BTC Luoyong to X’ian

Might be called partly cloudy

High speed train to X’ian. Reaches 200 mph but takes a while to get to full speed. Train is somewhat of a local making a number of long stops.

Another large station, as Libby has pointed out most in China seems to be on a grand scale, with just a few travellers unlike the crowds of Beijing station.

The landscape has become rolling hillsides with terraced farming, wheat. The pictures will not do justice to the mixture of greenery, plum trees, and wheat fields.

The agricultural area is referred to as the yellow soil plateau. East to west there are three plateaus. Tibetian at 17000 feet, yellow soil at 4000 feet, third runs to the China Sea. The third level includes Henan province and is the main agricultural region.

We climb to the yellow soil plateau, covered with loess.

We pass one of the five sacred mountains of China, Huashan mountain, near Huaxian.

Then onto X’ian, home of the qin dynasty, first to rule all of eastern china.

We arrived via a large agriculture plain dotted with small farming villages, still muchly traditional. Elevated roads are built over the first, roads that look like bridges over lakes, think NOLA and ponchitrain. The outskirts slowly become what is now common to see, urban blight, houses and areas abandoned or planned for industry or housings in future. Very ugly. Little respect for the land. Have seen this in Zuhai 25 years ago, little has changed in this aspect.

Major industry is education. 60 universities, with 30000 students each.

Had afternoon off so off for a walk we went. Onto the Ming dynasty wall that encircles the city. Incredible. Five or six times wider that the great Wall. Bicycles for rent, 100 minutes at a time.