Xi'an
Trip Start
May 03, 2007
1
7
65
Trip End
??? ??, 2008
Xi'an,
China
Thursday, June 28, 2007
It got a bit cooler once it rained though and our dorm room was blessed with A/C.
We met up with an American girl, Christa, who we met on teh Great Wall in Beijing. She lives in Xi'an and works at one of the universitys as an English teacher. She showed us around and took us to the Artists area and to the Muslin quarter for lunch.
She also told us about a little gem of a place - a Monastery an hours ride to the South of the city and little known to Western travellers. So we went to visit it.
1) Dagoba at 'Banana' Temple
Check out the picture of the cheeky looking Monk for our experience there......
Our journey to back the train station in Xi'an turned out to be quite an adventure.
We had a train ticket booked to get to Chengdu which left at 1:20pm. We made a rookie error and hopped on the 603 to get to the station; correct bus, wrong direction. So we were happily going along until we got to our 'destination' and the bus driver was telling us to get off at a place that didn't look at all like the train station. There was one other couple on the bus who hadn't got off and luckily the girl spoke a little English. She said to sit back down, which we did and the bus driver drove on.
At the next stop we all got off the bus and were waiting for the next one to come along. We then found out that the guy from the couple was a bus driver and he proudly announced that he'd be driving us. At this point we only had 30mins before our train left. So, we thought we ought to ask how long the bus ride would take. Our hearts sank when we discovered that it was going to take an hour!!! We thanked them and said our goodbyes and ran off (as much as you can run with backpacks) to the main street to catch a taxi......we were seriously worried that we were about to miss our train.
As we were waiting for a taxi to drive by a large, yellow double-decker bus pulled up next to us, with the driver we'd just met in the driving seat and his girlfriend in the front
2) Arse slapping Monk
. They gestured to us to get on.......so we did. What did we have to lose? The next thing we know we're being driven through the streets of Xi'an at top (bus) speed. They didn't stop for anyone else along the way, beeping all the time to get other cars, taxis and buses to move out the way.
They got us to the station with 10mins to spare. They wouldn't accept any money, not even the standard fare. They just wanted us to run and catch our train....which we did with 3mins to spare.
We couldn't believe our luck or their generosity.
