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Published: July 27th 2008
Pit #1 of the Terra Cotta Warriors
There are 6,000 warriors in this pitWe arrived in Xi'an by overnight train. We thought the train was going to be 20 hours, but turned out closer to 24hours. Those four hours go by so slow when you are thinking you should already be off the train and at your hostel! Plus this train was a lot dirtier than the first one from Beijing to Shanghai. We still managed to spend too much money on a soft sleeper, but I think it was worth it. From what I have heard the soft sleepers are a lot nicer and actually have a western style toilet- which is worth the money alone!
After a lot of speculation we decided to take the tour from our hostel to go see the Terra Cotta Warriors. Derek and Andrew did the same tour from the same hostel and did not like it. But... the cost wasn't that much more then if we did it on our own and with our track record for navigating the buses very poorly we decided to suck it up and do it. Luckily, unlike Derek and Andy, the tour actually made it to the warriors at a decent time and it was not crowded.
TERRA
COTTA WARRIORS: A brief history
The warriors were built by the first emperor of China Qin Shi Huang, who was the first person to unify China (although he did so with a bunch of bloody battles). Archeologists think he built the warriors to protect him in the afterlife and to maintain his rule after his death. The largest pit out of the three you can visit has 6,000 warriors. It was absolutely crazy to see all these Terra Cotta Warriors. It is way bigger than the pictures capture. Plus no two warriors are the same. They have different hair styles and facial expressions. I also really enjoyed it because it is a work in progress. It is an active archeological site and they are still discovering more pits. Just a year ago they discovered a fourth pit that has yet to be uncovered. They also think there are much more since the location of the warriors and the emperor’s tomb are fairly far apart. The warriors were discovered in the 1970's by a farmer who was digging a well. He is now a huge Chinese celebrity and we were lucky enough to have him there when we were visiting! He
The only warrior that still has some of its color
Just the little yellow on his colar is left. He is the only one out of 8,000 that has kept his color is 80 years old now and was signing autographs. He also walked right by Jeff on his way to take a pee!
Our tour did have a downside though. After the warriors they took us to a restaurant where it was Y30 for a banquet type meal. Having no other choice, but than to eat there we paid the money. To make a long story short I didn't eat much of the disgusting food and figured it was pretty shady when our guide asked for the money for the meal, but didn't have change and we never saw her pay anyone at the restaurant. You know they totally have some deal worked out. The second shady thing about the tour was the fact that it is suppose to cost Y90 to get in to the warriors and our guide asked for all of our student id's to try to get us a discount. When she came back she said that it didn't work because we were international students, yet our tickets had the discounted rate of Y45 on them... I am still waiting for my money.
After the warriors we decided to take in the sights of the
city walls. Xi'an is a very old city and the city center is enclosed with the ancient walls. You can get on the walls and then rent bikes to bike the whole way around the walls. Well... when Jeff and I saw you could rent a double person bike we were in! We leisurely biked the walls while singing "bicycle built for two." Chris even managed some BMX style moves on his crappy little bike!
After that it was dumpling making night at our hostel for FREE! I guess that makes up for the crappy lunch! The hostel had dough and filling and taught you how to make the dumplings, then they send them to be boiled and from there it is a dumpling fest! Literally there were probably 20 of us doing it and we had more dumplings to eat than we knew what to do with! After stuffing our dumpling filled faces, we headed to the hostel bar with some friends from our warriors tour. After a few beers we decided to check out this famed "bar street" of Xi'an. Well, me and my new Aussie friend Renee headed down the street trying to find the place
Warrior up close
The Kneeling Archer with the cheapest beer. We settled on a dive when a man from Yorkshire (he sounded like the dog in Lady and the Tramp) promised us Y10 Tsingtao's (about $1.50). We ended up staying there until 4am meeting locals and having a great time. I actually had to get someone to translate to a Chinese man that "I like China, but I do not like Chinese guys. I have a boyfriend!" For some reason they all like American girls. I am learning the Chinese word for American very fast here! 😊
We spent yesterday sleeping in... after the 4am night. After a rough start to the day we decided to stroll around the streets and see the different sights Xi'an had to offer. While we were walking to the bell tower we saw a man lying on the ground bleeding profusely from his side gut area. He was holding a towel to it and he had a sign with Chinese writing on it next to him. People were walking by and throwing him money, but no one was helping him! We watched from a far (I actually couldn't watch, but the boys did!) and realized his wounds were possibly
self inflicted and he was doing some sort of protest. Later, after asking a few people, we decided it was one of two things... Apparently in China when you go to the hospital you have to pay money for everything up front. If you don't have the money then you don't get help. So 1. he was actually hurt and asking for money or 2. he was protesting the system by self inflicting himself with a wound. I guess we will never know...
After that strange incident we spent the afternoon wondering through the Muslim quarter. We never made it to the great Muslim mosque here, but we did manage to find a crazy back alley with about four different Buddhists temples. The area was really run down and we weren't even sure if we were allowed to be there, but it was amazing. Everyone was lighting incense and praying in front of the many Buddha statues. There were old Chinese men, shirts off of course, playing Chinese dice games and children running around. We felt as if we stumbled upon the real China there. As we left there were many men and women doing this sort of Dance/Tai
On the wall of the city
Bicycle built for two!!!!!!!!! Chi/ping pong ball game. They had music and were moving super elegantly while holding a ball inside of a net type paddle. They never dropped the ball and were doing all these cool moves. It was a very interesting day wondering the streets here.
At night we decided to go to the Big Goose Pagoda which was built in 400AD to see the water and light show they had. It was suppose to be the biggest in China and tons of people show up every night for it. We went with our new Aussie friends from the night before and braved the buses to get there. We made it in time and saw 10,000 + people standing around these fountains. We figured that was the place to be so we wondered up and pushed our way up to a step so we could see. The "lights and water show" lasted a while and all the fountains were set to music and it was ok for the first 5 minutes, but honestly after 1/2 hour we couldn't believe that so many people showed up to watch this. It was quite cheesy like a lot of things are here.
Since
we had ventured so far to see this show we decided to walk around and see the Big Goose Pagoda. We were curious by the noise of people singing so we ventured out as the sound got louder. We found ourselves in a small park overlooking the pagoda where a bunch of old men were playing instruments and a crowd was forming singing Chinese songs that everyone knew, but us. We stayed there long enough to have a family ask me to take a picture with their daughter. After about 10-20 people turned around and starting taking pictures too we said goodbye and went back down to the main walkway!
On the walkway there were artists painting Chinese symbols with water on the concrete. It was very interesting and only wish I knew what they said!
Our way home that night was even more exciting on the way there. After waiting at the bus stop for 15 minutes with a huge crowd of people waiting for our bus we thought it would be easier to get a cab. However, the cab drivers couldn't understand us so we decided that the bus it was. As we walked back to the
bus stop we saw our bus pulling up and ran for it. Then we noticed about 100 people trying to push their way onto the bus. We weren't able to make that one, but at least we knew what we were in store for when the next bus came along. We were tired and wanted to get home so we pushed and pushed our way on to the bus. We all made it, but I'm sure we pissed off a lot of Chinese people along the way!
We really like Xi'an- the streets are clean and the atmosphere is great. There is a lot to do here and our Shuyuan Youth Hostel is probably the best hostel I've ever stayed at. We actually do not want to leave this city, but tonight we take the 17 hour overnight train to Chengdu. It is our first train with a hard sleeper and I have heard they don't have western style toilets! Wish me luck...
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Andrew
non-member comment
You are doing so well with you blogs Krista. It makes me want to come traveling with you guys! Sounds like you had a bit of a better time at the TC warriors than we did and you got way better pictures than I did too... they really are amazing though. Enjoy that hard sleeper 17 hour train ride and if you dont have raging diarrhea through it then you did better than me!