Exceptional Xian (Sheena)

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Believed to be one of the ten most ancient Cities in the world.....others are in Egypt, Turkey, Israel, Switzerland, Portugal.

The train trip to Xian was pretty good in accordance to Mikes opinion the trip went reasonably quick even without the movies, we met a young man Cai who was returning to Xian from a weekend away with his sister and friend...he was well spoken as he learns english at school and knew a lot about New Zealand as he had read Jules Verne books which had explained alot of New Zealand Culture and History he was curious to get more information and Mike spoke with him for a while I added a little bit here and there when I wasn't laying down trying to get through the fever that had presented itself rather quickly I went from sitting on the floor in the waiting room eating dinner to about 20 mins later having a pounding headache and feeling like my face was on fire so as you can imagine for me the trip was extremely uncomfortable not helping was the 10 times I had to climb down off the top bunk to go to the bathroom....now for those that have stayed on a top bunk in a train that only has one step to get up on that is based about waist height its quiet a challenge.....We made do and on arrival to the platform we disembarked and made our way to the main square....we were graced with a fabulous sight of the wall that surrounds the city its over 14k around the top of it...we had planned to walk it but it didn't end up happening. So we made our way to the hotel well part of the way in a taxi which stopped across the road and refused to take us the rest of the way....not happy jan...at this stage I was totally feeling like I could sleep for a week and almost like I had been hit by a small motor vehicle....I lost my cool and got out fo the car grabbed the bag threw it on the ground all while yelling and screaming at a man that didn't understand a word I was saying!! We checked in and went to the room and I had a shower and went to bed...the only time I got up was to eat breakfast and shower and use the toilet for the next three days and my diet was crackers and toast....I didn't have any vomiting thankfully and I am unsure what it was but I did have random flaky skin and no energy and what appeared to be a migraine on day one (any light,movement,upright positions and sounds were too much)
I may have been just a little run down and I am greatful that this is the first time I have actually had to stay in bed for more than a few hours since we have left. So three days later and I got to have a real meal as I couldn't handle it any longer I love food way to much....it appeared my tummy and body was ready and everything was fine so that was great. Lots of water, gatorade and gastrolite seemed to do the job to get me back to healthy state.
So Mike spent a fair few days hanging around town just chilling and exploring and going to do food runs for himself and getting me more fluids....and watching movies in chinese on t.v with every fifth one being in english they really were few and far between,....the laptop and dvd player came in handy as the first day I slept and mike watched our movies day two I was able to deal with the light and sound and watched a few too my favorite was 'how to train your dragon' totally awesome movie must see in my opinion.

When I did get out day one I managed a couple of hours walking around then had to go back for a sleep but by the next day I was feeling better and we went shopping found some great little shops and brought some cool shoes for $12 we have to go back tomorrow night to pick them up we found a Wal*Mart and went to explore and found that it was in an underground shopping mall that also housed many shops, markets and restaurants so we had something extra to eat here Gungbao Chicken I think which has soon become a favorite of Michelle its Chicken with Peanuts and Chilli's. The next day we were booked on a tour to the go to Banpo Village, The Large Wild Goose Pagoda and the terracotta Warriors so we will come back tomorrow night.

The next morning we got up early and went down and had breakfast and soon our tour guide Simon arrived and we were underway it appeared we were in a private van with our own tour guide....when I booked the tour last night we got a discounted price as it is quiet at the moment so we were happy little chappies and off we went...we stopped at the Goose Pagoda first this is much bigger than expected and we learnt a few things from our guide 1. the backwards version of the swastika is the symbol of re-incarnation as it is continuous and flows. 2. the Pagoda was built 1200 years ago after his (buddha) pilgrimage through north china and through the himalayas into India and a full circle and more in India, he was there for a number of years before returning to China to share his knowledge and eventually became a buddha 3. The Monks ring the bell on the hour in the morning and in the afternoon they bang the drum (they have a bell tower and a drum tower all here.) The name came for one day a very large wild goose fell on this site and it was regarded a sacred so the pagoda became the wild goose pagoda!

There is some amazing murals inside and golden buddha's however photography is not allowed....I also learnt that Guan Yin (N's Favorite from Penang) real name is Avalokiteshvara and its actually a lady faced buddha (as no buddha can be female) and its not actually a goddess but a male Buddha that changed his face to be more lady like he is the buddha of mercy.... When something/someone dies a monk will pray over it by repeating the buddha's to have mercy lead the spirit to after world safely...please remember this is just what we have been told by our guide he is not a Monk so we may have some of the facts incorrect. Anyway we carried on from here to the Banpo historical village and if we didn't have a guide I think I would have just walked back out...but the explanation kept me going...Mike loved this place it is the sight of an old village you can see the holes were they had houses and wells and fire pits, graves but there is literally just marks on the ground basically when they were going to make a new city hydro station they discovered this village had been buried down about 8 meters and they started to excavate to discover it was pretty well preserved (I guess anyone could come along and make something like this as it looks a bit like a big pile of dirt but nonetheless it was interesting to see. Now one thing people that have done tours in any asian country will know is that there is usually a stop along the way to see some shops and this time we have two a jade factory which was lovely and we got to see the lady carving it and the other was the pottery factory for the warriors (we didn't buy at the jade factory as lovely as stuff was it was pricey I understand there is different qualities and it was interesting to see the pottery Mike got a little warrior for Miracle to put on her grave when we next return there Simon said that the quality here is okay but not as good as at the place itself.) we soon head off for lunch which was as good or bad as the others we have had on tours but it got us by either way. After lunch we head to the Terracotta warriors this is the place we have come to Xian for and it was totally worth it,...yes there is less warriors in the pits than you see in some photos (I guess they send some away to other museums and also they are spreading them out a bit more I think. They have excavated much of the place and have archaeologists there working in the evening putting more and more of what is already excavated together...there is three pits the first of which is the biggest this was discovered by a farmer that was digging for a well he was actually there and we brought an english book about the place and he signed it and we shook his hand (most other people he didn't even look up at them just signed the book and he had an assistant that would pass the book to you and he is getting on he would be in his 70's now so we are lucky I think to have met him there was other travellers that didn't know who he was or go into that shop as they didn't want to buy anything) oh yeah we also brought a horse and a warrior here as they are made with the clay from the pits (this is exciting for us although there is many eventually they must run out of the clay huh??)
So for those that don't know the story (I didn't really know it) the Emperor wanted to have his army with him when he died so he order 8000 men (soldiers) to be killed when he died and buried east of his tomb about 1.5k (east being closer to where the sun rises each day) eventually it was decided that instead of this that they would make an army of 8000 exact replica's of the men in his army 130 charriots and 520 horses with 150 calevry out of terracotta each to be painted and perfect....so he employed over 2000 men to do this over a 20year period to complete this mammoth task and when they completed it little did they know he would bury them alive. So the army were buried in three different pits to protect him and his belongings after he died....they would make lines in each pit and bury them like they were ready to perform battle incase his spirit needed protecting. They reinforced the roof (unfortunately the wood fossilised and some collapsed and they did't aloow for the presure of the ground that would fall through into the soldiers and many have been damaged badly) so that they will be secure and would last there as long as he needed. How a 13year old boy could order such a thing and so many people to complete such a feet so long ago I do wonder....wow.....he must have had some power huh.

There is horses and warriors in this first pit they are the men on the ground in the battle the inventory so second line and this is the biggest pit and the one that was found first they excavated partially there is still a lot of warriors under ground here as they have discovered over time that the painting on them fade and disappears over a period of time being in the open air so they are trying to find a way to counteract this before extracting the rest. The other interesting thing in this pit is that in the middle of the pit there is a hole and the guide told is there is a man buried many years ago before the place was discovered...basically he is in the solid ground in between two of the rows of the warriors (hence they didn't strike a warrior) what a lucky man he was well protected surrounded by an army.

The next pit was to be found was pit two which has many broken pieces laying in there and no warriors to be seen other than the ones in the glass boxes you can walk around....this was however the front line so a lot of horses, there soldiers standing beside them, they are the cavalry there is a diagram of how many there is in here different colours represent the different areas and the dots and lines horses and men etc

The final pit is the head office (hehe) the men with the big belly's that hide away until its time to celebrate then they come out to play 😊 We like this pit it small which I think is why they are more preserved there was less chance of collapse or ground falling through the gaps.

The last thing you can see at this site is the two bronze charriots on which he would be transported in the second one...the first have a standing drive on it and the second is to have a seated drive and will carry his soul these were made half life size as he believed that when someone dies there spirit is half the size of there body these carriages were discovered at a different site closer to the tomb which incase you were wondering has never been opened....they are trying to preserve it and make sure that nothing will get damaged as they believe the site will be unbelievable...look at what he had done for him here I think they are likely correct. THey have xrayed the area to see if there is any more of these warriors and they say this is it....no more pits when they have checked for these they found the charriots.


This place is amazing and I don't mind not seeing as many as in photos as you get to see them at all and enjoy what someone had made for them 2200 years ago when little n.z wasnt even the dot on the globe that it is today! This place is called the eighth wonder of the world and I wonder if they will actually change it to eight wonders to include it if they work out how to keep the warriors coloured and open the tomb and discover what really is inside maybe they might.

So after our big day we return to the hotel and head down the road and get my new shoes and some dinner and explore a little more we stop and get some photo's of the bell tower with traffic zooming by and some of the lovely lights of Xian by the time I got home I almost collapsed in a heap. Tomorrow is our last day and we are off to Chengdu over night on the train....we get up in the morning check out and head off to the train station to get some tickets for our later trains and find that this is easy as pie as the english ticket counter and we walk away with tickets from chengdu to kunming and kunming to guilin when we get to kunming we can book the one from guiin to guangzhou however we see they have a lot of flooding there at the moment and the rain hasn't stopped so we wonder if we might wait until we get to Guilin to decide what to do about that leg!


We then head over to the movies and watch Ironman 2 they have a 10min checkin system you have to check in 10mins before the movie starts....a little strange but I guess it means everyone is there on time...anyway Mike has been wanting to see it....was a great movie and in 3D it would no doubt be even better....we enjoyed having a pretty relaxing day we were going to walk around the wall but it was a little rainy looking and without having somewhere to freshen up we thought it maybe a silly idea to get soaked and have to get on a train for 15hours. We went up the escalator that goes seven stories in one go the longest we have been on....and not much on the sides to stop you falling off .....we got some dinner walked around a few more malls and I brought a pair of shoes for $2.20 thanks to the little chicky standing on a box, clapping her hands, jumping up and down and screaming in CHinese (I guess) 'Shoe Sale' or something similar when I saw the sign I almost kept going thinking that must be the discount 15% but the girl there assured me by crossing her index fingers (meaning 10) and then followed by four finger and a thumb that they are 15Yuan they are cute, comfy and what more can a backpacker want than shoes for two dollars.

We grabbed some water, our bags, sent mum a quick mummy's day email and head down to get on our train! We brought some stuff with us but I still don't feel like eating much and the food earlier is enough for me Mike grabs a meal on the train that to me smells and looks interesting to put it politely it can't be bad as he has another one in the morning too. Anyway so we discover that Martin in our cabin is Chinese born in Xian and moved to Chengdu for work and he speaks great english and in the morning I have some interesting conversation with him...I will write about this in the Chengdu blog.

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