Originally Posted by
jmc123
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.
That's how I took it. Sorry. I still don't understand the reference to third-world in this context, but whatever you say.
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.
Again, I can only go from your description. For what it's worth, in all the times I've visited China (and, for that matter, all the times I've visited any other country in the world), I've never had to resort to a tourist-venue for food. There are always alternatives, even if it's interesting-looking street food.
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.)
Out of curiosity, can you speak Mandarin? By the way, I absolutely agree with one of the points that you made: Chinese Americans are regarded solely as Americans in China. My wife, who was born in China and lived there until she was 27 has become very Americanized, and people constantly assume that she is just another American tourist and will talk about her in Mandarin in front of her (to our great amusement).
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.
I'm a bit surprised. We saw lots of little restaurants in the area around the Drum Tower and City Wall, and also scads of locals places in the Muslim neighborhood surrounding the Great Mosque (I hope you got a chance to see it -- it's spectacular). I can't, for the life of me, remember where we ate the day we went to see the terracotta warriors -- we saw a lot in that area, but I know we had to have eaten something as my wife gets cranky when she's hungry. We might have grabbed some street food. We were there during December, so it's likely we found our favorite Chinese street food: roasted yams. Anyway, my only point is that, at least in my opinion, rather than settle for some blah touristy quicky meal, the fun comes from finding a local solution that, at least, allows us to experience a bit of the culture.
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.
I agree -- that's pretty disgusting. I suspect it's the result of people used to "squatters" trying to use the same "technique" on a western toilet. In the future, you'd be better off trying to find a squatter (though only if your sense of balance of is good -- if not, just hold it to you get to a hotel or upper-scale restaurant).
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).
Yep -- we acquired that habit during our early travels through Europe. There were many public toilets in France and Italy that didn't supply this necessity.