Ok, firstly, sorry this post has NO photos until my CF card gets fixed, as the photos are on that and when transferring them from the card to the laptop, it became corrupt... But for now, its just a summary...
It was an early morning start, breakfast at McDonalds across the road and another point to what we wanted... It was ok, in the end, and the coffee wasn't to bad! We then headed back across to the hotel for the driver to take us out to the site, some 45 minutes away!
Now, driving in China, Xi'an, is an experience in itself. Firstly, it is on the wrong side of the road and the wrong side of the car for us Aussies, and this made the experience even more scary exciting! Getting out of the hotel carpark in itself took a matter of minutes and what seemed like at least a dozen 'beeps' of the horn! These Chinese like to 'beep' their horns a lot!!!
Traffic in Xi'an was, peak hour, chaotic... But there was no real difference to normal chaos and peak hour chaos! And whilst the road MAY have had 3 lanes, there was often at least 5 (or more) lanes of traffic! Did I tell you, I was unlucky enough to get 'Shotgun' seat?
With all of the chaos of the driving skills of the local Chinese, and the apparent option of using indicators and multiple and prolonged use of the horn, there was very little signs of accidents! In fact, the only one we saw was between two trucks trying to get out of a service station! And the truck that was cutting off a turning semi-trailer came off second best!
Once out of the 'inner-city' and onto the freeway, there was more obstacles... freeway, pedestrians and YES, a bloody horn (although extended this time)! It was incredible that, whilst cars are doing 100klm/hr + that a person would even try to cross the road let alone at their own speed!!! Oh, and then there was the street sweepers, humans with thatch brooms walking, YES WALKING along the gutters and center island sweeping away whilst traffic passes them by within a few centimeters at excessive speeds blissfully unaware...
It became apparent, to me in the front maybe, that our driver was becoming concerned as to where to go... Ok, he was following the brown signs pointing us in the direction of the Expo, but he stopped a couple of times to make sure he was on the right roads... And whilst we entered into the Chan-Ba Ecological District, it was far from being in an Environmental area. The smog was thick, and getting thicker, and the litter around the area along the roads was plentiful. Whilst yes, the area did seem to be going through a 'revival' of sorts and new apartment buildings were springing up everywhere, there was also teams of, generally, older women weeding the gardens along the way. This was also the case when we were in the line waiting to get in where a team of about a dozen ladies were pulling out some Chaster Daisy's!
Our driver, upon arrival into the HUGE carpark, gave us his card (in case we got lost?) and wrote down (not that I could understand WHAT it was he said) where to go when we came out. We bid him our farewells and headed for the security line to enter. Once through, we crossed a bridge that was simply fantastic with a cabled suspension bridge like appearance. There was also gardens beds with lots of colour and lights which would look amazing at night! The over use of colour, whilst intense and repetitive, looked great at the same time.
The International Horticultural Exposition 2011 Xi’an (International Horticultural Exhibition + Permanent International Horticultural Exhibition) covers an area as large as 418 hectares, 188 hectares of which are water. So after finding an information place that spoke/understood English, we headed over to get some bikes to get around the site... We basically headed around in a clockwise rotation, dodging the local Chinese who were giving us some 'interesting' looks (what, you've not seen three Caucasian guys riding bikes before??) to say the least!! It was a great system in that the bikes had a rear wheel lock and you had a key... you pull up at an exhibit, lock your bike and walk away!! The trouble we encountered was that at the start, we would go from a small garden to another constantly locking, in the end, we rode to a precinct locked and walked around from that! Much easier indeed!
The first area we stopped at was about the size of an average Australian block of land (c. 700m2) and typically Asian influenced... Surprised? Not really! They were great landscapes, and well maintained given the thousands of people trudging through every day! It was then off through the European zone, full of large French Topiary, Italian Fountains and Swiss Villages. Walking through the Swiss Village, we had lunch at a Noodle House!
At the far end of the village, there was another fountain show to music, but due to the thickness of the smog, capturing it was very difficult. This was in the main central lake and across was the Pagoda. Back on the bikes, we then headed through some open parkland's to a Sand Sculpture area, where apart from the exhibits there, there was also an opportunity for the kids to build their own sandcastle!! There was also a dog exhibition area (lunch? lol) but the line for this was a little long. And for me, it was all about seeing the Horticulture! Once again, we were on our bikes heading around towards the Pagoda. This area was intense, and FULL of people. I think it was the main draw card. The area also held the glasshouse which we walked past, and the line for this, which zig-zagged many times, at one point had an estimated wait time of an hour... And by my estimate, that was only a third of the line!! We rode on...
Similarly, the line for the Pagoda was also very long, and why would you pay an additional fee to go in/up when you could barely see past 100m? So we simply went atop of the 'lookout' hill opp and got an overview of the park smog from there! NOW, had it been a beautifully clear blue sky, it would have been AMAZING! But alas, it was not the case... As we got down from the lookout, we then took the boardwalk pathway across the lake, where people were on boatbikes, there was lots of Lotus and Water Lillies and the like. There was even stalls selling traditional wears etc along the way! We again rejoined the masses of people milling around this busy area, and whilst we knew exactly where the bikes were, there was literally hundreds of green bikes and to the untrained eye, it would have been a nightmare to find. We got to ours, unlocked them and we were once again on our way. We rode on...
We soon found ourselves in an area that resembled a 'service' area, we weren't lost as the road we were on is a loop, and the many staff/volunteers were giving us the 'look', yes Aussies on bikes look. We followed a pathway, that by the map, was to take us via a hotel, but we were quickly waved at on approach NO NO NO!!! So we had to do a bit of a back-track. We rode on...
We rode past the small zoo area, full of Yaks and a couple of Panda's. Again, a recurring theme emerged, a VERY long line to get in... We rode on...
Our final area to stop at was an area that seemed dedicated to that of Thai, Japanese (again) and Sri Lankan. It had a very Buddha like feel about it and lots of incense burning around it. Gardens through here were typically raked stone Zen looking, also with over sized Bonsai's. Again, the use of colour, and in this areas case, texture, was equally as fascinating as what we saw earlier in the day. It also, for some strange reason, had a spiritual feel about it. By this stage, our 'Expo Passports' were getting a hammering (all of the Areas had a 'Visa Stamp' to collect). It had been a long day, the legs were getting tired and the head was pounding. I had tried to keep fluids up, water, but the more I drank the more I lost in sweat. It was very humid! We rode on...
Finally, after a full circuit of the park, we were back at our bike pick-up point... We locked up our rides, took back our deposit slips where they calculated out our charge (15CNY/hr) and deducted it from the deposit (200CNY) and headed back to the entrance... We walked on...
Once back in the carpark are, I called the driver and he confirmed where he was located... It took us a little while to find him though, as he had started to walk over to where we were walking out of! In the end, we were reunited all the same and we braced ourselves enjoyed the drive back to the hotel... A long, but very enjoyable day was had!
Hoo roo for now...
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