Luxuries of Xian

What a change from the “interesting” experiences of hostels, yurts and toilets of questionable quality that we’ve been experiencing so far. Our accommodation for 4 nights in Xian was Bell Tower Hotel, which – while by no means being the fanciest hotel I’ve stayed in – is a dramatic improvement from our Chinese experience of last 3 weeks. Bell Tower Hotel is modern, clean, has comfortable rooms and beds, clean bathroom with a toiler that flushes (bonus!) and hot water (extra bonus!!) and a bath (heaven!!!). But the real paradise of this hotel is the breakfast buffer. Truck crew has been talking about it for days. It’s heaven of the hotel breakfasts: every imaginable kind of breakfast food, both Chinese and Western with all-you-can-eat process to it. Each day we have been devoting at least 45 min in the breakfast restaurant.

However, everything that’s good comes to an end, we are in Xian no longer, and the crew warns us that the quality of accommodations goes pretty streadily downhill from here... Oh well, I don’t mind. That’s what overlanding is all about.Night out in Xian Chinese style (evidently): oh my God, talk about cultural experiences of China! On Friday night we decided to hit the clubbing scene in Xian. Ended up in a place called Salsa Disco expecting reasonably civilized salsa club atmosphere. Well, it was civilized allright however nothing salsa about it. As soon as we walked in (after going through security screening delivered by uniformed guards and xray gates) a very loud wall of Western club music hot us: anything from The Queen to Sugababes with anything you can imagine in between. An unexpected but very nice addition was a big stand with promotional cocktails and shots of all sorts – all free in unlimited quantities. We had such a blast on the dance floor. I quickly discovered that tall Western girls with blue eyes are quite popular with Chinese men. Let’s just say I couldn’t complain about a lack of

dance partners! But the best part was still to come: about midnight these 2 Chinese guys invited our whole group (about 8) to their VIP booth where a waiter started serving bottles of whisky, jugs of beer, platters of fruit and boxes of icecream with (weirdly) “good luck on your examinations” written on them. When we learned that one of these Chinese guys was a professional dancer, a

night of salsa moves to Lady Gaga songs followed. It was a brilliant night and I’m afraid that some of my fellow travellers have pictures to prove it