Xi'an

Trip Start Mar 22, 2008

Trip End Oct 05, 2009

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Flag of China Xi'an, Shaanxi, China
Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Took me 17 and a half hours to get from Shanghai to Xi'an on an overnight train. Thank god for IPod's! I liked Xi'an the moment I got to the hostel. People there were really friendly, both the staff and the punters in my dorm. There was a lot of stuff to do in Xi'an. I walked around the huge walls that surround the city, 13k in total. There's 4 huge gates where traffic flows through and you can ascend and descend the wall at these. At the top the wall is so wide that many people cycle around it on bikes or even go around in a golf buggy. It's not the Great Wall but it's a good wall (as Eamon Dunphy might say).

The holiest mountain in China, Mount Hua Shan is only 2 hours away by bus. After an early start I gave that a go. There's steps all the way to the top of the mountain but it's dangerously steep in places, steeper than anything I saw even in Nepal. The view at the top was not as good as it could be thanks to some typical Chinese haze / pollution. The trek back down was just as tricky thanks to the gradient. Some crazy Chinese people were walking down the mountain backwards as part of some pilgrimage

. There must be a few fatalaties each year.

The reason most people come to Xi'an is to see the Terracotta Warriors. They were only discovered in the 1970's and the site is not even half excavated yet. There are 3 pits one of which is the size of 2 football pitches containing these statues. A few thousand have been uncovered so far with a lot more still to be excavated. The Chinese don't have the technology to excavate most parts as yet and seem to be unwilling to seek any foreign help! The size and scale of these pits is something to see though, I hope the pictures do it justice.

Met some great people in Xi'an as well. The nightlife here is pretty good so it would have been rude not to try it out. Over the course of 4 days in Xi'an I had nights out with James, Doug, Phil, Andy, Lisa, Louise, Rob, Roseanne (UK), Julia, Marcos (Spain) and Melissa (Belgium). Marcos had an early flight one morning after one of our big nights out. I warned him about what happened to Jeff in Qingdao, he said it would be fine. What happened? He missed his flight. Maybe I'm bad luck...