China Part 3: Xi'an
Trip Start
May 07, 2008
1
22
90
Trip End
Jan 06, 2009
Xi'an,
Shaanxi,
China
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Welcome to our China Trip part 3: Xi'an. Well we had a fabulous start to this. We got to Beijing West train station and then literally had to crush ourselves into the stampede of Chinese queuing for the entrance to the station!! Like when the tube's are on strike in London and there's a stampede for buses! Madness. The luggage security-scanning machine was also a "first come first serve" basis so more crushing bodies around the conveyor belt!! Everyone in China pushes. If you want to get somewhere, just push whoever aside! There are no niceties needed here!!
The train station was absolutely vast. We went to our platform waiting room which was like an airport lounge with a massive video screen showing cartoons etc. Our train was incredible
Hot Springs view
. On the advice of our wonderful travel planner, we had booked the best possible sleeper carriage you could have: Super Deluxe. He had heard our wailing woes of Indian travel and told us Chinese trains weren't that dissimilar. OMG!! The Super Deluxe was amazing. We had a private 2-bed berth with our own private, albeit tiny, bathroom, an armchair and a small table! The beds were really comfortable, clean sheets, blankets and soft pillows. S-I-G-H! ahhhhh However.....as gorgeous as this all was, trying to sleep was another thing. If it wasn't the constant squeaking of the train wheels, then it was the random moaning of the carriages on corners, or it was the rattling of train nuts and bolts. In India the noises were constant: air conditioning and snoring. These train noises were random! Still, there was a television at the foot of each bunk and headphones supplied so that helped. An announcement was made five minutes before departure: a bit like in an aeroplane. "This train will be leaving in 5 minutes at 9:24pm. The journey time is 11 hours and one minute, arriving at 8:25am."Oh how we laughed: 11 hours and ONE MINUTE... lol.
The train stopped rolling at the platform in Xi'an at 8:25 and 12 seconds!!!!!!!!!!!!
Our hotel was a huge 4*. We now realise that any 4* hotel should actually be a 3* hotel. There are no strict classifications out here though so if there is a hairdryer it must be a 4* despite the scum around the bath or the sticky carpet!!! Check-in, bags down then out again within 45 minutes. Our tour guide took us immediately onto the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. A Buddhist pagoda of 64metres built in 652 during Tang Dynesty. So called because some wild geese flew over it one day
Factory made Terracotta Warrior
! Beware blog fans: often I will revert to code again. The Big Wild Goose Pagoda was one of many ABT's!! (another bloody temple!)We also went to Huaqing Hot Springs. A beautiful tranquil place of pagodas romantically overlooking lotus pools, bamboo shaded walkways and of course hot sulphur pools with stone lions spewing out water majestically. We got a chance to rinse our hands in the hot spring water which was really refreshing in the stifling heat and David jokingly flicked our tour guide with some water. Bless her! I think she took it fairly good humouredly by throwing David a handful of water in his face!
The piece de resistance in Xi'an was of course the Terracotta Warriors. Not for one moment did I expect to be so moved by it. Incredible experience. Dating from 210 BC they were all discovered one day by a farmer digging for water in a nearby field in 1974. He did the right thing and got onto the government immediately. Today he is 80 years old and there he sat right in front of me in the gift shop willingly signing our souvenir book. He looked about as exhilarated to still be signing books after 20 years as a man confined to counting specks of dust!!!! Still, we exchanged smiles. Well, I smiled. I don't think he had his teeth in....
Tang Dynesty show
The figures are all life-like and approx 6 foot tall ranging from Generals to Archers to Musicians. They were built for the 1st Emperor of Qin and buried with him as a sort of army for him in the afterlife!? Most emperors got buried with treasures they once owned. However, shortly after his burial, there was a raid on the tomb and the place got burned down and destroyed hence many of the terracotta army was buried beneath piles of rubble and earth for over 2000 years until discovery by the farmer.
There are 3 'pits' consisting of over 8000 soldiers, 130 chariots, 520 horses. Some of this number are yet to be un-earthed by the team of archaeologists that work in the museum. As you walk around the pits it is haunting. To see all these life-like soldiers, standing in rows and rows before you, having been buried under mounds of earth for centuries. And where the archaeologists are still working there is plastic sheeting over the partially dug up soldiers which was more emotional than I had expected. It was as though real bodies were being dug up and the plastic sheeting covered them for their dignity. Bizarre. It really was the most magnificent thing I had ever seen in my life. Every soldier's face is totally different to the next, every expression, every moustache, eyebrow, nose distinctive from the next.
More Terracotta Warriors exhumed
We've had great fun trying to communicate with the Chinese. One morning, David asked for an omelette and he got 2 fried eggs!
One morning, on collecting our laundry, the housekeeper insisted on going through our entire bag there and then on the floor while we stood over him impatiently. I said "sorry, but we are in a rush to meet someone so...." But he was too entranced with fingering my crusty thongs to hear me. Nice. This then later led to one great telephone conversation with housekeeping about our laundry that turned into a 15minute phone call with me asking "sorry, you called me....do you know why you called?!" with this girl repeating "you have laundry back?" "no, I don't" "you have laundry back?" "no, I don't" "er...this is housekeeping..you have laundry back?" "no. could we have it back tonight?" "No, so...you have laundry back?".
One night water was dripping from our ceiling - the air con was leaking at 3am. A call to reception resulted in them asking me "water?? How many bottles you want?" "No! I don't water! There is water coming through our ceiling" "ceiling??" "water dripping" "dripping??" to which a member of staff in our doorway then told us an engineer would come tomorrow...so goodnight to you
Terracotta Warriors exhumed
. Well hold on there! Did she expect us to sleep through water dripping onto our carpet all night?? So, she promptly put the ornate clay vase under it and smiled at us!!That night, we went to a pre-booked dinner at the Tang Dynesty Theatre. This was a massive ornate theatre/restaurant which puts on an elaborate musical about the history of the Tang Dynesty while you suck your noodles and slurp rice wine (vile stuff!). The costumes were exquisite with feathers and sequins and satin swishing all over the stage (like a drag queen's fantasy!!). The music was beautiful with birdsong-like notes, emotional solos and acrobatic dancing and fighting. An eye-popping fusion of colours and lights. It was just brilliant. We could have watched it all over again. So good.
We went to the City wall which surrounds Xi'an. The city wall is nothing like you get in Canterbury or York, this wall is absolutely flaming massive!! We were trying to decide whether to walk round some of it or get a tuc-tuc type contraption until our guide gave us some information: 12 meters tall, 12-14 meters wide at the top and 15-18 meters thick at the bottom, it covers 8.5 miles in length with a deep moat surrounding it! We got on the tuc-tuc!!! There are also 98 ramparts and 4 gates. The view from the top looking over Xi'an is spectacular
How they look close up
. You feel like a bird. On our final day in Xi'an, our tour guide took us to an Emperor's Tomb that you could actually go inside as part of a museum. Really fascinating. These Emperor's just get buried with everything!! This Emperor got buried with a smaller version of The Terracotta Warriors that also included a million clay pigs, wolves and dogs! Mad! No wonder these Tombs have to be so deep and so long!! The weird thing though is that these smaller warriors were all dressed in traditional satin dress and were for argument's sakes, dolls!! Can you imagine being buried with all your dolls and toy animals??! So they can protect you in Heaven??!
We got dropped off at the airport and then it was just a series of comedy sketches!!! Our next stop was Yichang, onto our Yangtse River Boat Cruise!
Love, us xxx
Comments
Fantastic reading
Hey my little lobsters. I've been reading your travel adventures every week (a relaxing lunch hour once a week...) and thoroughly enjoying your trip! Keep writing - I almost feel I'm there with you! Lots and lots of love and a huge hug. Ange x x x x x