Xi'an - On yer bike!

Our journey to Xi’an was Rob’s first venture on a sleeper train (well one that has beds on it).  Claire was old-hat with the sleeper experience after her Inter-railing adventures a few years back.  Fortunately, this time we weren’t confined to the third-class steerage carriages, jigging around with the locals, but managed to secure ourselves two first-class soft sleeper beds.  These are difficult to come by as they sell out very quickly so we thanked our lucky stars as we boarded the cabin.  We were sharing with a cute elderly couple who enjoyed staring at us for a long period of time, while we smiled back at them.  Once they decided there was nothing more to look at, they turned in for the evening!  We actually managed more than a few hours sleep on the 20 hour journey but still managed to wake up more than a little bleary eyed.  In the meantime, something had come over our cabin-mates and they were full of chatter while we, again, smiled and nodded back at them.  Eventually we understood that they were asking us where we were from.  “Ireeesh”, they repeated back to us, delighted.  Through a series of hand gestures and a game of charades they also asked us if we had slept well and wished us well on our journey.  Easy!

We came to Xi’an to visit the Army of the Terracotta Warriors.  This is literally an army of soldiers, horses and chariots carved out of terracotta, which was discovered about forty years ago.  One of the marvellous and most impressive things about the army is that no soldier’s face is alike.  The level of detail is actually astounding down to their expressions, clothing, armour and hairstyles.  This lifesize army was the brainchild of an emperor who wanted protection in the afterlife.  We wandered around each pit, taking in the sights.  However, despite everything we had heard, read and seen regarding the Terracotta Warriors, we weren’t blown away by them.  Don’t get me wrong, we weren’t disappointed; our jaws just didn’t drop with what we saw. 

Terracotta Warrior

Army of Terracotta Soldiers

Terracotta Horses

We were glad to have made to journey out to see the army and our trip back into Xi’an was particularly entertaining.  We hopped on a public bus, which after about the fourth stop was full.  That didn’t stop the bus conductor (a no nonsense young lady) from squeezing more people on and more people and even more people.  When the people jammed in the aisle wouldn’t move back any more she would literally tickle them until they stampeded to the back of the bus (hilarious).  People were practically sitting on our laps, so we were glad to have gotten a seat!  The funny thing though, was that everyone was in good spirits.  Nobody was grumbling or complaining about having to stand or being squashed and no one even batted an eyelid when there was an impromptu petrol stop halfway to our destination or when the bus driver picked up his wife.  It was bizarre and another true experience of real China.

We also toured around the city of Xi’an and we visited another Bell Tower and Drum Tower, similar to what we saw in Beijing.  Here we were treated to another drum show which was excellent.  Xi’an is one of the few cities in China where the old city walls are still standing.  They surround the city centre with a perimeter of 14km so one afternoon, Rob and I hopped on a tandem and spent a few hours cycling on top of the walls.  It was great fun and without doubt another highlight of the trip so far.  My, they are piling up!

The drum show



Xi'an Bell Tower - a glorified roundabout!

Xi'an Bell Tower

On yer bike!

On our final day, we decided that we would check out the World Horticultural Expo which was being held in Xi’an this year, before catching our flight to Chengdu.  It was a Saturday - need I say more?  It was packed with people.  We battled the crowds for the afternoon and made our way around the giant expo site.  We visited some very cool exhibitions by different countries from around the world, but the most impressive area was the one dedicated to traditional Chinese gardens from different provinces around the country.

Papped again!

Giant pagoda

The journeys to and from the Expo were adventures in themselves.  We got instructions from the hotel concierge on what bus to take, but naturally we got on the wrong one!  The locals realised that we had gone wrong when we showed them Expo written in Mandarin.  They gestured to us that this was the wrong bus but told us to stay on until we reached a stop where we could get the correct bus, all the while smiling at us.  When we reached a connecting station, two of the locals got off with us and waited until the right bus came along for us.  They were so helpful and it was so lovely to see the contrast in the people from what I described in the Beijing blog.

On our way back, we headed off to the bus parking lot.  It was crowded with people and the queue for our bus snaked up and down and up and down.  We couldn’t believe our eyes, especially with a plane to catch.  Sighing heavily, we got in line.  In our wisdom, we had no water, we hadn’t eaten since our banana breakfast and it was very hot.  We queued for 2 hours.  What we didn’t initially understand was that there were two queues, one to sit on the bus and one to stand.  We were waiting in the line for seats on the bus.  While it did move significantly slower than the line to stand, when we got on the bus, we were so glad not to be standing as the journey took a very hot and sweaty 90 minutes and dropped us over a mile away from our hotel.  We raced back to hop in a taxi to the airport, hoping there was a McDonald’s there but had to settle for a toasted cheese sandwich instead!

Xi'an tandem selfie!