Chengdu, Xi'an and Beijing

With not long left in China and with my YARP out of the way, Alex and I took the opportunity to go travelling. Alex hadn't been anywhere in China other than Xiamen and our disastrous trip to Chaozhou so we knew we had to go to see some of the main sights. We booked flights out to Chengdu with the aim to see how far our money would get us.

We chose Chengdu as it's a city that I hadn't been to and meant that we could see lots of pandas! Chengdu is the panda city, home to the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base where they have about 50 pandas as well as red pandas and swans. From Chengdu we also took a day trip out to see the Leshan Giant Buddha, a 71-metre tall Buddha carved out of the side of a cliff. Truly amazing. 

From Chengdu we decided to get a 16-hour train up to Xi'an as it seemed a very "Chinese" place to go for Alex who had never been there. I went in 2009 with my mum and brother, Fraser, but was keen to go back with my new knowledge of Chinese. We saw the Terracotta Warriors, visited the Muslim Quarter several times, saw the Drum and Bell Towers, walked on the city walls and visited the Giant Goose Pagoda. We also planned to take a day trip out to Huashan, a mountain not far from the city, which proved to be one of my highlights of the trip. 

The must-see place is China has to be Beijing and as we weren't sure when Alex would next get the chance to go, we decided to make that the last stop on our trip. We took a 12 and a half hour night train from Xi'an in a soft sleeper compartment (definitely worth the extra money). As I had been to Beijing before in the 2009 trip, we made an effort to do things a bit differently. Obviously we couldn't miss out sights such as the Forbidden City and Tian'anmen Square, but I was keen to visit a different part of the Great Wall. When I had gone with my family in 2009, none of us spoke any Chinese which made things quite difficult. In order to see the Great Wall, we ended up booking a tour combined with the Ming Tombs. However, the day was very rushed with the tour fitting in a visit to a jade factory (which none of us wanted to go to) so the time spent at the other places was small. We visited the Badaling section of the wall which is the busiest and most touristy. This time, I took a friend's recommendation and we went to the Mutianyu section instead. I absolutely loved this section and made me really glad I'd decided to visit the wall once again!

I will hopefully write about each of these places in more detail when I have time, but for now here are a few photos from our trip. Enjoy!

Pandas in Chengdu

Leshan Giant Buddha

Terracotta Warriors

Plank Walk on Huashan

Forbidden City

Mutianyu Great Wall