Xi'an

We stayed in Xi'an for another day to wait for me to get over the cold. We visited the muslim quarter for the local food, and appreciated this ancient city's gorgeous intact city walls. This is a city with a even more glorious past than Luoyang, world famous for being the capital of the first emperor of China.

Wei persuaded me to travel north to the poor regions of Yan'an, where the unique folk culture is well known in China. We took a train to Yan'an, the capital of the communists during the World War II. Then we took busses to the tiny town Wubao on the Yellow River. This stretch of travel was rather uncomfortable due to the poor bumpy roads, and very polluted air from all the coal mining and shipping. We met a young truck driver who boasted of making good money despite being illiterate that he could not read road signs. He was optimistic and it was great conversation. We finally reached Wubao and stayed in a local inn. It's a very dirty town at one end of a bridge crossing the river, with non-stop trucks shipping coal through it. The Yellow river was indeed very yellow here, being full of silt but wide and mighty. Being the cradle of Chinese civilization the towns along this river are among the oldest in China, but this has also been a poor region due to deforestation and drought for over 1000 years.