After another night on an overnight ‘hard-sleeper’ train from Shanghai, we arrived not particularly refreshed in Xi’an. Xi’an is a much smaller and more rural city than the metropolises of Shanghai and Beijing, however it still has 8 million people so it’s not small by any standards! Our group navigated through the morning chaos that was the railway station and jumped in taxis to the hotel. Unfortunately we had arrived at the hotel too early and as a result had to haul ourselves round Xi’an until our rooms were free! Though we felt like the living dead (thanks to snorers keeping everyone up and the Chinese conductors rising at an ungodly hour in the morning to start serving snacks and announcing this fact at top volume every five minutes until we were awake) we went for an orientation walk around this fascinating city. Our hotel was just a minute away from the main square containing the main pagodas – Bell Tower and Drum Tower. These towers are aptly named as they’re both pretty much the same – one housing a large bell and the other a couple of massive drums. The towers are very traditional Chinese architecture and overlook a lush green square thronging with activity on this Chinese national holiday. The essential massive department stores are there in force (the Chinese have definitely embraced capitalism) however there’s an appealing, slightly more gritty, air to the city – something that super-clean and formal Beijing seemed to lack. We wandered down to the Muslim quarter, trying a few local delicacies from the street vendors before heading back to the hotel via a tasty bakery! Our guide Leah took us to yet another delicious Chinese restaurant that evening – it’s a godsend having someone in the know who speaks Chinese, otherwise most meals are point at the menu and hope! Our banquets usually come in at less than £4 per person – absolutely awesome!
Arriving fresh as a daisy in Xi’an
Bell Tower by day
Drum Tower by day
Xi’an’s Muslim Quarter
Drum Tower by night
The following day we set off early for the main attraction that draws people to Xi’an, the Terracotta Warriors. The story behind this historic relic is fascinating – an emperor from the Qin dynasty over 2200 years ago decided that his burial mound should be surrounded by an army so he would be forever protected. Apparently he initially wanted this army to be a proper army buried alive, however some advisors said this might be a little impractical let alone slightly out-of-order so he relented and opted for a mind bogglingly large collection of Terracotta Warrior statues instead. The emperor was only 13 when the work on the burial mound was begun, and only completed by some 700,000 workers 38 years later, a year after his death! The warriors were buried in three trenches, the first warrior being rediscovered in 1974 by a local farmer (who now signs books at the fit shop every day)! The roofs of the trenches were covered with massive logs and buried in earth – many of the logs decayed over time and the roofs collapsed on a number of the warrior statues, giving archaeologists some pretty complex jigsaw puzzles to solve (each restored warrior takes on average 3 months to piece back together)! The warriors themselves are impressive works of art – every one being different from the other with different facial expressions, features, dress, even shoes. When they were first uncovered, some of the paint was still visible, however after exposure to the air for the first time in 2200 years the colour rapidly faded. The curators of this treasure are wisely not excavating everything at once, waiting instead for technology to advance to help preserve the artefacts (the soil has been doing an excellent job so far anyway!). They estimated that there are some 600 pits in total surrounding the mound so it’s likely there are more treasures to come! The Warriors were probably the most impressive thing we’ve seen so far – it’s amazing to think how all this was going on over two centuries ago, and the sheer scale (and ego) of the project!
Warriors in battle formation
Horsey action
Smiley chap!
Command centre chamber – warriors facing inwards instead of battle formation
Later that day we returned to Xi’an and went to the South Gate of the ancient city walls. We almost all hired bikes to ride the 14km around the wall, however I opted to run it instead which was fun! It’s a great way to see the city, and a nice escape from the ever-chaotic roads below. A park surrounds the perimeter of the city wall and you could stop and gaze down at local people playing card games & instruments, doing strange exercises and generally going about their day-to-day business.
Bombing it round Xian’s walls
On your marks…
Locals playing abacus-like game
Rich makes a new (inanimate) friend
Rich in high-speed pursuit vehicle
We’re now on a 16-hour day train to Guilin where we set off from tomorrow on a boat up the Yangtze river - should be awesome fun! We’ll report back at the end of our boat trip as I’m fairly confident that the boat won’t have Wi-Fi!
p.s. Sorry for the delays in getting these posts uploaded – we’ve had surprising difficulty in finding a reasonable internet connection in this high tech country, though this is largely due to the authorities not being too keen on the Internet in general (Facebook and Blogger are both banned in China)!
