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From the Terracotta Warriors to The Great Wall in 3 Days
Whilst we were loving the natural beauty, wildlife and urban landscapes of south and western China, by the time we reached Xian, there was a mumble amongst most of us... when will we start REALLY feeling like we're in China.
Well, we got it. An absolutely exhilarating span of a few days hurtled us from Xian to Beijing and some of the most amazing treasures of over 2,000 years of history.
No time for sleeping, most mornings we were on the go at 6am, for either a long bus, a long train or an early visit in order to try to miss the throbbing crowds - as we had just entered Golden Week - The week where 1.3 BILLION people are on holidays - and from what we witnessed, most appeared to choose to spend their time off in mass tour groups, donning a brightly coloured baseball caps and being escorted by very LOUD tour guides, screaming out information via megaphone. Apparently over 400million people caught an inter-city train or bus in the week of the 1st of May!
Xian - City Walls & Dumplings
Heading to Xian was yet another sleeper train, but we had an opportunity to get to know some of the locals in the next row. Several of the guys had a very humurous exchange with a friendly Chinese off-duty policeman using our Gecko's supplied "Basic Phrases in Chinese" booklet. All went swimmingly well considering the exchange consisted of pointing at phrases, then finding an answer within the book to also then point at. The only hiccup came when Morgan was asked what he thought of Chinese Food and accidentally pointed to "The Great Wall of China" as his answer. Tasty! 😉
After checking into the local YMCA hostel, Dom & I elected to head straight to the city walls for a cycle around it's 14km circumference. Xian is one of the few cities in China which still has its entire city walls intact after serving to protect the city from invaders for centuries (many cities only have partial sections remaining). Xian was actually the capital of China for centuries, and it was lovely to finally begin to see some of China's ancient achitecture as we zoomed past on our tandem bicycle. (yes, Dom did most of the
peddling!) Dom got right into the spirit of the afternoon, and at one point leaped up onto the rim of the wall, as if in warrior attack - only to cause part of the wall to crumble over the edge, and fortantely, NOT onto any passing pedestrians!
That evening our group headed to dinner for one of our trip's culinary highlights - a DUMPLING BANQUET - where we tasted over 20 varieties of steamed and fried dumplings. Let's just say that Dom was in Dumpling Heaven.
Xian - Terracotta Warriors Up at the crack of dawn, we boarded a private bus to an area several hours outside of Xian where the recently discovered Terracotta Warriors are housed. We happened upon the souvenir shop where low-and-behold, sat the Chinese Farmer who first discovered the warriors whilst digging a well in the 1970's. Sitting there signing books, post cards and DVDs, I'd say Mr Farmer's life has never been the same since...
After having just finished reading 'Wild Swans' I was curious to know how such an amazing cultural discovery survived being unearthed during the turbulent years of the 1970's Cultural Revolution - which from my
readings - seemed to be a decade where anything and everything that was deemed 'old' (like temples) or 'bourgeois' (like parks) was basically destroyed. Our time in China to date had certainly led me to believe this must have been an era of absolute choas, as after spending nearly 2 weeks in China, we had yet to see much, if any, of China's 5,000 year history on display. Not even cruising down the Yangtse did a single temple peer around the corner. Furthermore, you could be mistaken for getting the impression in some towns that only a few years ago serious conflict must have swpet through.
Anyway, we were told that not everyone in the government at that time was hell bent on destroying their history, and a number of influential men in Mao's top-ranks, managed to keep the statues a secret from the public for over a decade as well as convincing other officials to keep their hands off them! Phew - just imagine the alternative if THOUSANDS of 2,000 year old statues had been discovered - and destroyed - in the flash of a few years.
There are actually thousands of Warriros still waiting to be
unearthed. We saw mounds where scans have been able to detail which way the warriors are facing, what position they are standing in and what kind of condition they are in - all under the earth. But luckily, no-one is touching these ones until someone, somewhere in the world is able to figure out how the COLOUR can be preserved after they are exposed to the air. That's right - all of the Warriors have painted skin, hair and clothing! It sure would be an amazing site to see, if in our lifetime, we could return to Xian to see them all in colour!
Beijing - Forbidden City & Tiananmen Square On the previous night's sleeper train, our carriage was almost entirely full of Gecko's group travellers, and as this was to be the last leg for several of our travel companions who were to finish their trip in Beijing, we settled in with warm beers and an evening of celebration. For a group of the lads, the evening continued late into the night in the food carriage - where Dom taught the friendly carriage-staff key Salomoni/Little Britain phrases. Good work sweets in enriching the English language
internationally! But seriously, I'm sure the staff will be able to apply their learnings next time an English speaking tourist wants to know what happened to their lost passport ("Swapped it for a West Life CD") or when asked what they think of tourists to China ("Rubbissshh!").
So there was no mucking around when it came to our time in Beijing. After a very early arrival, by 8am we were at the Forbidden City - a world of it's own for the imerperial family and their 3,000 something staff of concubines and eunichs during the Ming and Quing Dynasties. The stories and sagas which must have occurred within the compound of this walled city sure sets off the imagination... Our minds were boggling from it all as we exited from the North Gates a few hours later.
However the gravity (and excitement!) of it all wasn't over yet- as resurfacing into the mid-morning sun from under the shadows of the gate's archways - we found ourselves directly under the looming face of Chairman Mao. We were in Tiananmen Square!
It's pretty much like you would expect it to be. Busy with people, traffic, communist style-y statues and
lots and LOTS of red flags. But standing there is really something. It's awe inspiring and terrifying - patriotic and tyrrannical - impressive and sad.
But on a brighter note, we had an unbelievable time in Beijing. Later that night we attended a dramatised performance of Kung Fu, which made both Dom and I want to leap out of our seats and "WOAH@!" the nearest iron bar in sight. 😉
Anyway, to give you all a rest on this pretty epic blog - I will now hand over to my partner in crime for the final installment of this entry... The Great Wall of China. Possibly the most amazing highlight of our trip!
Beijing - The Great Wall of China Now this isn't just any old wall. The Great Wall of China was built by the First Emporer (Qin) after he had conquered the warring States and united the whole of China. The wall stretches 12,000 KM's across Northern and parts of Western China and was originally built to keep out the Mongol's. Two years after its completion a disgruntled Army Captain let the boys in through a front gate and they went on
to conquer China and reign for a good while. Good work fella.....
Anyway, enough of the history lesson, the Great Wall rocked - (boom boom)! We set off for another 3 hour bus journey and arrived early. The option was to get a cable car to the top or walk up the mountain so we opted for the latter of course. The path was long (2km) and the mountain treachorous but we perservered and managed to climb to the 12th gate.
As a great man once said "I'm on top of the world" and we truly were. An exhilerating feeling and a view to etch into our memories. It's quite amazing to think that we were standing on one of the Seven Wonders of the World and even more amazing to contemplate how they got the stones up mountain to build the wall in the first place.
The walk down was probably tougher that the walk up and given that we were running late we descended with a "ferocious pace" and completed the journey by taking a 400 metre flying fox to the bottom of the mountain. Vettie told me how much she loved me just in
case I fell off and that was that! Fortunately I survived to tell the story!
Overall view - The Great Wall was great!
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Big Dirk
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Dom, that train couldn't smell any worse than your rubbish feet after a game of 5 a side.....the mighty Muppet Town kicks off their new season this Wed against The Cheese - I will personally give the knob witht eh shaved ehad a firm kick up the 'arris.....Enjoy!