Home of the Terracotta Warriors
Trip Start
Apr 02, 2006
1
5
10
Trip End
May 02, 2006
Xi'an,
China
Friday, April 14, 2006
Overnight Train Wreck
Our adventure in Xi'an actually started the evening before with our first overnight train in China. With most of us taking a overnight train or two in Europe, we felt pretty confident of what to expect. Well we quickly realized that this wasn't Europe!
We got to the train station around 8:00PM or so and it was packed. Like most things in Asia it was dirty, noisy, crowded and the bathrooms nasty. So we sat with the General Population listening to them spit, yell, etc. Finally our Train was announced we hurried to the platform to get on the train. Once again we fought the masses to get into the small train doorways to be met with smaller hallways
Terracotta-Beaten Up
. We fought our way to our cabins which slept SIX people each in a triple bunk bed. The space between the two rows of beds was so small that a person with a backpack could walk in but couldn't turn around.Everyone sat there quiet (Doctor Fat Head would call it shock I am sure) at where we were and that we would be on this train for another 13 hours. After 30 minutes we quickly decided it was time for some beers! Of course there was limited space so you end up drinking in the hall way, between the cars and in the room until they turn the lights out (10:30) thus it was time to go to the dining car.
If I was a better writer I would layout the scene in the dining car, but I am not so simply it was like a scene in an old movie. The car was packed with small groups of Chinese smoking up a storm so the whole car had a cloud of smoke swirling through it. The conversations were low and barely audible over the clanking of the train over the tracks. A small group of us sat in a both drinking a beer and telling stories of home. We drank until 1:30 in the morning and when we left the dining car was still hopping with its mysterious patrons.
The Perfect Viewing Point
Fighting off jet lag we all decided to go for a bike ride around the city wall
Terracotta-Close Up
. It was a cool and cloudy day which made for the perfect scene of 12 tourists on bikes racing and grunting as we went over the potholes with bikes without any shocks...or working breaks for that matter. The crazy thing, these were the bikes for the tourists only, and thus the nicest! It's not really fair, but the tourists, mostly westerners, get access to the "nicest" China has to offer. Part of the government trying to increase tourism I'm sure. As we rode along the wall for about 2.5 hours we had a birds eye view of the entire city. Without being noticed we could see onto the back alley streets. We caught a game with old men playing mahjong in the alley and workers knocking down a brick building with no hard hats or safety constraints for all the falling bricks below - right next to an elementary school. And we tried to grasp the actual living spaces in China. Our guide had told us that the average size of an apartment, which houses a married couple, both sets of grandparents and the child, is 360 square feet! And that is a big apartment! WOW. So we saw quite a few of these apartments and started to believe it. Amazing. The bike ride really was a glimpse into China's backyard. As a side note, I was completely fascinated by the one child rule in China. We heard over and over again from our guides that the Family Planning was successful. A hard concept to grasp... as we travelled more we realized this was an entire country - of 1.6 Billion people that was an entire population of only children. I finally found out that it is okay if you have twins - but that is the only way to have more than one child. Other couples that have more than one get fined - an amount depending on how much you make. One business owner was fined $300,000 USD for having a second child. OUCH! A world with no cousins.... hard to imagine.
