Xi'an: did someone say travelling in China would be difficult?

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We had booked a hostel in Xi'an that promised us a free pick-up from the train station. So, following the crowd, we made our way out front to scan the crowd for a sign with our names on it. The train station was mobbed with people. It was difficult to spot anything, but after circling a few times we both concluded that there was nobody there to meet us.

Right then. Thankfully, we had the hostel phone number handy and had managed to buy a travel SIM card when we arrived in Guangzhou. As Philippe tried his best to understand the broken English coming from the mobile phone, I took note of my first impressions of Xi'an. It was just full of people.

Philippe had managed to ascertain that there had been a mix up and no one was coming for us. Instead we were instructed to find a taxi, get a receipt and we would get a refund on arrival. It wasn't exactly what we had hoped for, but we got on with it. We found what looked like a taxi rank and joined a queue. While we were waiting there we were approached by several unofficial taxis offering to take us to the hostel, but for hugely inflated prices. Our experience in India stood us well, and we held our ground, refusing all offers. Eventually somebody opened a gate at the top of our queue as several taxi's swarmed into the parking area. Queueing in China is a fluid concept. Once we were all through the gate it was every man for himself - and the Chinese men and women were a lot more adept at this game than us!

Eventually a kind train station official hailed us a taxi. We shoved our digital camera in front of the driver to show him a photograph of our address in Chinese characters and he nodded in agreement and switched on the meter. We whizzed out of the train station and slotted into traffic. While our first impressions of traffic were better than those in many of the previous countries we have visited, there were still a few nervous moments on our way to the hostel. About ten minutes later the taxi slowed down and the driver spoke to us in Chinese and was clearly expecting an answer! We showed him the camera again and repeated the hostel name, but didn't seem to be getting anywhere. Then a random passer by stuck his head through the window of the hostel and asked us in English if we were looking for the hostel. Our second Chinese angel!

He pointed to the hostel that we had all managed to drive by without noticing and gestured for us to get out of the cab. We paid the driver (about 1 Euro), grabbed our bags and followed our new best friend. It turns out he didn't work for the hostel, just lives in the neighbourhood. He dropped us off and was on his way. We didn't even get a chance to thank him!

The exterior of the hostel was deceiving. It looked quite dingy. Inside though was a cosy, welcoming place. The receptionist booked us in, refunded our taxi and apologised for the mix up. Then we were led to an absolutely fantastic room. The décor of the hostel was Chinese chic. The beds were large and had big comfy duvets. A quick check of the bathroom, thankfully yielded a European style loo. After the relative discomfort of the train trip, we had arrived in heaven!

It was still early in the day so we ventured out of the hostel to explore a bit of the city. We found our way to the Drum Tower and to the nearby tourist information centre. The guy at the desk there was happy to give us a map and some explanation in English on what is good to see in Xi'an. Walking around the city, we were struck by how modern and dare I say it, westernised, it was. I'm not sure what we were expecting, but McDonalds and Starbucks weren't quite on the agenda. The Chinese people around us were wearing the same sort of clothes that you would see in Dublin or Amsterdam. Aside from the fact that they spoke a different language and looked oriental, you wouldn't realise that we are so far away from home.

After photographing the beautiful Drum Tower we ventured into a massive shopping centre to try and buy some lip balm for me. The shopping centre was bigger than any I've been in in Europe. Each floor was dedicated to a specific item : shoes, electronics, make-up etc. We managed to find a Nivea counter and tried to buy a stick of lip balm. When we brought it to the counter and proffered our Yuan, the lady rattled off some Chinese at us and handed us a slip of paper with the price written on it. Then several smiling ladies directed us to a central payment area about ten metres away. We handed over our chit with some Yuan at this counter, got a different receipt back and then made our way back to the first counter to retrieve our purchase. It was long winded but it worked, and it represented a “One small step for man” moment for us. If we could manage that, we would be okay in this country.

Buoyed by this small success, we made our way back to the hostel where we chilled out for the afternoon and planned our first few days in China. We still had to decide on whether we were going to try to get to Tibet, because based on our first calculation it was prohibitively expensive. We decided to take our time discovering Xi'an to get used to being in China. We booked a tour to the Terracotta Warriors, and spent our evening chatting to other travellers over some free beer in the café downstairs.

After some internet research, we discovered that we could buy cheap tours to Tibet in Chengdu. We pencilled in a few more days in Xi'an, and went off to buy our train tickets to Chengdu. The hostel offered the service to buy the tickets, but we were feeling adventurous. Our map showed a 'train ticket office' a few streets away from the hostel, so, armed with details of the train we wanted to get, we set off in search of that office. The office turned out to be a little cabin at the side of a car-park. Clutching our phrase book, expecting the worse, we approached the window.

I slid my sheet of paper through the gap, tentatively said 'We would like to buy two tickets for this train to Chengdu' and then held my breath. “Do you want soft of hard sleeper?” came the response. Shocked, I managed to say 'Hard Sleeper'. She clicked a few buttons, wrote 420 on my copy book and slid it towards me. We handed over the cash. She clicked a few more buttons, and suddenly we were walking away from the booth holding two tickets to Chengdu. It was just too easy. We had built China up to be such a huge challenge, and so far, nothing had lived up to that expectation. Not that we were complaining!

Having allowed a whole day to figure out how to acquire these train tickets, the fact that it took the grand total of five minutes now left us with the afternoon to ourselves. We dropped our golden tickets back at the hostel and set off on foot again to see what we could see. We eventually found ourselves forking over 40yuan each to gain entrance to the City Wall. Built in 1370 during the Ming Dynasty, this mighty fortress wall is 12m high, 18m thick and has a perimeter of nearly 14km. We decided to hire a bike to get the whole way around it.

When we saw the bikes that were for hire, we couldn't resist trying a tandem bicycle. In hindsight I think it is a test that should be added to any pre-marital course. The pedals are linked so that if one person stops the pedals moving, the other person gets a sharp bite on the ankle! It required a fair bit of coordination and communication but was great fun to ride around. The basic rate gives you 100 minutes to return the bike. Cheap as we are, we decided to give it a go. The wall looks deceptively flat, but once we were cycling on it we were more than aware of the inclines! We set a good pace and occasionally paused to look at the various sites that were below and on the wall. We had tired ourselves out by the time we returned to the rental booth, but were rewarded by being told we took 94minutes to complete the circuit.

The next morning we set off on the hostel run tour to the Terracotta Warriors. Zia Zia was our chirpy guide for the day, and she surprised us by pulling some small wooden clogs from her bag when she heard Philippe was Dutch, and a lucky Irish penny from around her neck when I came to introduce myself. Her English was good, but rapid. We really had to pay attention to catch everything she was telling us.

First off, she brought us to a Terracotta Warrior factory and museum, where we were shown how they make modern statues. We also got up close to some actual size replicas of the warriors found in the pits. We learned the difference between the four types of warriors that were found there and got to take some cheesy photographs at the headless statues.

Back on the bus we made our way to the huge complex that surrounds where the warriors were found. We had to walk 1.5km through commercialised streets, where vendors were hawking every kind of tourist tat you can imagine. After a bag scan (for knifes etc.) we made it into the pits. Zia Zia brought us to Pit No.2 first. She did this so that we could see where the first ever warrior was discovered. Aside from that, we were basically looking down at hundreds of mashed up husks of warriors.

Pit no. 3 was smaller, but was home to more reassembled warriors, and had a cavalry section. The most impressive area, she kept until last. As we walked into Pit No. 1, most people in the group just went 'Wow'. We were in a huge covered glorified shed, but in front of us were half put together 3-D tile jig-saws. Because the Terracotta Warriors were originally hidden from view in underground man-made caves, which subsequently collapsed, most of the warriors were crushed. During excavation, all that remained was a giant jig-saw to match up all the clay torsos, arms, legs, and portions of tile. It is a mammoth task, and as we walked further up the pit, we saw the fruit of years of work. They have put 2,000 soldiers back together, and it looks fantastic.

What sort of a madman or visionary could think to create such a scene? No soldier has the same face. It took 33 years to complete the collection. It is estimated that there are over 6,000 soldiers in Pit No. 1, and they think there may be more buried between the excavated pits and Qin Shi Huang's tomb, which is 1.5 kilometres away. As we were busy admiring the soldiers, Zia Zia informed us that in order to keep the Terracotta Warriors secret, the Emperor had all of the workers on the site killed, or more specifically, buried alive in his underground terracotta world. They were sealed into the caves, when the warriors were closed off to keep its location secret. But why?? It is hard to imagine. Apparently Qin Shi Huang was quite an impressive Emperor in China for many reasons (mainly as he managed to unify the country). He was 13 when he began his reign, however as he grew older, he sought ways to prolong his life as he was afraid of the bad spirits in the afterlife. He was given a long-life medicine that, ironically, eventually killed him. It contained mercury, and in the last few years of his life it drove him mad and it is sadly for these acts that he is mostly remembered.

On our final day in Xi'an, we found a nice restaurant (with photographs of the meals on offer) and ate our first truly Chinese meal. After dinner we braved the public transport system, and found a bus to take us as far as the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. At 8.30 each evening there is a free water show put on for tourists. The bus was packed and we were the only non-Chinese on board. We popped our Yuan in the box at the front of the bus and hung on to the roof straps as we tried to follow its progress on our tiny map. You could hardly miss the Big Wild Goose Pagoda though. The beautiful building was lit up in the centre of a huge public park. We headed towards the crowd of people. They were standing on the perimeter of a large concrete square. On closer inspection, we could see spotlights set in the ground and once the music started the whole square came to life. The spectacle was worthy of the title “Riverdance”, and was equally as fascinating. Rows and rows of huge spurts of water rose and fell in tune with the music and spotlights. It was mesmerising. Free events have been a regular theme throughout Asia, and when they do them, they do them well!

Now that we knew that there was hot water available on the trains, the following afternoon we stocked up on noodles and fruit before taking a public bus to the Train Station. It was as crazy as before, but we are getting the hang of it now. Never have my sheep instincts been so strong. We followed the crowd, and thankfully by 5.30pm we were sitting on the right bed in the right carriage, on the right train! The trip to Chengdu would take 18 hours.

Sadly we weren't so lucky with our 'roomies' this time round. Across from Philippe on the bottom bunk was a revolting, arrogant China man, who saw fit to spit on the carpet and throw his dirty tissues on the floor in front of us. He tested our patience to its limit when he lit up a cigarette, while on his bed, even though the smoking area was only about five metres away. We both spoke up and managed to ask him to smoke elsewhere. He complied, but didn't seem happy about it. Add to this the fact that the guy above him snored like mad and the two in the top bunk didn't stop chatting (despite the rest of the carriage being silent and in darkness) until midnight - Chinese doesn't appear to be a language that is well suited to whispering! - and the result is a poor nights sleep for us. However we arrived in Chengdu on schedule the next morning and were met at the station by a friendly guy from our hostel.

In terms of travelling in China, I have to say that, short of being aware that we have no access to facebook and getting redirected to Google Hong Kong any time we key in google.com, as a tourist it is surprisingly easy to get around China. The people are generally friendly and display the tendency to want to help. The cities are clean and well laid out and the country is far more developed than I imagined it would be. So far China is working hard to steal Argentina's crown as my favourite country on the trip!

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