Everyone knows we are serious travelers.  We never do anything that is crazy or fun.

Except for tobogganing and riding strange animals.

Our last morning in Dunhuang we visited the Yadan National Park which contains the Whistling Sand Mountain and a giant set of sand dunes.  The overall dimension of the sand dunes is 40 Km by 25 Km with an elevation difference of 580 Km.  This is one very large kitty box.

Anyway, when in Rome or in this case when in Dunhuang do as the tourist are suppose to do.  This means a camel ride.

For those who remember I rode a camel in India and my rear end has never forgiven me for this ride.  But Nancy hasn’t ridden a camel so it was time for her to mark this feat off her bucket list and of course I wasn’t going to let her go by herself.

The first thing I noticed about these camels were they had two humps rather than one hump like my Indian camel.  Note: if you ever decide to ride a camel for any distance and you have a choice between one hump or two — take the two hump camel.  This camel ride was pleasant.  I would put on a comfort scale a two hump camel before a mule and most likely a horse.

Our camel caravan consisted of a walking lady handler at the front holding on to the first camel which was being ridden by a Chinese lady, the second camel was tied to the first and ridden by the Chinese lady’s husband, then Nancy and finally I brought up the rear.

The initial ride was about ten minutes and it was fun to imagine making the Silk Road Trip while upon a camel.

We came to our first stop and the camels allowed us to dismount one by one from front to back in the camel line.  Camels don’t go down on all four in an easy manner rather they sort of fall to their front knees and then buckle the rear legs so that again their knees are settled into the sand.  And the reverse occurs when they get up — one big lurch.

Now we are off the camels and have the opportunity to climb to the top of a dune.  I am guessing this is about 200 steps up an imbedded wood ladder type boardwalk stacked into the sand.  This was definitely an easier way to hike up a sand dune than to just dig into the sand and begin a climb up a dune — this is experience talking.

Before we started the hike up we had to make a decision: take an inter tube or bamboo toboggan down the dune.  We chose the toboggan.

The toboggan is made of short pieces of bamboo tied together.  You place your feet at the front and your rear at the rear and push off with your hands — no steering mechanism, just head down.  Nancy went first and I noted about two thirds of the way down she had lost momentum and was pushing herself.  I took off on my toboggan and figured more speed would reduce the amount of pushing I would have to do — probably would have worked if I hadn’t hit a small sand mogul and bounced off my toboggan and into the sand!

We finished our camel ride to a small lake which didn’t qualify as a pond but was at one time the only water for hundreds of Km in any direction.

If you go to Dunhuang, you have to do the camel ride.

The Mogoa Grottoes like the Yungang Grottoes (caves) makes a trip to China worthwhile.

The Mogoa Grottoes are locate about 20 minutes outside of Dunhuang, China and Dunhuang is located on the edge of the Gobi Desert in western China.

The Grottoes/caves were dug out of the western cliffs of the Mingshashan Mountains beginning in the 4th century AD.  The last large scale restoration work was done in the 18th century.

Created over the course of 1,000 years and used for meditation, worship, and to store texts, the 492 temple grottoes contain tens of thousands of frescoes, paintings, sculptures and terra-cotta statues.  The grottoes are considered one of the greatest repositories of Buddhist art in the world.

A limited number of grottoes are open to the public each year (they rotate a fix number but not all the grottoes every year).  We arrived as the gates opened, paid our entry fee which includes an English speaking guide, met two other couples and our guide, and began our own incredible discovery of the Mogao Grottoes.  We spent the next two plus hours exploring about ten caves.  The guide gave us more information than I could absorb: time period of each cave and any restoration or changes, the significant of the specific grotto and its art, various stories depicted in the painting, and more.

At the end of our tour, Nancy and I decided to return the next day for a second tour and another ten plus caves.  Again, the Magao Grottoes are worth a trip to China.

On our way out of the site, our tour guide asked if we wanted to visit the on site museum.  Nancy and I thought what the heck as long as we are here might as well visit the museum.  However, after spending nearly two hours in the museum we both agreed this is one Chinese museum not to be missed.  The top floor has a fantastic collection of Tibetan bronzes — only if the Chinese would allow me to take one home!  The second floor is devoted to the discovery, interpretation, and the work being done to save the art in the grottoes.  The second floor is incredibly interesting no matter how boring I may have made it sound.

Side notes:  The Chinese are in the process of building a new entrance.  This new entrance is located away from the caves.  When it opens in two years you will park at the new entrance, take an electric bus to the current entrance, and explore the grottoes — but you will be allowed only two to three minutes per grotto.  It has been determined that the breath of humans is one of the causes for the deterioration of the paint colors and must be reduced.  My strong recommendations is visit the grottoes before the new time limitation is imposed.

Recommendation: bring your own flash light — we did — one with a strong bright light.  Although the guide will have a flash light it is nice to have your own light to explore or spend a little extra time on a painting, or statue, etc.

We had a great day but a long day driving to and from a pottery village, being shown the entire handmade process — only been making pottery for 1400 years in this village –walking the village, and eating lunch.  We didn’t return to our hotel until a little after five in the afternoon.  Then I spent the next hour with our guide arranging to mail home various items — air freight is damn expensive.

Anyway, later in the evening Nancy suggest I go get some takeout.  This is no longer an issue for this old China hand.  As I approached the door to the first restaurant I had successfully ordered takeout from previously two of the ladies were standing at the door.  As they saw me approach they broke out into big smiles.  When I was a step or two away I waved with all of my right hand and arm from left to right and gave them a Texas size voice saying, “Hello”.  No smiles now, just laughter.

All the ladies and the cashier had a good time with the crazy American and Nancy and I had another good meal.  Before returning to Nancy, I did stop at one more restaurant for fried rice takeout and then a convenience store which uses colors very similar to 7-11 for bottle water.

All three places are easy to buy at — they either have fixed price menus or use a bar code reader on their merchandise.

After we had finished dinner in our hotel room I decided I could not leave Xi’an without walking a portion of the city wall.  Nancy said good luck and don’t get lost.  I stopped at the hotel desk and asked how much a cab should cost to the Wall.  The bellman told me 10 yuan was more than enough.

I walked out the gate, down the street, crossed the eight lane street (six for vehicles and two for bikes, motorbikes, the occasional taxi, etc.), and then crossed the street so I could catch a taxi heading toward the Wall.  I saw a three wheel taxi, showed the driver the Chinese spelling of where I wanted to go, and showed him 10 yuan.  He nodded his head and off we go.

One of the advantages of walking is you get to see things you miss when driving.  Not tonight.  I picked the slowest taxi in China.  The only thing we passed in the entire trip were stopped cars and almost dead people.

Getting up on the wall is easy, getting to the entry gate of the wall would be danageous for anyone without Chinese walking experience.  I surveyed the location of the wall.  I was reasonably sure I saw a cross walk on the opposite side of the street from where I was standing.  I took the tunnels under eight lanes of traffic at a round-about.  Then I stood behind a women and every time she took a step into traffic — yes, we were in a cross walk but that only provides a better background for the drivers to see you — I took a step.  I was close enough to her I would have been arrested for sexual harassment in the U.S.

We made it into the cross hatched area of the round about leaving only four more lanes of buses — lost of buses.  A couple of minutes later we were on the sidewalk and I walking toward the wall.

This wall is like no other wall I have ever experienced.  It made the wall in Pingyao look like it had been built out of Legos.  I estimated the width of the wall to be at least five lanes of traffic wide and probably six.  I am guessing it was 50 feet high with towers about every 50 feet.  What a monster and I sure would not want to be on the attacking side of the wall.

I left the wall about 9:30.  Lucky for me there were two Chinese women in front of me and the three of us crossed the street together.  I then wall about a mile to the Bell Tower and took the underground walk way around the Bell Tower and another block over to the Drum Tower exit.  This was an easy walk since Nancy and I had done it together a couple of days earlier.

It was about the time I reached the Bell Tower that my stomach began letting me know I better find a toilet and find it quickly.  As I exited the tunnel I saw a stand alone Starbucks and decided being an American franchise it may have a toilet.  Hit the jackpot, not only did it have a single toilet but it was American style not a squat with toilet paper.

After making my stomach happy I left Starbucks for the Muslim quarters.  I spent 20 to 30 minutes walking and exploring but not eating any of the street food.  I was having a good time but knew it was time to get back to the hotel and Nancy.  Rather than returning by a known route I decided to cross country it through this City of 8 to 10 million people.  Hey, I made it sound worse than it is because within the City Walls only 3 million people reside.

Nancy told me not to get lost.  I didn’t, I always knew I was in Xi’an.  However, after about 45 minutes of walking I saw again saw the Wall — opposite the side of the wall I had been on a couple of hours earlier.

No problem.  I saw a pedi-taxi, waved it down, showed him the hotels card, asked how much and he indicated 30 yuan, I shook my head and began walking away, he honked his horn, I turned with 20 in my hand and he nodded his head yes.

Ten minutes later I was taking my shoes off and explaining to Nancy I really hadn’t gotten lost.  Good thing for my legs the next morning was a rest morning before catching a 1:30 pm flight.  But I saw a lot Xi’an and a couple thousand more people during my outing.  All in all a good evening walk.

For those of you who follow the stock market here is a tip.  Wall Street is said to follow the hem line of dresses.  High hem line good market, low hem line bad market.  If this little bit of market wisdom follows in China —  Buy, buy and buy more Chinese stocks.

The Chinese women like to wear hose and their skirts are so short that the top of their hose show when they are standing.  Also, hot pants are alive and well in China.

Every day I check out the hem line of the Chinese women just in case they signal a sell.

Nancy and I have 25 days of chop stick eating experience in China.  The only meal we have had that wasn’t Chinese was a lunch a couple days ago in Xi’an at a Japanese restaurant — oh yea, the Japanese also use chop sticks.  During this time we have learned a few things about dining etiquette.

A typical meal for two will consist of three or four main dishes and a bowl of white rice for each.  When eating with friends it is not unusual to have at least one additional dish per person at the table.  And yes, there will be food left over.

Chinese serve the food as it becomes ready.  The time between the arrival of the first dish and the last dish can easily be five minutes.  You begin eating when the first dish arrives, not when all the dishes have arrived.

Today for the first time we used a set of community chop sticks.  Since Chinese dishes are served without serving utensils the people at the table may elect to either just dig in with their individual chop sticks or place one set of chop sticks into the served dished to be used by all to transfer food from the serving dish to your own plate or bowl of rice.  It is not unusual to see a group of people at a table put their chop sticks into a bowl, pick up food, and put it directly into their mouths.

Anything you place in your mouth that you don’t want to eat, like a fish bone or shrimp tail, etc you take out of your mouth and place on the table.  No bone plates are provided so where else are you going to put that bone or fish tail.

When Nancy and I order it is fairly straight forward, we decide on what we want to eat and order.  However, when we eat with our guides each one has spent time with the waitress or waitresses and sometimes with the cook discussing the exact ingredients each dish contains.  Ordering is a social event and is not to be hurried.

When we first began our Chinese eating odyssey there were portions of food we wanted to cut into smaller portions.  So, we would take a chop stick in each hand and cut or tear the larger portion into smaller portions.  Now, I and sometimes Nancy just go with restaurant flow and put the large portion into our mouths and bite off a portion or just stuff the whole portion into our mouths.  Hey, it works.

I no long feel self conscious about picking up my bowl of rice and placing it an inch away from my mouth and shoveling in one or more bites.  Everyone else around us is doing it so why be different.  However, I must admit I can’t shovel the food as quickly as the Chinese.

Soup is easy to eat because it typically comes with a Chinese spoon.  This spoon is shorter and the bowl is deeper than our spoons.  I haven’t decided if eating soup without a spoon, i.e. just tilting the bowl into the mouth is acceptable.  I see Chinese doing it this way I just don’t know if it proper etiquette.  I will have to check with our guide tomorrow.

Noodle dishes are another challenge, at least for me and my chop sticks.  That is until I watch everyone around me.  Noodles are easy to eat once you understand you do what ever it takes to get them into your mouth and then bite off what ever you don’t want in your mouth.  To keep the food off my shirt and out of my lap I don’t hesitate to pick up the noodles with my chop sticks, lean over my plate, put the chop sticks with hanging noodles into my mouth, bite off what I can’t get into my mouth, and enjoy the taste of another Chinese noodle dish.

I do believe the most positive thing about eating with chop sticks is it slows down your eating.  I am a fast eater and sometimes (maybe more times than I want to admit) I eat more than I need because I eat so fast my stomach doesn’t realize it is full and I keep on eating.  With chop sticks you eat slower (or at least we do) and smaller bites.  Therefore, when my stomach is full I stop eating — I don’t over eat because my stomach has a chance to let me know it is full before I over eat.

Side notes: Several of the buffet breakfast include English silverware alongside the buffet plates.  Don’t know about Nancy but I use my chop sticks because when in China do as the Chinese.  That rule has applied except at our current hotels which sets the morning tables with English silverware.

Because or at least I think because we are eating at local Chinese restaurants rather than the tourist hotel or high end restaurants I have observed another practice not common in the U.S.  When severed a beer our drivers (who do not drink) will poor a small amount into one glass, swirl the beer around in the glass, pour the beer into the second glass, swirl the beer, and then go toss the beer — into the street or down the floor drain a table or two away from us.  We always say thank you for this bit of cleanliness on the part of our drivers.

The Terracotta Army is an amazing story and a must visit.

Nancy convinced our guide we had to be there when the gates open.  And Nancy was correct.  We were the first to enter Pit 1 and for the first five plus minutes had the place to ourselves.  It was incredible feeling to be standing on the surrounding walkway and looking down on an army created over 2200 years ago.

Nancy and I both saw the Terracotta Warrior exhibit when it was on display in Washington DC.  Seeing a couple of Warriors versus seeing the Warriors where they had been buried and the work being done to restore all the warriors are two totally different experiences.

The warriors were created to guard the tomb of Qin Shi Huang (259 BC – 210 BC) the legendary and First Emperor who united (by conquering all the other emperors) China into one country.  Qin Shi Huang also began the building of the Great Wall of China — this guy didn’t do anything in a small way.

His after death army consists of at least (more are expected to be discovered) 8,00 warriors, 100 chariots, 600 horses, civilian administrators, acrobats, etc.  Qin Shi Huang did his part to reduce the population of China through war and civil projects but at least he recognized China couldn’t afford to have a real army, concubines, government officials and others murdered upon his own death and then buried with him.  His Terracotta Army was a step forward in Chinese history.

Side notes: Our guide, David, was a very good guide and bent over backwards to help us with various issues that had nothing to do with our tour.  However, like most guides he though Americans slept in and had to eat in hotels.  Our first day with David we convinced him we don’t eat at hotels or tour approved restaurants.  He was easy to convinced especially when we told him we wanted him to pick the restaurant — only restaurants he goes with friends and family – and we would pay for the driver and his meal.  Therefore, a couple of days later it really wasn’t difficult for David to understand Nancy wanted to be there when it opened and not a minute later.

Suggestion: No matter what your guide tells you skip the movie and gift shop until you have visited the three Pits.  The movie is a hoot — I think part of it was taken from an old silent movie and then colored.

Nancy is reading a book on China.  The author noted that in the U.S. an air advisory for children and senior citizens is issued when more than 50 micrograms of particulates per 50 cubic meters of air is found.  In 2008 Beijing’s normal air contained 141 micrograms of particulates per 50 cubic meters of air.

The book goes on to state: The World Bank estimates 700,000 Chinese die each year due to breathing the air.  San Francisco has roughly 700,000 people.

Side note:  Today we visited the Terracotta Warriors — very impressive.  On the drive out to the site I asked our guide if the today’s air pollution was normal and his answer was yes.  About two hours later he was explaining something to Nancy when he said, “…. and the mountains over there.  Ops, the mountains are there you just can’t see them because of the air pollution.”

On our return to Xi’an from the Qinling Mountains our driver pulled into a gas station.  He bypassed the gas pumps and fought for a space where a half dozen taxis were stopped with their hoods up.  Next I noticed one of the station ladies was putting what looked like a coupled nozzle into the motor area of the open hoods.  I asked our guide, Mark, what was she doing.

Mark then explained all the taxis in Xi’an use natural gas.  It is a cheaper and cleaner fuel and the Chinese government requires all taxis to use natural gas.  These taxis were filling up their natural gas tanks.  He then went on to say the van we were driving in uses two fuels: gasoline and natural gas.  We had filled up with gasoline for the mountain highway drive to the Qinling mountains.  Our driver was now switching to natural gas since he was back in flat land Xi’an.

Mark went on to explain the van’s conversion to natural gas was illegal.  It wasn’t until today with our guide, David, that I learned why the van’s conversion was illegal under Chinese law.  Apparently these private conversion don’t necessarily meet the safety requirements for collisions — in a crash the private, non-governmental conversion may cause an explosion.

Our travels in China took a big positive turn when the day after arriving in Xi’an when we left for a birding trip in the Qinling Mountains.  The birding was less than expected due to a misty rain but the scenery, food, people, walks and much cleaner air was what we needed to bounce back from the smog induced blahs.

Our tour guide, Mark, and his driver picked us up at our hotel and we began our 320 km (200 mile) trip to the city Yangxian.  The highway is an engineering marvel: over 100 tunnels and a majority of the remainder of the highway is elevated between the tunnels.

Within an hour of leaving Xi’an the countryside had turned a beautiful green, there were trees in abundance, we could see blue sky, the weather was cool, and even the Chinese people looked happier.

We arrived in Yangxian mid afternoon, checked into our hotel and immediately left for lunch at a local restaurant.  Mark was the first guide who wasn’t afraid to take us to local restaurants rather than hotel or tourist approved restaurants.  He ordered up a half dozen dishes and the four of us ate until we could not lift our chopsticks for another bite.  The food had taste, it wasn’t watered down for the American stomach.  Before we left, Mark had the lady cook/owner come out and have her photo taken with Nancy in front of the wall-mounted menu.  I would gladly eat another meal here and as luck would have it we did two days later.

Yangxian is a small town of about 100,000 people.  Mark told us before we stepped into the restaurant we would not only be the only non-Chinese in the restaurant but the city.  The main street is four car lanes wide with bike lanes on each side plus wide sidewalks.  It was a pretty street and easy to walk.

Across from our tenth floor hotel room was a huge public park.  The park consisted of a ten lane track with a soccer field and more in the infield of the track, a performance stage on one side, a kiddie park on the other side and on the short end of the track were two basketball courts and a half dozen ping pong tables.  At age 60 I had a much better chance of not embarrassing myself on the basketball court than anytime in my life at the ping pong tables — this is a blood sport in China.  At ten o’clock at night the stage still had a dozen or more ballroom dancing couples.

The next morning at about 6:30 I looked out and there were more than 50 runners/walkers on the track, 3 groups of tai chi totaling over 100 individuals, several smaller groups practicing martial art moves, two half court basketball games underway  and several couples practicing their ballroom dancing on the stage.  There are many reasons why the Chinese are not obese and one is they exercise and the older they are the more they exercise.

After lunch we picked up our local bird guide.  A half dozen years ago, he showed groups where birds could be found.  It didn’t take him long to come to the conclusion if he could not only show people where birds were but tell people the names of the birds he could make additional money.  He knows his local birds.

Our first half day birding was a walk along the roadside looking down and across to a large slow moving river.  Our guide pointed out a dozen or more birds as we slowly walked along the road.  Only issue either Nancy or I had with the walk was the road is a little busy and each driver has to honk to let you know they are passing you.

One car did stop and a young boy of about 10 to 12 got out.  He is shy but I can tell his parents want him to say something to us.  I say, “hi” and then ask if he likes the Boston Celts since he is wearing a Celtics uniform jersey.  My Celtic question went something like this: pointing at him I said, “like basketball Boston” and make a dribbling motion.  He smiles and says, “yes” and then “hello”.  I put my hand out, we shake, and he gets back in the car and his parents are smiling.

We ended the day birding by crossing the road over to a single lane concrete farmer’s road, past the guy selling honey at this intersection, and did a little forest birding.  The air smelled fresh, a light breeze was making leaf music, and the various recently planted farm plots were sprouting green plants; heck we even saw a bird or two.

We pretty much did the same thing for meals, birding, and exploring the next morning, afternoon, and the following morning.  Each meal seemed to be better than the previous one.  We definitely were the only foreigners in the restaurants that we ate in.

The second day was misty and severely limited our birding but made the countryside even more enjoyable.  We walked through or around several villages.  One we stopped at hoping for a Sunbird to return.  The owner of the house was a young 30ish man.  He brought out four chairs or stools for us to sit on.  I know I was less than graceful placing my wide body on a stool that was maybe 12 inches square and less than a foot high.  However, once I was down my legs were happy to stretch out without any weight on them.

And the sunbird did return.  We all quickly walked over to a stack of bricks 12 feet long, 5 feet wide, and 8 feet high.  There was the homemade wooden ladder leaning against the bricks and we all scrambled up onto the bricks.  I think it was about the third rung that I was wishing I could see a weight limitation sticker on this ladder to reassure me I was not exceeding its weight capacity.  Yes, the sunbird was an absolutely brilliant set of colors.

We took this trip because we like to bird and birding is done in open spaces.  I recommend anyone visiting Xi’an to add three days to your trip and go with Mark even if you don’t bird.  If you like photography it is even better — Mark and our bird guide both carried 35mm cameras with 400mm lenses.  As soon as I heard one of their camera’s shutters clicking I knew they had spotted a bird.

Side notes: We stayed in a three star hotel which I would say is equal to most La Quinta hotels in the U.S.  No matter what the travel agents say you don’t have to stay in 4 or 5-star hotels to survive in China.  Oh yes, I am typing this in another off the beaten path 3 star hotel in Tashkurgan — about 10,000 feet above sea level and less than 200 miles from the Pakistan border.  Another beautiful place in China.

Recommendation: Spend a maximum of three days in Beijing and spend three days in the Qinling Mountains.

On our trip to the Qinling Mountains I noticed several times semi tractor trailers transporting new cars.  What made it note worthy was how many cars were being transported.

The bottom deck carried seven cars.  Now it becomes interesting.  The upper deck consists of two rows of cars on two platforms.  Each upper platform inside side iscentered on the bottom platform and its outside side is cantilevered over the outside side of the bottom platform.  Each of the top platforms carry eight cars.

Bottom platform seven cars, two top platforms carrying eight cars each equals a grand total of 23 cars being transported by one semi tractor trailer rig.

Side notes: The cars being transported were what our rental car agencies call a full size automobile.

The trucks in China range from 3-wheel flat beds to 24 wheel semi tractor trailers.