Datong to Xian

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We arrived in Datong really early in the morning - something like 6:30 - and found the CITS office in the station. Three other back-packers also made their way into the office and we sat while the guide explained our tour options. We all signed up to go to Yungang Caves and the Hanging Temple, leaving at 9 o'clock. CITS told us there were no train tickets left for onward travel to Xian so we would have to go to Taiyuan on the overnight sleeper and sort out another ticket from there. In China, you cannot buy tickets unless you are in the town you are travelling from.

We met Joanne from the Netherlands in the CITS office and the 3 of us went in search of breakfast. We found a hotel across the road from the train station but they would only serve resident guests. We managed to find a stall selling fruit and rock-hard biscuits for sale upstairs in the train station so that had to do. We then went on a hunt for a nice hot cup of tea. This is China afterall and tea is everywhere. Not in Datong. We went into various eateries but they only had noddles or bottled iced tea. Oh well.

We headed back to the station for the 9am tour. There were about 15 of us from all over the world, including another Brit, Darryl. Lots of hanging around for the guide to turn up but eventually, we got on the road. The minibus was a bit cramped but we've come to learn that passenger comfort is not important - craming the maximum number of people in is what matters! Our guide was very good and had lots of information but was a bit tricky to understand. Luckily, she repeated everything 3 times so you could usually get the gist of it!

Our first stop was at Yungang Caves, which had loads of Buddhas carved into the rocks. They were really impressive and we got 2 hours to wander around the site.

We then drove onto the Hanging Temple. The Buddhist temple literally looks like it is clinging onto the rock face. Our guide told us that the temple has moved further up the cliffs over the years, to avoid flooding from the river below. The walk through the temple was precarious, with narrow walkways, a low roof and the banister preventing you from falling down the cliff at just about thigh height. We decided this is why monks walk so slowly - one false move and you'd be over the edge!

When the tour ended, we were dropped back at the train station and a group of us went for dinner in a restaurant nearby. Jacqueline, a Dutch girl in the group, was living in China and able to speak the language fluently. She ordered us a fantastic dinner at a cheap price so we were all happy.

After dinner, we headed back over to the train station for our 22:12 train. On board the train, we were talking to other travellers who told us about a quaint town, Pingyao, accessible as a day trip from Taiyuan. Darryl and Joanne decided they would go if we couldn't get a ticket to Xian until the next night, so we decided we'd go with them.

We got to Taiyuan at about 7. Must be getting used to these open sleeping cars as we managed to sleep a little better. Jacqueline offered to get our train tickets for us to save us struggling to communicate. No sleepers to Xian for days!! All that was left were hard seats and there was a train leaving at 8:57. We had to give Pingyao a miss and just get going during the day. A hard seat at night was not a desirable option but during the day it would be ok, wouldn't it??

Well, we could even get into our carriage! There was a huge crush in an attempt to let the train leave on time. The carriage attendant just kept waving his arms for us to get on, but there was nowhere to go! Eventually, the attendant shouted at the people to move and we pushed our way through the throng. We finally got to our seats but they were already taken. Thankfully, with a bit of aggressive hand-gesturing from Steve and Darryl, the people moved. There was nowhere nearby to put our luggage as every inch of space already seemed to be full. Steve had to barge his way back through the carriage to find a some room, with all the Chinese passengers staring to see what the weird foreigners were doing.

We had 11 hours ahead of us on this train. All the foreigners had been seated in the middle of the carriage - there were 8 of us, including Darryl and Joanne. There were men sitting and standing all around us, in the stuffy heat of the carriage, smoking, spitting on the floor, eating and dropping all the rubbish on the floor. Hygiene is not a high priority as evidenced by the toilets. These people seemed poor. A man stood next to where Steve was sitting had holes all over his clothes and no zip in his trousers - nice, when that's just about at your head height!

The toilets. Orla went to one at one end of the carriage. The door didn't lock and it was filthy. Trying to keep the door shut with one foot and not slip into the disgusting hole with the other was extremely tricky. On coming out, she looked for the sink to wash her hands that she was sure she'd seen earlier, when boarding the train. Nowhere to be seen. After a couple of minutes looking around, she caught a glimpse of the tap pictogram - but in front and on top of the sink were piled bags, boxes and humans.

Returning to our group, Joanne said there was another toilet, with a lock, at the other end of the carriage. Phew. But using that was worse. Without wanting to make you feel too ill, it was vile. Someone had left a nice mound non-hole end of the Chinese-style loo. This train was FILTHY. How we longed for the countryside toilets of Mongolia!!

Amongst all this, there were pleasant times. One man could speak some English. He had to stand for 7 hours to get to his home town. We just don't know how he managed it in the hot and crowded conditions. Anyway, he chattted to us a lot. He asked, "Why you on this train? Why you not have car?" I have to say, we were wondering why we were on that train too. Before he got off the train, he asked Orla to write him a note in English and said he would write us a note in Chinese. Orla wrote that it was nice to meet him and thanked him for making our journey more enjoyable. We didn't have a clue what he wrote. He said that we must try to get it translated.

While Orla was writing her letter, we looked up to find a crowd of men had gathered around us to watch. They were fascinated by the writing and also started pointing because she was writing with her left hand. Our new friend told us people in China do not write left-handed.

That passed a bit of time but not enough, so out came the playing cards. Again, a crowd huddled around us to watch. They all wanted to look at the letters symbolising the queen, king, jack, ace. The man sitting opposite Orla decided he understood the rules of the game (although the language barrier meant we couldn't explain) so he decided to help Orla to cheat against Steve. Unfortunately, he seemed to be playing something else and wrecked her chances at 'rummy'.

About 5 o'clock, everyone started to get their pot noodles out, us included. Chinese trains always provide a hot water samovar so you can have drinks and noddles which is fantastic. After dinner, Joanne carefully packed all her litter into one plastic bag and was looking around for a bin to put it in. A kindly Chinese man noticed her and understood she wanted to get rid of the litter. "Ah", he said and took it from her hand. "Great", she thought. Until he opened the train window and threw it out. Horrified!

It was beginning to get dark by now, particularly as only 3 of the 8 lights in our carriage worked. Joanne went on a hunt for a decent toilet but managed to get chatting to a policeman in the next carriage who told her we were on the wrong train! So much for Jacqueline being fluent in Chinese - we had the wrong tickets!! We were bound for Xian South, 50km from Xian, which PC Plod said was a quiet station with no taxis and no outgoing trains in the evening. Bugger! Thankfully our policeman took pity on us. Actually, he took a fancy to Joanne so we think that's why he was being so helpful. We had 10 minutes to gather our bags and get out at the next stop - a station called Weinan. We couldn't tell you anything much about that station as the platform was pitch black. Our policeman left us in the care of another policeman on the platform and off he went towards Xian South. We really had no idea when there would be a train for Xian or what would happen as we didn't have tickets. Everything worked out fine though. Ten minutes later, a train arrived and our babysitter gestured for us to get on board, said something to the train attendant who showed us into a carriage and we were off! And what a difference. The carriage was clean, it was cool, the cushioned seats were soft, there was loads of space to sit down, there were clean toilets and washbasins and the people were clean with intact clothing! What a relief!

We had only been on the train about 5 minutes when a young man, about 20 years old, walked up to us and asked if he could talk to us. He had studied English and wanted to practice. He told us we were the first foreigners he had EVER spoken to. We were stunned. There are so many nationalities in Britain that it seemed amazing that he had never met anyone other than Chinese. His English was quite good and he translated the letter from the man on the first train. It said how nice it was to have met Orla and Steve (well, of course!!) and that we had made him think the English are very friendly. We're planning on applying to be UN Ambassadors when we get home!!

We were glad to finally get to Xian and a taxi to The Bell Hostel. Took a little while to get there. We had a map but Chinese taxi drivers don't seem able to read maps. Our driver made it most of the way and we walked the last few minutes. Our travel plan is to have our own room as often as we can but they didn't have a double until the next day, so we shared a dorm with Darryl, Joanne and 4 other people that we didn't really see. It was fine though. Steve had his snoring prevention device so no-one complained!

Before bed, we went to 1+1 Bar. It's a really stylish club - too stylish for us in our scruffy travelling gear - and expensive, so we didn't hang around. Instead, we had some food from a Muslim street seller, which was absolutely delicious and more within our price range! We were all hoping for a lie-in the next morning, to recover from our train journey.


The road outside The Bell Hostel was really busy and noisy, so it wasn't much of a lie-in. Still, we now had a base for a few days so we could relax. We moved rooms and were actually put in the hotel upstairs from the hostel. The room was really big and quite luxurious but our ensuite bathroom was open plan, right opposite our bed!!

We had a gentle day wandering around the Muslim Quarter and its markets. Most Chinese shop keepers can manage to say in English, "Cheaper, cheaper price". Steve bought some Calvin Kleins much cheaper, cheaper - they're sure to be the real thing though!!

We visited the mosque which was lovely. It was smack-bang in the middle of the bustling markets but was so peaceful, a really nice place to visit.

When we got back to our hostel, we met up with Darryl and Joanne again who had teamed up with a French girl while they were out sightseeing. She was nuts! We were in mid-conversation when she suddenly said to Steve, "Do not scratch your nez. " Steve wasn't even conscious that he had scratched his 'nez'. Then she continued, "I used to scratch my nez but I av been travelled 3 months and I have not scratched my nez once". Alarm bells started ringing but Darryl said she was nice. Orla tried to interpret her loopy comment and decided maybe she scratches her nose through stress. She seemed a bit of a stress-head. We think her name was Marion, although it was hard to understand in her strong French accent.

Unfortunately, we didn't take enough notice of those alarm bells. We all went to dinner with Marion, who said she could speak Chinese. We went to the Muslim Quarter, famed for its fantastic food. Marion ordered on our behalf. Our feast arrived. About 3 trays of spicy bread, a big bowl of foul-tasting jelly stuff and a tiny kebab each with not enough meat to feed a bird. It was hideous but washed down with a lovely bottle of beer each. Then the bill arrived. It was ridiculously high. The food cost very little (unsurprisingly) but Marion said she had asked for the cheapest beer and they'd actually given us the most expensive. We refused to pay the full amount. Marion went off on one in Chinese. Unfourtunately the waiter didn't actually seem to understand a word. We gave the waiter what we thought was a fair price and he was not happy. In most places, haggling is normal but he was cross. He put the money back on our table and proceeded to argue a bit more with Marion. The rest of us knew we were getting nowhere and we couldn't communicate, so we all upped and left. Luckily no one chased us down the road with meat cleavers!! This was the worst food we've had in China. And first impressions of nutty French girl were correct.

Marion decided to go back to the hostel (in disgrace!) while the rest of us went looking for a bar. We found a place with a big "PUB" sign outside. When we went in, it looked more like a restaurant and we were the only ones there. They had an English translation menu. We could have had 'cock cola' but opted for beers instead. Sometimes the translations aren't quite right!!


We were awoken the next day (12th Oct) by loud traffic and advertisement voices booming out of speakers from the shop next door. We later discovered these voices would be shouting from 7am until 10pm each day. The Chinese really don't seem to mind noise - in fact the louder, the better.

We got a bus from the train station to the Terracotta Army. After the number of photos we've seen of it over the years, we weren't sure it would live up to expectations but it was fantastic and fascinating. There is a museum and 3 pits to look around and there is still alot of excavation going on. The detail in the warriors was amazing, even down to fingernails and the tread on the soles of their shoes. We spent the whole afternoon wandering around examining the site.

Back at the hostel, we bumped into mad Marion again who was just preparing to leave Xian. That evening, we went for dinner in Bar Street with Darryl and Joanne - a lovely street full of pubs and all lit up.


Friday the 13th passed without misfortune. We walked to the south gate of the city wall and hired a tandem bike to cycle round the perimeter of the wall. It was good fun but the smog was so bad in Xian that day - we couldn't see any of the views. Xian's pollution is hideous. You can taste it in the air. No wonder people spit all the time.

After our cycle, we got a taxi to Dacien Si temple and Big Goose Pagoda. It was nice to wander round but once we were in the temple complex, they wanted more money to let us climb up the pagoda. We decided to give it a miss. There would be no view due to the smog and they had photos by the ticket desk of the most interesting pagoda features anyway.

Back at our hostel, we had a farewell lunch with Joanne, who was heading to Shanghai. Darryl was going the same way as us, to Chengdu, and our train was at 16:59. We left the hostel to get a taxi. No one would take us. PANIC! They all refused because the traffic was so bad. We found a bus stop but were still trying to flag down taxis. Eventually, one stopped and a man at the bus stop had a word with the driver. He said he would take us for 30 Yuan. On the meter it would have been 10 but we were desperate. He drove like a lunatic, veering round other traffic belching out fumes, but he got us there with 5 minutes to spare. We collapsed in a sweaty heap once on the train, after running with our backpacks, but were glad we had made it.


We had quite a good night's sleep on our hard sleeper. The other people in our berth were friendly and again, amazed when Orla was writing with her left hand. They couldn't speak any English but we managed to swap names. They were Nan Xun Chao, Li Jian Jie and Ta Lin. Ta Lin was from Chengdu and highlighted tasty local dishes in the food glossary of our guide book, with lots of gesturing to demonstrate which ones were spicy hot!

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Photos

The Mosque, Muslim Quarter, Xian
Orla's reflection showing her across the courtyard

Xian's Bell Tower
The view from our balcony

The number of warriors is vast
Just a small proportion of them