See What Tim Is Doing: Hot and sweaty Xi’an (July 23-26)

After the not so bad 15-hour bus ride, I arrived in Xi’an…well kind of. The bus pulled over at the side of a motorway and the driver came up and told me this was my stop. So I took as his word as he knew better then I did, gathered my gear and got off along with about 10 other people. My first thought, where the f**k am I and where is the main city. I was literally on the side of a motorway with the nothing around except a closed petrol station. I waited for bout 10 minutes hoping a taxi would turn up. None did. So I decided to start walking in the same direction as the others who got off my bus, and felt like I was walking on a road to nowhere. I started worrying, not sure how I would get to my hostel. It was about 530am and already muggy as hell. So what did I do, probably something I shouldn’t of, but I was desperate.

A small white van pulled up next to me, and I noticed the girl who was in the bed next to mine was in the front seat, and an older lady around 50 in the drivers seat and they started talking to me in Chinese, which obviously I had no idea what they were saying. After gesturing and trying sign language, showing them my address, we were getting nowhere, and the only thing I could gather was they were saying get in. Half was saying you’re an idiot, the other half was saying it two Chinese women, how much trouble can you really get into. We drove for a while and through very desolate areas and I was at times thinking that I had made the wrong choice. 20 minutes or so go past and I saw nothing that looked remotely like a town, and then out of nowhere, main roads! Relief flooded my body. The lady pulled over, got me a cab and gave the driver the address and I was off (after paying her the equivalent of 50p) and finally I arrive at the hostel. Check in and they let me into the room straight away where I was able to sleep for a good few hours.

So day one wasn’t overly productive. I just cruised around town and familiarised myself with Xi’an, which is like a smaller Beijing. I walked down to the city walls (Xi’an city walls are the most complete ones that have survived in China, as well being one of the largest ancient military defensive systems in the world) and the south gate into the city, checked out some really cool traditional Chinese street markets, ate some street meat, checked out the Muslim Quarter which was really interesting too and then retired to bed after a few beers and some pool.

Day two, the Terracotta Warriors, my main reason for heading to Xi’an. They were only discovered in 1974 when a farmer was digging for water and at a depth of only 1.5m, he found a head of one of the warriors. And since then until now, they are still uncovering more and more tombs filled with warriors. At present they have three open to the public, and a fourth one that has recently been found.

We started at number three, and wasn’t too exciting as this site is still being worked on and pieces of warriors are getting found every day and eventually, they will all be found and put together.

Number two, little more exciting with a few complete warriors and horses as well as a lot more pieces. And then number one, amazing! Over 2000 complete warriors stand in the pit, all in line, and no two are the same. Was pretty amazing! The emperor constructed the army to protect him (although I still don’t know how he thought a bunch of statues would do that) but then again he did die from eating too much mercury. So Terracotta Warriors, really really cool!

That night I met up with a few people I met on the tour and we had a few quiet beers, that turned into a 330am finish, but was a fun but chilled night. So that meant the next day I slept in a lot, which was actually pretty nice. Although in the afternoon I did go for a ride with Ky, an English fella I met on the tour, and we rode around the city wall, which was pretty cool, and not too hot considering it was high 30’s at lunchtime.

That night we all decided to go out for dinner to the Muslim Quarter and it was unreal. Between the four of us we had three fish, 20 lamb kebabs, two plates of vegetables, a bowl of weird stuff, two bowls of soup and 6 big bottles of beers and two bottles of water and it cost us £4.50 each for everything! And it was all amazing food! Then we wandered the streets of the quarter looking at all the interesting things on offer there, retired to a bar and chilled over a few beers.

I had to stay in Xi’an a day extra then I wanted due to no trains, but tonight I get a 15 hour train to Chengdu which is further south again. Activities for down there include going to see the pandas, horse trekking in Songpan, going to Leshan and Emei and then who knows what else? Will wait and see.