An Intense Twelve Hours in Xi'an

**Faithful readers, I apologize for the unseemly delay in my posting. A week's worth of computer troubles and a near deletion of my photo library halted me from posting (with pics of course) until now. Thanks for continuing to read even after I've returned**

Saturday May 15

Another 5am wakeup alarm startled me awake. Man, I don’t know how many more days I can handle these early mornings.  Once again, we checked out of our hostel, and hailed a cab to take us down the city to an airport shuttle bus. Next to the bus was a delicious breakfast stand, which had what I’ll call a Chinese breakfast burrito. On a grill, fry up some batter and then crack an egg over it and smooth it out into a circle.  Then add all sorts of vegetables, peppers and SPAM, roll it up, and you’ve got a delicious 2Y breakfast.

The airport, again, was supremely crowded, and we had gotten there at merely 645am! I didn’t realize that so many people were making these flights on a Saturday morning.  Once again, I am completely put off by the Chinese rudeness of pushing, shoving and yelling throughout the airport and onto the plane.

Kathryn and I had a heartfelt goodbye at my gate, and then we were off on our separate ways. Kathryn went back to Kunming for a few more weeks of classes, and then an internship with the State Department in Beijing for the summer; and myself on to another two weeks of traveling. For the record, traveling with Kathryn was absolutely wonderful. Not only is she a really fun person to be around, and we share common travel interests, but her (according to me) mastery of Mandarin and wealth of random information proved invaluable as I felt like I was traveling with a native.

As what seems to be a pretty consistent trend so far, my flight, only 50 minutes, was delayed nearly an hour. This worried me a bit, a I knew that I only had one full day to complete all the things I wanted to see, and a one hour setback could be painful.

The first place I went after the airport, on the way into Xi’an city proper, was the Tomb of Emperor Jingdi, from the Han dynasty (~200BC – 200AD). These tombs are a good prelude to the famed Tombs of Qin Shi Huangdi at the Terracotta Warriors Museum.  Basically, this was another emperor who had his tomb built underground with all the fixings for the afterlife – food, animals, soldiers, guards, chariots – of course, all in clay form.  This museum was special, and possibly better than the larger terracotta army because you could get a lot closer here.  The tomb was smaller, and not as spectacular, but many of the pits had glass floors that you could walk over, and see everything much closer.  This was so interesting, and the audioguide was very helpful. Plus, I’ve become a huge fan of student pricing for every museum I go to – usually more than 50% off with my student ID. Also, this, unlike every other tourist attraction in China, was not overrun by a million Chinese people and their flag-waving and megaphone-using guides.

(Entrance to underground museum - model of the tomb)

(Standing over one of the pits)

(Note the chariot wheels and that some statues are eunuchs)

(Each face was different)

(A miniature army... signs of what's to come)

(Relics of rare animals and birds)

(Reminds me a bit of an extraordinary version of Noah's Ark)

(Displaying how the clay models were molded in pieces and then assembled)

(Really well-preserved animals)

(Lots of pottery)

(At the end of the gift shop ... a dog-dragon thing... not sure)

A nice thing about taxis in China, is that they wait for you.  After taking my time through this museum, I headed out to the parking lot to pick up my driver. I was a little nervous at first when his car was not in the same place as I left him, and my backpack was in his trunk, but then he came running after me from the other side of the lot. Phew, one small anxiety avoided in my first day traveling on my own.

Next stop was the train station in Xi’an, where I was planning on buying my onward ticket to Beijing for that night. Somehow, the meter jumped up to about 2x as much as it was looking to be, and I didn’t have enough cash. He was furious of course, as I tried to haggle him down, but he wasn’t having any of it. We drove to an ATM and settled the bill.

After waiting in line for about a half hour at the absolutely-packed train station, I sadly found out that there were no sleeper trains available to Beijing for the next two days. Damn it! Well, for about half the price, at 150Y ($25) I got my regular seat for the 12-hour trip to Beijing that night at 10pm.

Quite a bit disappointed and frustrated with the taxi price, and now the train tickets, I made my way to the south of town to get to the hostel which I planned to store my bag at for the day.  I had picked up a flier at and emailed them from my hostel in Chengdu and had taken the address off of the Lonely Planet book. Unfortunately, the location had been moved, as the property they were previously on was sanctioned to be demolished and built up as a mall in a year – typical China. However, LP only comes around every two years to update info like this, so I had to go back around to the other side of town to find this, burning very precious time. Around 2pm, I finally arrived at yet another very cozy and helpful hostel.  I was able to lock my stuff up for free, but unfortunately, missed the lunch closing time by about 10 minutes. Today was not my day… so far.

Around 2:30 I hopped on a bus back to the train station, where all transportation radiates from, to catch an express bus (1 hour) out to the Terracotta Warriors Museum.  I was pretty nervous at the time because, according to LP, the museum closed at 5:30pm, and I knew I would want to take my time there.

Getting there around 4 I was a bit frantic to get to the entrance, which they have situated about a 20-minute walk from the bus parking lot. The site is supremely commercialized, with one main waling area leading up to the entrance absolutely packed with stalls and shops selling food, trinkets, books and all sorts of useless trinkets. Moving at 2x Chinese speed, I made it up to the entrance really fast, only to find out that the ticket office is, stupidly, back by the bus drop off point, without any signs. Hurrying, I moved back and got my ticket.  Making the day a little bit better, I found out that the museum closes at 7 during the high season, proving LP a little outdated, even though it’s under a year old.

Next stop was picking up an audioguide, which, somehow, they had sold out of, even so late in the day. A little disappointed I started walking to the entrance when I was stopped by a private guide employed by the museum who started speaking pretty nice English and offering a tour. She started at 100, and I got it down to 50, just a little more than what the audio guide costs – I love being a student and being able to haggle down like that. Ultimately, this was a really great happenstance, as she was full of information, and I was able to ask ample questions a la Joyce Novick.

(She also prompted me often for photo ops)

This tomb was built for Emperor Qin, around 220 BCE. Emperor Qin was arguably the most important emperor, as he was the first one to unify the six pre-existing countries into one Chinese nation via acquisition through war. The tombs cover something like 20 sq km, took over 30 years to build, and utilized the labor of over 700,000 people. Yes, that’s right. And put that in perspective with what the world population must have been over 2,000 years ago.  The more I travel in China, the more I am just overwhelmed by the sheer man power that exists, and is used here. It is really unbelievable.

The museum is separated into three exhibits of uncovered pits.  The viewing isn’t as good as the previous museum, as these are housed basically in warehouses, and are still being worked on by archaeologists in the mornings. You are pretty removed from the physical characters, but it was still stunning to see these life-size figures so well preserved over such a long period of time. The history nerd in me was coming out this day.

In between two of the sites, we had to go to the obligatory museum gift shop where they had some jade from the surrounding mountains (the tomb was strategically placed in such a way) as well as some museum factory replicas of the warrior statues. Also, they were showcasing the 78-year-old man who first discovered the warriors. A simple farmer in the area, drilling a well, knocked onto one of these tombs circa 1972.  Ever since, he has been one of the directors of the museum, and sits in the gift shop each day signing copies of the special book that only the museum publishes. I wasn’t even allowed to take a picture without buying the book first.  Kind of ridiculous, considering that this guy is still illiterate and his name is one of the few characters he knows.  

We headed to the other two pits, where there are different types of warriors – most numerous were the infantry, followed by officers and archers and then charioteers and advisors.  They had two (one of which has been moved to the Shanghai Expo) bronze, full-sized chariots that had been preserved for the entire time.  Also of note, were a handful of warriors that had been essentially perfectly preserved, down to some of the original coloring, which had survived.  Years ago, even as they were unearthed, many of these warriors still had the full coloring, however, due to sun exposure, they had lost their color.  However, in the last pit, lots of the warriors are still underground until they find out a technology to preserve the color – hopefully by the time I bring my family back here, this will be all sorted out.

(Supremely preserved chariots)

(Picture of the Clinton's journey here. He requested to take one home, but they wouldn't let him)

(Pit 1 - truly massive... at least 2 football fields)

(So intricate, and each one was different... so many thousands it's hard to imagine)

(Infantry)

(Burned area from tomb-raiding only one emperor later. Thought of damaging the tomb would actually damage the emperor in the afterlife)

(Pit 2 - Cavalry and higher officers)

(Astounding that they all used to be so colored)

(Pit 3 - still working to uncover, but waiting until the technology is there to preserve the color)

(Best-preserved warriors in the tomb)

(Some of the color is still there)

(High official)

A little faster than I had expected, but interesting and fulfilling nonetheless, I was back on the bus before 7, heading back to the hostel to grab a quick dinner and get on the train.  This was successful, only after getting a little lost trying to find the hostel now that it was nighttime, but thanks to a few helpful locals, I was able to get back in time for some dinner.  I ate with a cool British guy who had started traveling China for a few months, and stopped in Xi’an and has now been teaching and doing other odd jobs for about a year, and has no plans of moving on.  So many people I’ve met along the way have really changed the way I think about the prospect of working and how to do it right.  Definitely making sure I don’t get bogged down in a job such that I can’t travel.  That would be a travesty I think.

Finally, after another exhausting and successful day, I headed back to the train station to head off to Beijing.  Sadly, there were definitely a few things that I would have liked to have done.  Xi’an was the capital city for several dynasties, and the city has huge, still-preserved walls that are supposedly awesome to bike around, as well as some other sights and sounds.  This has been a constant problem of balancing time with content. I try not to get down on myself too much, as I know that I’ve made the best decisions given my time constraints that I could have, and that some day soon, I will return to complete the journey.

The train was not as bad as I expected, but it was no picnic. Just getting on the train was quite an experience, as tons of old Chinese women push and literally threw me on the train so that they could get to their seat the fastest.  Apparently, there are some last-minute tickets that you can get without an assigned seat, which basically turns into a free-for-all to get to some seats, and lie down across them so others feel bad about sitting there. If this every happened to me though, I’ll be honest, I’d have no problem physically removing one of these pesky women from my seat.

Some thoughts on the trains: lots of old men who take off their shirts because it’s too hot. Chinese people have the absolute most obnoxious ringtones that start loud, and only get louder.  Then, they take the phone out of their pocket after a few seconds and then stare at it before answering it. I was pretty close to throwing some of these phones out the window.  In a similar realm, people feel the need to play music from their phones/mp3 players without headphones.  I simply have no idea of why they do this, and won’t attempt an explanation – it’s just plain horrible. The only saving grace was that smoking was not allowed directly in the car, you had to go in the middle between the top and bottom levels. Some sleep was had, but mostly just a lot of fidgeting and staring, as of course, after three straight days of traveling, I hadn’t had a chance to charge my iPod, and I have no hard books, only audio. I experienced the epitome of boredom.