Richard has been many times to Xi’an , both on working trips for Roll Royce but also with Christina his partner just to visit this one time capitol of China. Our stay here has been augmented greatly by meeting some of their Chinese friends who have lived in the city for many years and indeed held senior positions here in Government and business. Having been guided out of the Qin Ling mountains by them, gone out to dinner with them and today Mr Sei has kindly offered to take a few of us to a beautiful local park about an hour back into the mountains. We are met at the front door of the hotel and whisked off in his V8 Range rover. No one wants to squeeze into my hire car for the day and by the way I took the white one today.
Mr Sei dusts out his new car
On climbing up out Xi’an on an empty motorway we enter an 18 kilometre tunnel, brand new and every 8 K ms there is a widened section which is flood lit and contain plastic shrubs and palm trees!
Mr Sei is a senior member of the Xi’an police authority and drove us very safely at vast speeds . His wife and he love the musical “the Sound of Music!” so much so that he opened a now well known Xi’an restaurant and called it “Edelweiss”!! He is also a passionate fan of Julie Andrews plus he has a Chinese version of the musical on his sound system in the car . We were given a rare treat of listening to him belt out the tracks singing along the lyrics, having developed a great tenor voice while serving in the Chinese army!
We arrive at the park and after a rather inauspicious start up a a concrete track we enter a 10 k ms canyon. It is possible to get right to the top and look out over Xi’an; we made it to the Bridge half way up.
The canyon had been refashioned with bridges , stepping stone and a number of small glades which were beginning to encourage the original Fauna and flora back
A set of rather unsettling stepping stones guided you through a narrow part of the gorge.
At the halfway point the ravine is crossed by a cats cradle of bridge and platforms.
As we descend a few more people have arrived to try out the white water rafting- not exactly “ River Wild” scary film with Meryl Streep ? Anyway they all seemed to be enjoying it.
After being treated to lunch at a local restaurant by the river we speed back to Xi’an- this time I got to sit in the front of this vast silent tank while Mr S gave some more renderings of SOM.
In the evening we walked out into the Islamic quarter for an alcohol free supper and took in the street markets. Some strange sights. A small dog talking to to two camels
some beautifully lit pagoda styled building in the old city -all the best
Simon
And finally a guy on a motorized tricycle with about 5000 eggs on Board
-all the best
Simon