Day 22-25 Xian, and the Terracotta Warriors

---

When we first planned this trip, we had wanted to travel from Moscow, to Singapore overland. We had hoped that this leg from Beijing to Xian would be a 6hr trip on the ultra fast bullet train, but because of Chinese New Year and the movement of people out of Beijing we had to take a flight.



We took the airport express train to Beijing capital airport, then the Chinese Eastern flight to Xian. It was a good flight the only thing was the flight attendant’s translation to English, the last thing when you are 30000 feet in the air is to be told ‘the airplane has a problem’ when what she had meant to day was ‘we will be having a problem with turbulence.!! As we were arriving at night we asked the Hostel to arrange a pick up for us. It was still a long way to the city, about an hour’s drive, but it was a scary drive. We were driven in a nice car, but our driver seemed permanently on the phone, and his son was sitting in the back sea without a seat belt! Together with traffic seemingly shooting out from the side every few hundred yards, including scooters and trikes, without lights (suicidal!) we eventually arrived at hostel. It was a lovely surprise after our hotel in Beijing. Although it was a well-appointed 4 star hotel, even the best hotels can be soul-less places sometimes. At the hostel we had a warm welcome, a room with en-suite and a lot of information, how to get around, attractions, and most important after a long day’s travel- a bar! The hostel also organised trips to the local attractions, at a very reasonable price, and no diverts to shopping places.



The main reason we came to Xian was the Terracotta warriors, built as a protection in the afterlife of emperor Qin Shi Huang, 2000 years ago. You can get tomb fatigue when visiting archaeological sites, but this was special they have found 8000 warriors but they are still finding them. Photographs are plentiful of these warriors but it is only when you get close that you see the unique faces and the attention to detail, the platted hair, even nails in the shoes. The paint has faded on most now but on some you can still see the detailing. One disappointment, was that we had thought they were discovered as originally made standing up in a row. But over time they had been damaged by pillaging, earthquakes, even roof collapses, it was still an amazing sight to see though. On the way back we had a walk around the wide city wall of Xian, you can even hire a cycle.



For some reason we had thought Xian was a large town, like Bath, but make no mistake this a large busy city, with 9 million people. It is sensory overload written large. If you’re not trying to sidestep bicycles, tut-tuts ( 3 wheeled motor cycles)buses and cars, you’re being deafened by car horns, and the noise coming from the speakers in the shop doorways. Sometimes 3 or 4 staff from a shop will be competing with microphones and mini pa speakers attached to their belts just hailing for passers-by to come into their shop.



If you want busy and atmosphere, go to the Muslim quarter. This was very near our hostel. It is an area full of stalls selling street food. Crunchy squid and crab on sticks (still amuses me), kebabs on skewers of various types, potato dishes and lots of pomegranate juice. Two things that made me smile was several stalls had guys wielding two big mallets beating the hell out of big pat of toffee, also some sort of nut in the shape of a black moustache that seemed popular.



Xian has the biggest free fountain and light show in Asia, so we jumped on a bus to take a look, it was delightful. An added bonus was the bus stopped right by a large shopping mall, the ceiling of which was a massive LED screen displaying moving, ocean, space, seasonal and traditional Chinese graphics. It was very impressive.



As we have headed south, and so the warmer temperatures we feel we can lose the cold weather clothing. A nice man at the China Post boxed it, taped and strapped it up for a ridiculous price of 13 Yuen (aout 1.30) then we posted it back to the UK, the slowest possible way, surface mail. You could say on a slow boat from China…..



We spent our last day visiting the Shaanxi State Museum of History, which gave a good history of Xian and surrounding area. The city Xian was once the capital of China and the start of the Silk Road.



We have had a great stay at this hostel, friendly informative staff, nice café, met some interesting fellow travellers, if the other hostels are as good as this we are in for a good time



We are getting back on the train now towards Hangzhou, unfortunately we find ourselves overnight on the very eve of Chinese New Year-how did we make that error?

---

Photos

Chinese kitten
New addition to hostel staff

On the city wall
Chinese preparing for New Years Celebrations

Comments

[Brian stay at home Russell]

Quick question
Loving this people. You are travelling through many different countries, obviously not carrying cash for all the different places. Have you had any difficulty in getting local cash, terrible exchange rates etc? Or ended up with too much currency after leaving a country, can you tell us about that side of things? Also have you succeded in going more solo as you had hoped in China?

[Lesley]

Army
It looks so impressive when you see the army all together that would have been an interesting pottery class! ?