The Plateau and Hills Near Xi'an

One Saturday this past fall we hired a jeep and guide to take us up on the plateau, foothills, and low mountains surrounding Xi'an. Very enjoyable and absolutely fascinating. The "real" China, the "hidden" China, the non-500 million urban China - is amazing. We have relished every opportunity to see how the other 800 million live who are not urbanized, many of whom are subsistence.

China has its major cities and attractions that tourist come to see: Beijing, The Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Shanghai, The Bund, Guilin and the Li River with its magical mountains, Terracotta Warriors here in Xi'an, the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. In 2005 we toured China and had a fabulous experience on that particularly itinerary. Now we take what opportunities we can to see the rest.

Corn was being dried everywhere. Lots of families had just harvested their own plots and others were having gunny sacks of corn delivered. They were pealing it and setting it out to dry

Cave Living
This entry is about some of "the rest" that we saw this past Fall. http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/18/world/la-fg-china-caves-20120318 This LA Times article talks about the 30 million Chinese still living in caves - some caves continuously lived in for the last 2000 years.

Can you wrap your head around that number? 30,000,000. That is a population greater than the cumulative populations of Montana, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois all living in caves. How can it be? We wandered through several abandoned cave homes. Our guide pointed out that they were the typical "double 2-story" caves. One was used for livestock and the other was the family dwelling. The dimensions looked like they were 20 feet wide, 50 -60 feet deep, and 15 feet high. The ceiling black with soot. Paul just had an essay turned in talking about a students parents growing up with their animals living in the house. Not pleasant according to the student.

This friendly cave dweller lived here with his wife. They raised their family here and the family lived in traditional housing down in the valley. It was very much subsistence living with a tiny government pension. But he did have a cell phone to call friends and family and tell them he had visitors.

Unoccupied caves

The living area in one of the occupied caves

This is where the livestock would be kept

Our group with the "man of the house" .

He was more than happy to have us visit.

We visited some temples with rather large statues in front of them. Many things here are created on a much larger scale...Based on more intense stares than usual, this very out of the mainstream location does not get many western visitors.

While we were touring the country side we stopped for a coutry lunch at a farmhouse way off the beaten path.  In fact, while we were waiting for our meal we saw one of the "chefs' run down a pheasant that ended up being the main course.  We all gathered around the table and shared the meal together.

If I had wanted to I could have eaten the head of the bird.....

I am sure he is meant for someone's lunch....

We passed through several small villages. some a little larger than others but all in all very small and basic.  Not a lot of frills here.

This group of boys were loud, friendly and very enteratining.

The people were friendly and really enjoyed watching us as we walked around.