Travelling - First Stop - Xi'an

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Travelling - First Stop - Xi'an

So we now have about 7 weeks holiday for the winter break - or Chinese Spring Festival (like our Christmas) so we're spending 1 month travelling round. The general plan of direction is Shaanxi, Guizhou, Guangxi then Yunnan, though how and when we get to each place is fairly relaxed and unplannable due to Chinese train ticket regulations! We can't buy train tickets more than a few days in advance and they sell out quickly so we have to be pretty flexible!

First stop is fairly easy however, Lanzhou to Xi'an, Shaanxi Province. Hard sleeper overnight from Lanzhou. We did have a small problem though... In the early morning (6am!) confusion and I admit this was mostly my fault, but we managed to get off the train a stop early... So not entirely sure where we were or how far away we were from Xi'an (which could be a long way in China) we searched round in the dark for a taxi/train/bus - pretty much anything- which would take us to Xi'an. (I was not a very popular person at this point with Andrew) We eventually found a taxi and managed to convince the taxi driver - by getting out of the taxi - not to charge us 10x the price though we weren't sure what the appropriate price might be... Eventually we did make it to Xi'an and our hotel which turned out to be very nice even though it was cheap :D though I am now banned from making any decisions regarding trains and train stops from now on :s

So we got to Xi'an and spent most of the day exploring (or getting lost) and discovered most people here speak English which was new and exciting, and there are other foreigners in China! though they didn't seem anywhere near as interesting in us as we were in them - foreigners are rare in Lanzhou not counting those who live with us in our block at the university. So we explored a bit, Xi'an is very very western compared to Lanzhou. McDonalds and Starbucks are everywhere and large sections are very touristy indeed but still lots of fun since its winter and there aren't that many tourists. We found and old teahouse where they showed us many typed of tea and told us all about how they were made and the many ways they are good for us - apparently tea heals everything, who knew? and spent the afternoon relaxing.

The next day we had breakfast in McDonalds, yey hash browns!, and headed off to walk round the city walls. Xi'an's city walls are long, really long, and it turns out Xi'an has just as much smog and pollution as Lanzhou in the winter so we couldn't see all that much but we made the best of it and got round in about 3 1/2 hours. We watched them making all the silk decorations for the coming Spring Festival which was interesting on the last section of the wall too. All welded together by hand and the silk cut and glued on by hand too. It must take months with the amount they make for Spring Festival! Still fairly footsore from the stone walkway we headed into town to wander round the Muslim quarter for the rest of the day, checking out all the tourist stalls (me) and street food (Andrew). Found a place in the lonely planet for dinner and headed off. We got a little tuck tuck to take us there for a few kwai (fun in itself- it's open-air) and had the Xi'an local dish (will add name in later) for dinner. Basically you rip up a huge piece of flatbread into tiny pieces in a bowl and they fill it with Lamb broth. We added quite a lot of spice to this and it was pretty good - if a bit soggy! Andrew loved it.

The next day we headed outside the city walls to visit the Shaanxi museum (Andrew insisted) and the 'Big Goose Pagoda’, a huge ancient Buddhist tower. The museum was ok, lots about the silk route and lots of bronze ware and pottery. There was a whole section of pottery figurines of foreigners in China, all labelled foreigner on a horse, foreigner on a camel, female foreigner etc. however if you looked closely some of the 'foreigners' were tibetan, some Indian, some western, some Mogolian etc. - gives you an idea of how China views anyone not Chinese (and even not 'Han' Chinese!). Anyway we went off to find lunch then - an Indian restaurant (Andrew was very excited about this) that wiki travel had suggested. After much hunting we found it and it was run by an Indian family, so real Indian food :D was a nice change from the normal Chinese flavours. Then we had a wonder round the Big Goose Pagoda and round the botanic gardens since they were nearby too. (Fairly unimpressive in winter - it's all summer planting) but lots of trees still, before back into town to a local noodles restaurant for dinner.

For our last day in Xi'an we thought we better visit the Terracotta Warriors since that’s what people generally come to Xi'an for. This is an hr bus ride out of town. So we got there and made our way through all the touts (mostly selling small terracotta warriors) to the actual site. We had heard most people were disappointed by the terracotta warriors (they do get an awful lot of hype) but we were not! It was pretty impressive to see all the open digs and broken pieces, building up to the main section with the hundreds of warriors lined up for battle. Each different from all the others, with different faces, hairstyles and armour. . We thought this was one of the best things we've seen in China so far, as it is not a 'reconstruction' which most things in China which look old are (usually built in the last thirty years). It also helped that it was winter I think as it was quiet with lots of space for looking around. Most people I had spoken too went in the summer. It was also 30 kwai cheaper because it was winter too - win all round!

Any way’s, we spent most of the next day lazing around until our train at 7.30pm. So we went to Starbucks in the central square and read books/chatted to other travellers. I left Andrew there for a time so I could do a little bit of shopping an d lots of bargaining in peace. Because it's winter and relatively quite in Xi'an I even managed to get some good deals on a teapot and silk scarf. We finally had to leave (and ended up leaving a little too late and had to walk very very fast to get to the station!) and got on our sleeper train to Guiyang, Guizhou.

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Photos

At a teahouse/old family mansion
The sign reads..."A room for introspection - room for members of family who make mistake to make introspection" !

A cat I made friends with
who then followed us around the tea house untill we left.

A very very long wall...
and not much else around