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Published: October 3rd 2012
Day 10 After a 17 hour journey by sleeper train with plenty of red wine, noodles and birthday cake we arrived in Xi'an.
We checked into the hotel and had an orientation walk with our tour group. Xi'an, a smaller city (pop. 8m) was not as busy as Beijing or Shanghai but the roads were still manic. The only way to cross several main roads was to chance it at the same time as the locals and hope for the best!
The walk took us to the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower temples in the city centre and we were also shown the Muslim Quarter at a distance. This is normally quite a lively place to visit but we were warned not to venture there due to ongoing protests because of 'that short film'.
After that we went to the City Wall—an ancient (but quite heavily restored) wall around the perimeter of the old city and the only complete city wall remaining in China. We hired a tandem to get us around the 14km stretch, which was good fun. Mark drove most of the way because someone... couldn't steer properly, but it was still a joint
Xi'an city wall
On a bicycle made for two...effort with the pedaling!
In the evening we were left to our own devices to find food. We didn't fair too well and the food was a bit disappointing compared to the group banquets we have been had selected for us. After dinner we walked back to the hotel via the park with more groups playing music, skating and dancing.
Day 11 Today was an early start for one of the things we were most looking forward to during our travel in China—the Terracotta Army. The 'museum' consists of three pits, one of which is the size of an airplane hanger and contains around 6000 life-size terracotta warriors and horses. The excavation is ongoing and with the whole burial site estimated to be around 56 square kilometers, is expected to take another 200 years to finish! We were both really impressed with the exhibits.
After a full day of culture, we followed up in the evening with a traditional 'dumpling banquet'. The group went to a specialist restaurant and we got to try 15 different types of dumpling filled with various things from duck, to lotus root, and shrimp! After dinner we flagged a taxi and
went to the 'Big Wild Goose Pagoda' with Tim and Lydia from the group and saw an impressive fountain display with lights to music. It had nothing to do with any big wild gooses but was good fun nonetheless. Unable to flag a taxi we took a hair-raising rickshaw back to the hotel for our last sleep in Xi'an before an early morning flight to Chengdu.
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