The Warriors of Xi'an

My train for Xi’an, which is 570 miles west of Beijing, left just before 5:00pm on Friday afternoon.  When I first got on the train, the hard seat I was assigned was a little bit uncomfortable, but not totally unbearable.  It was actually slightly padded so the main problem was that it was almost completely upright with no way to recline.  For the first few hours I mainly just wrote in my journal and read my book, even dozing off for a few moments now and then.  Since I had forgotten my food I bought some from the food cart--first just snacks and then a bowl of Ramen noodles once I figured out where I was supposed to go to fill it with hot water. 

The point when it really started to get rough was later in the night.  You are not allowed to smoke in the actual cars, but you can smoke in the vestibules so the rancid air keeps wafting down the aisles.  Even overnight they don’t dim the lights and the train is constantly stopping to let people on and off.  Some people don’t have seats so they just stand in the aisles trying to avoid the constant movement of the food vendors.  As for the seats, they are arranged three across facing each other so you always have someone competing with you for foot space or starting to drift off to sleep on your shoulder.  I was able to fall asleep on and off, but needless to say it was not a good night’s rest.  The next morning my neck and butt hurt, I felt nauseous and couldn’t quite stomach the idea of ever again eating a bowl of spicy ramen noodles.  Once I finally got to my hostel (after taking a cab when I got off the public bus a stop too early) I slept for another four hours.

Xi’an is the last city along the Silk Road to the east so it is filled with lots of old architecture and history.  In the afternoon I grabbed some food from the hostel cafe and then walked to the city’s historic bell tower.  Inside the tower there was an local art exhibit and shortly after I arrived a youth bell choir gave one of their regularly scheduled daily performances in the main hall.  It was fun to see and hear some traditional Chinese music and dancing.  After that ended, I walked to the companion drum tower, but figuring it was probably much the same as the bell tower, declined to pay to go inside.

My next stop was the Muslim Quarter where I looked through some shops before making my way to the Grand Mosque.  It was really interesting to see the Muslim influence combined with the traditional Chinese architecture.  Rather than looking like a traditional Arabic tower, the minaret had the appearance more of a Buddhist pagoda.  The mosque, which was founded in 742, is apparently one of the oldest in the country.  After leaving the mosque I walked through the covered Muslim night market where I tried my hand at bargaining to shop for birthday and Christmas gifts for friends and family members.

On Sunday morning I set off on the public bus to see the Army of Terracotta Warriors with a German student named Ferey whom I had met the night before in my hostel.  After one false start where we got off at the wrong stop, we finally arrived at the museum an hour after leaving the city.  Because of my interest in archaeology, the Terracotta Warriors was the main reason that I wanted to come to Xi’an.  The thousands of soldier and horse funerary statues were discovered by some local farmers digging for a well in 1974.  There are three pits containing more than 8,000 soldiers and hundreds of horses in various states of completeness.  The first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, ordered the terracotta sculptures to be manufactured and buried with him in the 3rd century BC in order to help guard his empire in the afterlife.  It was really an incredible sight, but like every other popular attraction was a bit spoiled by constantly having to jostle with every other tourist for a good view.  Also, it was absolutely pouring rain so even though the three pits were indoors our shoes and pants were soaked from walking to and from the museum and in between the different buildings.  Ferey and I scrapped plans by go to a nearby tomb because by the end we were just so cold, wet and miserable that the only think we wanted to do was go home and change.

Once we got back to Xi’an I had hoped to be able to meet up with Kim who was arriving that afternoon, but once again our schedules didn’t match up.  I spent most of the late afternoon on my computer at the hostel before heading to the train station for my trip to Shanghai.  The train ended up being over an hour late leaving so in the end I might have actually had time to see Kim.  This time I had a hard sleeper, which was six to a cabin with no closing door.  However, thankfully they turned off the overhead lights and I was actually able to sleep quite well lying down.  I laid the comforter on the mattress and slept in my sleep sack so I didn’t find it any less comfortable than the average bed in a hostel.  The only problem was the air conditioning was quite cold and blowing right on my feet where I was lying on the top bunk.  Other than that, I had no major complaints.

By early afternoon we had made it to Shanghai, which I quickly learned was quite different from the rest of mainland China.  I’ll tell you all about it in my next post.