Xi'an and the train from hell

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October 6
We got back from Xi’an today, and I have never had such a bittersweet experience in my life! Xi’an was cool, but traveling was HELL! Brittany, Carey, and I left the station in the afternoon on Monday. We had hard sleepers, so we had beds and room to move around. It was fun, except for the fact I wasn’t able to sleep at all that night because the other Chinese men were snoring so loudly! I had to put my music on so I couldn’t hear them, but even that didn’t help because I’m not used to listening to music when I sleep, so I barely slept Monday night. I got to make up for it though once everyone else woke up that morning.

We got to Xi’an at about ten in the morning, having spend 21 hours on the train. We took a taxi to our hotel and he dropped us off in an alley behind it. We went up to the doors, but they were locked. We tried to find a way to the other side, but there was no way through the other buildings. We walked the few feet to the end of the alley and came to the main square of the city. There were restaurants, shops, and historic landmarks right next to our hotel! I hadn’t realized what a great location we were in when I saw it online. We tried to walk around the front of the line of buildings to get to our hotel, but could only find a pedestrian street full of little shops. This was Beiyuanmen, the Muslim Quarter that I had planned on visiting the next day, not realizing it was right next to where we were staying. We walked along this for awhile looking for a break in the buildings to get through to our hotel. I couldn’t really enjoy this street yet because all I wanted to do was to change out of my traveling clothes. We found an opening, but it led back to the same alley where we were dropped off. We had just made a square loop around the hotel. But this time, we saw a little walkway next to the gate blocking cars from driving in that we had missed before. We were bound to continue in ignorance however, because we went into the building, but no one was there and the lights were all off. There was another building nearby that we went into to ask for directions. I was thinking, did the hotel site lie to me about the location, because this does not look like the picture online at all. But our luck showed up because we walked into the lobby of our very nice hotel. I guess it has a few separate buildings that are not labeled well at all. The doors didn’t even have the name of the hotel on them. We got checked in without any trouble. I was quite impressed with our room, although I had to upgrade to the Superior Business Deluxe Suite because the other rooms were conveniently booked. Just a thought, aren’t the hotel sites supposed to tell you, ‘sorry this room is booked, please choose another one,’ before you actually make the reservation? Oh well, it still only cost about $71. Our shower had a large glass window into the rest of the room (I don’t know what the deal is with these here), but thankfully, there was a curtain to cover it.

We freshened up then headed out to get lunch. I had researched restaurants in Xi’an and read that Xi’an Restaurant was highly recommended. We walked there, but there was a wedding going on so we couldn’t do the buffet. At this point, we were starving and worried about getting to the Terracotta Statues in time, so we changed our plans, deciding to do our shopping and seeing the pagodas that day, then seeing the statues Wednesday before leaving. We went to a restaurant close to our hotel well known for its dumplings. Significantly happier, we went back to the Muslim Quarter. I ended up getting a lot of great gifts and things for myself like a silk robe. After dropping off our purchases at the room, we went to the old city wall which surrounds the downtown area of Xi’an. The wall was built in the Ming Dynasty and is huge: 40 feet tall. The top is 46 feet wide, so there is plenty of room to walk. We wanted to rent bikes to ride around the top, but the line was too long, so we just walked for awhile. When we came down, we tried to get a taxi to see the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, but were trying for a half hour before giving up. We took a rickshaw instead. For those of you who don’t know what this is, it’s a passenger cart on top of a three wheeled motorbike that obeys no traffic rules. I have never been so scared in my life, weaving in and out of cars. We made it safely and walked around the pagoda. All the buildings were so pretty lit up at night. This is when China is the prettiest. We stayed to watch the musical fountain show then headed back to the hotel in another rickshaw since there were no taxis again. We ate McDonalds for dinner then went to bed.

We woke up early Wednesday morning to get packed up and check out. We got McDonalds for breakfast (too much in one trip, but it was the easiest thing) and headed to the train station. Carey’s China guidebook said that bus 306 left every 10 minutes next to the train station for the terracotta warriors. We found it easily enough although one kind stranger wanted to “help” us by taking us to a different bus, but we found our line and stayed there. The bus ride took about forty minutes and dropped us off kind of in the middle of nowhere. We had to walk about half a mile to get to the site. The park is on the outskirts of a rural village; people were lining the streets selling their products, mostly pomegranates. It was only 8:30 in the morning and already cars and people were pouring into the park. We bought our tickets for half the price (thank you student IDs) and entered the site. You have to walk on a path through a kind of natural garden woodland area before reaching the buildings that house the statues. There are three excavation sites; the first and biggest one is in what looks like a big warehouse. The whole building is just a roof and walls hiding the pit of soldiers. I was a little disappointed because we couldn’t get very close to the statues to really see them and it was just a mess trying to get through the hundreds of people to a spot on the rail for a peek. It is amazing to see the sheer number of statues. There are hundreds just lined up, and they haven’t even finished excavating. You can see parts of statues peeking out of the ground. We had to leave in time to catch our train so we got Subway and hopped on the bus. (Sadly we only had one Chinese meal on the trip, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. I had planned out our three meals, but we only made it to one, and Western fast food is just too convenient in a time crunch).

Let me rewind for a moment. When we bought the train tickets for Xi’an, they wouldn’t let us buy return tickets. As soon as we got to Xi’an, we went to the ticket office, but they didn’t have any hard sleepers left. Soft sleepers? No. Seats. No? They only had standing tickets. That’s right, standing—for a twenty hour train ride. We had to get back on Thursday since we have a day trip on Friday so we didn’t have a choice but to buy them.

We weren’t really sure what to expect because I have never heard of standing tickets on a train. In the US, if they run out of seats it’s just “sorry, get the next train.” I thought there would be an empty car with people just standing, kind of like the bus. Instead, we were in with the sitters, just standing in the aisle. This was worse. At least with a standing car we could find a corner and sit on our bags to rest. We could only lean against the sides of the seats and make ourselves small as people squeezed past us in the narrow aisle. To our great luck, there was one empty seat when the train started so we took turns sitting, twenty minutes down, forty minutes up. We had made it through two rotations when we stopped and a man got on the train and took our seat since it really was his. Then followed eight hours of standing. Eventually, I bought a little stool that one of the cart ladies was selling and sat in the aisle. This was a little better except that I had to get up every time the food and drink carts went by—which was frequently. Since there were several stops along the way, more people were getting off so finally we got to sit in the empty seats!

My happiness soon disappeared around 12 that night because I couldn’t get in any sort of comfortable position. I would sleep for twenty minutes then wake up because of the crick in my neck or my leg going numb. And it was a disaster trying to go to the bathroom! Everyone by now was sitting in the aisle so I had to literally climb over them and walk through the cloud of smoke in the smoking area (at the end of each car) to get to the bathroom. There were so many smokers, the fumes invaded the rest of the car, and I nursed a smoke-induced headache the whole trip. One disgusting thing to add: Chinese people spit. Not just gum, they hock up a lugey and just spit it wherever they are, even on the train! If there’s one thing that would make me dislike Chinese it’s this repulsive habit. We are on a train for goodness sakes! Spit into a cup or go to the bathroom, don’t spit two inches away from my bag of food or my feet! I have never seen this in any city and it tarnishes my view of China. If that happened in the US, people would have a fit! I know some might say, this isn’t right or wrong, it’s just a cultural thing, but I’m sorry. That’s one thing I cannot get used to.

Anyways, I was ready to kill someone by the end of the trip, but finally we were saved by our arrival in Hangzhou. Hangzhou had never looked so lovely. The air was cleaner, there were less people, and we didn’t have to wait for a taxi. Finally, things were going our way. I decided I’m not taking anymore train trips in China. When I got back to my room, I showered and slept the rest of the day. Now that I am clean and rested, I can think more fondly of the trip and realize that it wasn’t totally destroyed by the train ride home. What a waste that would have been.

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Photos

Vendors
People who bought these were walking around with them on their heads