The ancient heart of China – Xi an (29.10.-31.10.08)

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The city of Xian is considered as the ancient origin of China with the Yellow river as main pulse. It is also the terminus of the famous Silk road which is less known. The main touristic site is the Terracotta army, but actually Xian has a certain charm due to its enormous city walls and small alleyways in the Muslim quarter. The inner city is arranged strictly around a main square with the huge bell and drum tower in the middle. All streets lead from here towards the North/South/East and West direction with the city wall as border. We enjoyed Xian especially at night with its wide walk ways and a nice mix of brand new shops in Chinese traditional style with the lit up drum and bell tower as eye catcher. As in most Chinese cities, the changes have been dramatic during the last years. It is not a grubby town, but a modern city with clean boulevards and squares. We had a hostel just near the drum tower and spent one rainy day just looking down the street from the cozy hostel’s top bar and lounge. You could linger all the day in a kind of living room setting with free computer and internet, wifi, pool table and a DVD collection.

We arrived in the late afternoon, checked in and spent the evening walking through the Muslim quarters with plenty of hot pot and Islamic specialties. The atmosphere is very similar to the old Hutong alleyways in Beijing. We did not know it exists also in Xian. We took it easy and delayed the “must do visit” of the terracotta army and spend quite some time to figure out where to go next and strolls in the city. The most obvious was heading to Beijing with an over stop in Pingyao, but we felt it as to trodden road. I still thought about a way to see something of the wild China and not just modern mega million cities. We slowly realized that the Tibet plateau is gigantic and the Tibet province is only a part of it. It reaches far into the province of Qinghai with Golmud as the former end station of the train line. This area was accessible without a Tibet permit and arranged tours.

We left the visit of the Terracotta army until the very last day and booked into a tour arranged by the youth hostel. The sun came finally out and we had a nice day visiting the burial areas. Most interesting was not the main hall known from countless pictures, but the smaller burial areas with even remains of painted statues. It was also possible to come close to warriors exhibited in a glass show case. We also learned that there is an excavation area far outside of Xian city in the East with thousand of animal terracotta statues of much less size. This place is difficult to reach, but you can see the excavations through a transparent glass floor. Next time may be! The tour finished with a lunch in almost empty hotel and discussions about fake eggs while sipping fake cheap Coca Cola. The group was an interesting mix of people and we kept afterwards constantly bumping into one Australian couple.

We collected our bag packs from the hostel in the evening and took a taxi to the train station. We were heading with the night train to Jining in Qinghai province.


Practicalities:

Flight Chengdu - Xian 440 RMB (30% discount ticket)
Hostel private room < 200 RMB
Entrance Terracotta army 70 RMB
Hard sleeper train Xian-Jining 190 RMB

Exchange: 1 Euro = 8.5 RMB

Remark: Flights can be conveniently booked and paid by International credit card over the English webpage of Air China; we did this many times and it always worked, you see the discount offers too.

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