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The Army....
as effective as the french equivalent! The train journey from Shanghai was infinitely more enjoyable than my first night train experience. There are a number of reasons for this. 1) the train left at 4pm and arrived at 7am, which meant more time to relax before trying to sleep. The Beijing train left at 10.15 with lights out at 10.30. 2) The Air conditioning worked. 3) the berths had more head room, so much that we were able to sit on the lower bunk and talk to each other. 4) I didnt have a cold (i did on the last one). 5) We had a few drinks. Quite a few in fact, and the time just passed so quickly....!
So, having arrived early we were given the morning off to sleep of the train journey, before meeting to try the local speciality for lunch - Spicy chicken served with noodles. In fact all the dishes we tried were spicier than on the trip so far, whcih was fine by me. After lunch we took a bus ride for about an hour to the site of the terracotta warriors. Again, without giving too much of a history lesson, just consider that the warriors (estimates suggest 8000 in
total) were made 2200 years ago, buried in wooden covered pits 2 or 3 metres below ground - that is todays ground level, back then they stood 2 metres above ground - and perhaps most astonishliy of all given the size of the site, they were undiscovered until the early 70s. Hopefully the attached photos help to convey some of the scale of the place, it is truly staggering. And to think that in terms of excavation the surface has barely been scratched is also hard to fathom. The figures are so lifelike, and the faces so full of expression that it is hard to believe they date back so far. Again, hopefully the photos help!
In the evening we ventured out to the nearby night market, near the muslim quarter. We did the same in Beijing, it was aimed mainly at western tourists with grilled scorpions, sea horses and starfish available to eat, and all manner of tat available to buy. Xi'an was different. Firstly the food, although perhaps not for everyone, didnt include insects, bugs or wriggling scorpions on sticks, and secondly the place was full of locals, and as a result the stall holders peddling thier
wares were a lot more friendly and less pushy. Equally, there were some bargains to be had to those prepared to barter. We stuck to the food, our bags are full as it is! We tried a kind of deep fried stuffed chappati thing, some stuffed sweet dough balls, a strange cake on a stick with plum sauce and some more of our favourite pork and leak steamed dumplings - total cost 16yuan, or about £1.50 to you and me!
The following day we took a bike ride around the city of Xi'an, or more specifically around the city walls, which are still intact after over 600 years. It is worth pointing out here that Xi'an used to be the capital of Ancient China, for around 1000 years in total, and is now home to around 9million people. Just consider that this is a city you have probably never heard of (i hadn't), that used to be the capital of one of the worlds great civilisations, has more people currently living in it than London, Paris or Rome, and you begin to understand something of the scale of China. It is easy to say "China has 1.3bn people", but
until you visit Beijing or Shanghai (22m each give or take) or catch a train in Wuhan (our guide's home town, which he described initially as a River city in the south - turns out it has 10 million inhabitants) it is hard to appreciate exactly what that means. Anyway, bike ride around the wall. It was a hot sunny day, and not a bad way to spent the morning at all, even if we were on a tandem and i have a sneaky feeling i was doing all the work!
We then tried another local speciality for lunch, namely 16 types of steamed dumpling. I cnat remember them all, but with the possible exception of the walnut ones, they were all delicious, and many were shaped like the filling - see chicken photo!
That evening (the 18th) we headed out of the walled section of the city to the big goose pagoda light and water show. Sounds easy doesnt it, put like that. We headed out of town.....in reality, it was a little harder, and more eventful than that sentence suggests. Although we had had lots of free time by this stage, away from the group and
the group leader Ricky, this was our first nightime taxi based excursion to something that wasnt planned as part of the trip. We - along with some new friends Scott, Matt and Kathryn, hailed a cab at the 15th attempt to be greeted by a smiling (sweetly) laughing (manically) cab driver, who cheerfully waved us into his cab. All 5 of us might i add. He insisted. I got in the front, thanks to my long legs, though our driver seemed to thnk it was because i could speak the lingo. In the course of our 45 minutes together he asked me for directions, told me to turn the music up, asked my advice on pension plans and offered me at least one of his daughters. Well, i think he did all that, to be honest after the first 5 mins i gave up nodding, shaking my head or making any noise at all, it was easier and didnt seem to slow him down at all. He definitely asked me for directions though, at quite a large junction he just stopped, looked left and right, then at me, and shrugged his shoulders. I said right, he went left, smart man.
45 mins to cover 4 km tells you what the traffic was like, this despite our driver taking it upon himself to weave in and out of the lane for cyclists, nearly killing three or four, doing a u-turn on a dual carriageway, paluying chicken with a bus at the lights and generally trying to kill us as often as possible. Still, we got there in time for the light show, so it wasnt all bad.
The following morning we got up early to watch the locals exercise in the park, then caught a flight to Chengdu, capital of the Sichuan province, another city you've probably never heard of, yet home to 9million people all the same. it is also home to something rather special.....stay tuned!
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Very nice photo
Glad the train was more comfortable.