Whoa, PTravel, I don't know where all this is coming from - lots of mistaken assumptions and attributions that I don't think are justified. I guess I should have clarified some of my remarks - though I didn't think anything I said was inflammatory - and I'm almost regretting having posted my trip report. I think you may have read much more into my remarks than I intended. If you read my post carefully, you'll note that I did NOT say Xian was Third World - far from it - it has infrastructure that is better than many parts of the US! And our driver was excellent. I did NOT say China was Third World. I also did NOT say anything about Third World *taxi* drivers. In fact, if you read my post carefully, you'll note that my post on the driving / roads is entirely consistent with your positive description. I was making a comparison to Third World drivers in general. I was not including China in that category, but I can see how you might read it that way.

It seems that you are making the assumption that I equate "comfortable" with "Western style". Not the case at all. The buffet we went to wasn't great, but it was fine for a quick meal. We wanted to go to the Muslim restaurant you mentioned but we didn't have the name of it. We've been to Muslim Chinese restaurants before, and the food is fantastic. (We are actually Chinese, so we don't confine ourselves to Western-looking restaurants.) However, in the 10-15 minutes of walking around in the area, we didn't find many restaurants period. We just jumped into a restaurant as quickly as we could bc we had a hungry group that was about to riot.

Lastly, about the toilets specifically in the Banpo exhibit itself, I didn't want to be explicit / graphic, but ok, here it is. All 3 toilets had a thick coating of feces smeared on the entire circumference of the *seats* in addition to the bowls being filled well past the half way mark with solid feces. If that isn't completely disgusting, I don't know what is. Maybe you'll tell me it was mud and not feces. Thanks for the toilet paper advice - I always bring it with me (in my travels, many public restrooms in Rome did not have toilet paper, came in handy even in Tokyo where some places simply ran out but that was unusual, and invariably the case with popular tourist spots all over the world that are in more remote areas).

Cheers