowboy town on a high (4100m) grassland. We loved it here - Maybe it was the little restaurant we found with the very excitable and delightable chef, Mr. Zhan. Or perhaps it was the wild west atmosphere with long-haired teens driving their tassled motorcycles, or the serenity and friendliness of the nearby Tibetian Lamasary where I met "mini-monk." Whatever the case we were charmed and if we didn't have a train to catch back up in Beijing we surely could have been tempted to stay.

The chance for tremendous hiking alone is enough to put this area on our list of "must return someday" places.

Jim and "mini-monk"