China Day 4 - Banpo Village and Big Wild Goose Pagoda

After flying from Nanjing to Xi'an, the tired had started to set in.

Our first morning in Xi'an was spent skeptically exploring the excavations of Banpo Village: a supposed Neolithic village found buried and lost for years - excavated in 1950's. Some parts were a bit too good to be true. Also, it was hard to image the Neolithic settlers building their houses with bricks, as we saw in some of the pits. But, nevertheless, the snow had made the trees and rocks that surrounded the museum tranquil enough to give me time to relax and paint in the cold, although as usual any painting was rushed and scrappy.

That afternoon we visited Big Wild Goose Pagoda. Legend has it that monks once prayed for Buddha to bring them meat to eat and a wounded goose fell to the ground. So, naturally, they buried it, built a massive temple on top of it and the Chinese Buddhists have been vegetarian ever since.

However far fetched that seems, or rather however wrong I got the legend (don't hold me to this!) - the pagoda was awesome. Like a stack of boxes - each as mysterious as Pandora's - the pagoda towers above and pierces the snowy peaks of the goose-down clouds. At the entrance to the pagoda a gleaming golden Buddha flickers in the light of the fire-trough that lays in front of the entrance. Tourists and pilgrims alike light 4ft incense sticks and touch their fiery tips to crimson bees wax candles, filling the frosty air with the smoke that seems to follow me from temple to temple around my tour of China.

(PHOTOS TO COME)