Fullboy - Xian & Datong - Chinese Muslim Food!

Xian, home of the famous terracotta army, was our next stop. It's a large, modern city home to over 8 million people and our hostel was right in the middle of the action. There's a small population of Chinese Muslims who reside in the city and we were located right next to the Muslim quarter. The food was hearty, heavy and delicious and we had a great time sampling the local delicacies in the night market. The stuffed lamb flatbreads, toasted and generously filled with cumin spiced meat were a standout. The meat was strong tasting, more like mutton than lamb. We sat and ate our sandwiches on small tables right next to where the meat was grilling on the BBQ and enjoyed taking in the bustling markets sights and smells. I still had room for a delicious quail egg snack on the way home. Five eggs were cracked into a specially moulded griddle, and basted with sesame oil. A stick was then inserted into them like a kebab for easy eating. So delicious!!

The next day we thought we'd go back to the market area. The market was only on at night but there were many restaurants serving up delicious food during the day. We sat down in a simple, cheap looking restaurant and ordered several dishes, including a spiced lamb shank, a bean salad and some lamb dumplings. The food was great and we felt like we'd made a good choice in choosing our accommodation right next to the Muslim Quarter!

I don't think we ate anywhere else in Xian other than the Muslim Quarter other than on one occasion where we visited an old, famous restaurant named Tong Sheng Xiang that made an unusual soup called Yang Rou Pao Mo. It involved breaking soft, thick flatbreads into small pieces and dropping them into an empty soup bowl. The hot, muttony broth and glass noodles were then added to the bowl that resulted in a filling, tasty and heavy soup. It seemed to take an eternity to finish our bowls but it was a great experience. It's always a good experience to be an active participant in the making of your food, even though you're not really making it and the ritual of breaking the bread into the bowl was great. It's always refreshing to sample a cuisine uncommon to the country you're in, yet local and authentic at the same time. I think I'll remember Xian for it's food even more so than it's famous Terracotta Army! But I suppose that's just me!

Our one month Chinese visas had nearly expired and we planned to renew them at our next stop, Datong. I'd read horror stories about renewing the visa at Beijing so before we arrived I did a bit of research into how we went about renewing the visa in Datong. In terms of the language barrier, China was definitely the most difficult place to get around and it was always an adventure getting off the train in a new town or city. Upon arrival, we wondered around aimlessly until we found a hotel. It was another 'by the hour' place but it was cheap, relatively clean and had air-con which was definitely needed as it was very hot. Fortunately for us, there was a restaurant about three doors down from the hotel that had what we referred to as 'the food bible', basically a dictionary that had thousands of Chinese dishes translated into English. We'd just look for something we liked and point, if only it was that easy everywhere! Still, that would be taking away half the fun. The food we ate was simple, mainly consisting of noodles and vegetables and was very good quality. To be honest though, after the range and quality of food in Xian, we weren't getting too excited about the options in Datong. Datong was not really on the tourist trail, although there were some great attractions in the surrounding areas, namely the Yungang Grottoes and the Hanging Monastery. The Grottoes are a UNESCO Heritage site and were very well preserved caves containing many statues of Buddha. They were spectacular and one of the finest sites we'd seen on our travels to date. The Hanging Monastery was also a very interesting spectacle and it's amazing that it's still standing as it's built precariously into a cliff face.

Another major event in Datong was replacing our camera (AGAIN!!) as the photo quality had gone from bad to worse. We got a good deal on a Casio camera so hopefully from now on, the blog photos will look a bit better too! We had to wait in Datong around five days as our visas were being processed. The police were keeping a watchful eye on us (suspicious foreigners!) and on one occasion in the local internet cafe, my computer switched itself off. I noticed two police officers talking to the lady at the till and I later found out that I had been banned from the internet cafe!! I have no idea why... I can only guess it was because one early morning (around 4am), me and Melissa went there to watch the England Vs USA world cup match, quite possibly one of the worst football matches I've ever seen! After sorting out our visas we headed to the giant capital city of China, Beijing.

Fullboy - China - Yunnan Province - Goat's Cheese, Hash Browns and Prostitutes!

Hekou

Next stop China. We'd been looking at maps and scratching our heads for quite some weeks before arriving at this colossal country and now we were finally here. The border crossing was smooth, efficient and very friendly, the immigration officers even gave us maps of the border town Hekou where we spent our first night in China. We didn't plan on staying but we missed the only bus of the day to the rice terraces, so Melissa waited at the bus stop while I found us a hotel for the night. I noticed that every hotel was offering an 'hourly' rate but didn't let this put me off and chose a fairly nice looking hotel close to the bus stop at a heavily discounted price . Our first meal in China was a breakfast of delicious wheat noodle soup with a fiery chilli oil condiment that gave it a real kick. It was cheap and delicious, everything a backpacker could need!
















As light faded, our hotel was giving up a few of the areas 'secrets' and we could see from our window the row of 'hair salons' that magically changed into mini brothels with scores of women standing around enticing men to enter for a 'special' haircut. It was all quite surreal, especially when we started to receive strange phone calls in our room and knocks on our door from scantily clad young women. I apologized to Melissa for checking us into a brothel hotel and we went to sleep.

Yuanyang Rice Terraces

The next day we managed to catch the bus to Yuanyang Rice Terraces, a bumpy, windy 8 hour ride into the hills of the Yunnan Province, deep in the Southwestern Chinese countryside. We found a much nicer little establishment to stay in upon arrival at Yuanyang with views over the hills to die for. The town was populated with Hmong people, a small ethnic minority group that dress in very traditional colourful garments, even the babies have nice clothes!















Our dinner was superb, a great selection of fresh vegetables, meats and salads, expertly cooked and extremely plentiful (probably enough for 6!). The stir fried pigs liver was delicious, and the 'twice' cooked pork had intense salty and spicy flavour. The pick of the veggies was the refreshing crunchy pickled cucumber that accompanied the strongly flavoured meat dishes well.


























We woke very early to catch the sunrise at the rice terraces, a spectacular insight into the sheer vastness of the country that lay before us. This remote, sparsely populated corner of China offered us some magical panoramic vistas of never ending rice fields and it was great to see such natural beauty in a country so often portrayed as the 'factory' of the world.





































Kunming

After one more night we caught the night bus to Kunming, the capital of the Yunnan Province and a bustling, modern city of over 1 million people. The bus was not pleasant and was full of people smoking and hacking up the contents of their lungs. We took a sleeper bus and arrived very early in the morning. Kunming couldn't have been more different from the countryside as the narrow country roads gave way to wide, paved dual carriageways and the small shack like buildings were replaced by large concrete blocks. We had pre-booked accommodation a hostel to save the hassle of finding a hotel in this relatively large city and we were located very centrally near the main square. The 'Hump' hostel was great and gave lots of helpful information about the area and how to get around. We were beginning to find that China could potentially be quite difficult to navigate with no knowledge of Chinese as the level of English spoken amongst the locals seemed very low. The locals that did speak English however were always more than happy to help.

The food in Kunming was fantastic and in the public square downstairs from our hostel, they had a great restaurant selling the speciality noodle dish called 'across the bridge' noodles, named after an interesting Chinese folk tale which you can see here. It was a new and great way of making and eating a noodle soup. The broth was really tasty and the bowls were humongous, increasing in price depending on the amount of side dishes you chose to put in. Our selection of sides consisted of a raw egg, greens, shoots, pork, chicken and a mountain of thick rice noodles, costing around Y18, (about 2 quid) a bargain because it was like breakfast and lunch in one delicious bowl.






















Another tasty local snack was the ganbei yangyusi, or put more simply, the Yunnan hash brown, fried, shredded potato covered in a unique sichuan peppercorn flavoured salt. These were sold at a bus stop on our way to one of Kunming's temple and it was the only place we saw them. They were fried on a griddle and placed in a plastic bag which made it easier for us to hold and grab pieces off. MMmmmm...














Goat's cheese is common in Yunnan Province dishes and one evening in a large food court, we tried it in an unusual deep fried form. It was almost like a thick, crispy, goat's cheese poppadum, with sugar on it!! It was interesting but I much prefer it in its original form. Still... we were pleased with ourselves for even finding goat's cheese after we were presented with about a dozen Chinese menus!! (at least we think it was goat's cheese???)



















We had a fantastic time in Kunming and the 'Hump' hostel was kind enough to let us leave our big backpacks there while we went on an adventure up into the mountains. Next stop... Tiger Leaping Gorge!!