‘I can’t wait to get back to China for a holiday’

Before the Covid-19 pandemic swept the planet we had planned to revisit Beijing and Xi’an in China to spend more time in the cities then we had previously. Of course all that is shot now so I’ll have to make do with my memories of our wonderful 2016 visit there instead. And oh what a visit it was …

We arrived in China on a Celebrity Cruise, which had a special three-day tour from the ship to Xi’an and Bejing. We’d made sure we had confirmation that we were able to get on the tour or we weren’t going. Yeah, they still had a couple of seats as they were now running two buses to accomodate all of us enthusiastic tourists. Great.

Unfortunately, it took forever to get all of us onto the buses and we missed our connecting flight to Xi’an (pronounced shee-ahn), however, they were able to fit everyone on the next plane.

It was a very long day and I wasn’t going to go to the Chinese Opera and Dinner show that night, however, my husband, David, persuaded me to go and wow am I glad I did. I thought it was better than Moulin Rouge in Paris. The meal was lovely and the master of ceremonies came out and explained the story in English for all of us non-Chinese-speaking tourists. The entire experience was perfection. You know you’ve enjoyed something when it finishes too soon, and this did.

It was nearly midnight when we arrived back at the hotel. We had a freestanding bath so I had a soak and it was after 1am when I went to bed.

The next day brought so many wonders, however, the most exciting for me was the terracotta warriors. I had never believed I would see them in real life, let alone get close enough to touch them.

It was wall to wall tourists of course but we spotted a photo point and left our tour to ask about having a photo taken in front of the warriors. We were told it would cost $15 and would and would be ready in about 10 minutes. Great. We could still see and hear our tour guide so we said yes and after the photo was taken they said we could have a wander around while they developed the photo. It was incredible. We were right in amongst the warriors and no one else was down here.

I don’t know how many photos we took, I would say over 100, while we waited and too soon the photo was ready and we returned to our tour guide – she hadn’t even missed us. We were there for four hours and we even met the farmer who originally found the warriors on his farm. The farm is long gone but all his family have employment at the site, which he said pays much more than farming. He was a lovely man in his late 70s and he signed our book for us too.

That night we arrived in Beijing two and a half hours late. A couple in our tour group had a tiff and we couldn’t find one of them. Our tour guide for Beijing made a point of telling everyone on the bus that if they were late the next morning the bus would not wait and they would miss the Great Wall and have to make their own way back to the ship some three hours from Beijing.

The next morning when we arrived at the bus the couple were already sitting inside! Because so many people travel to the Great Wall on bus we had to be there early if we were to have any chance at avoiding the heavy crowds. We arrived there at 8am and we were bus six out of 20. We had a wonderful group photo taken and we were told how lucky we were that they didn’t have to photo shop a blue sky into the print. Ours was real!

I managed to get to the first part of the Great Wall and David made it to the top point. I could see him coming down and met him on the first stop with a cold drink and wet flannel. David’s grandfather Old Rabbit (as we called him) had always said how he wanted to go and David was so happy that we had made it.

The people in China were lovely and friendly and couldn’t do enough for us. I have had bad travel experiences since but not on this trip.

I truly believe that it will be years before China opens its borders fully to all countries again. I am so glad we had the opportunity to go when we did.