D17 - Thursday 25-5-06 Malaysia

My final day in Xian as today we will be flying off from Xian to Kuala Lumpur at 3.00pm.

For the rest of the morning, we spent our time walking around the down town city near the Bell Tower area.

At around, 1.00pm , we took a taxi to the Melody Hotel where the airport shuttle bus terminal was based, for our departure to the Xian airport. We paid Rmb25 per ticket for the bus fare.

We arrived at the KLIA airport around 9.30pm. Home sweet home at last !

As this was was our first backpacking trip overseas, we thoroughly enjoyed every moment of our time in all the places we visited. There was no major hiccups or untoward incidents along the way so we were very pleased with the outcome. It would be more ideal if we would have extended our stay for another two weeks to cover the southern Xinjiang route.

Here are some nice photos to jog my memory on this trip:

1) The Shaanxi province has ten strange things or practices that we should probably be aware of or taken note . I took ten pictures of these framed up posters erected at one of the Hua Shan tourist sites. The ten messages posted on the boards were:

- Shaanxi noodles look like our waist belt
- Shaanxi food must be hot and spicy
- Shaanxi round pancake is as large as the size of the cover of a wok
- Shaanxi's eating bowl is extraordinary large
- When walking, Shaanxi's women like to place a towel on their heads
- The roofs of Shaanxi homes are half covered
- Shaanxi girls prefers marriage within their own province
- When resting, Shaanxi men prefers squatting than sitting
- When sleeping, prefers hard bricks than pillows
- When singing in opera, it is like a shouting match.

Do you think is funny or queer ?

2) The steep climb to one the mountain peaks in Hua Shan - Is'nt it scary ?

3) How about training one more time taking trains from Xian to northern & southern Xinjiang (10,000km) ?

4) When travelling overseas, do not forget to invest in taste, the return is delicious !!!!! I can't wait to go back to Xinjiang to saviour their succulent roasted lamb, satay sticks & Hami melons.

"Having travelled to China 5-6 times, my future travels will most likely to focus on Western countries. So bye bye China but like what General McArthur had said during the second world war - I shall return"