Hi again from Xi’an! Another hot and smoggy day — is there any other kind here? — spent exploring the city and its sights.
Cycling tour of the city walls
First stop after breakfast, we headed up to the old city walls for a cycling tour. We rented rickety old bikes that were all too small for us — mine felt like riding a child’s bike — and set out to cycle the 14km track around the walls.
The cycling was slow going, what with the bumpy cobblestoned surface and the people walking everywhere. In other words, it was a bit like dodging potholes in Montreal. We stopped a lot to take cheesy photos at every opportunity, so we spent just under two hours completing the circuit. From the top of the walls, we could see not only watchtowers and pagodas, but also a good view into the old city down below. Not a bad way to spend a morning.
Muslim quarter market
After a delicious lunch, we headed to the local Muslim market. This market is over 1,000 years old and served as the easternmost terminus of the Silk Road in its heyday. The local Muslim population in Xi’an is mainly made up of the Hui ethnic group, a branch of Chinese-speaking Muslims who live mostly in the central and northwestern provinces of China. There are over 10 million Hui people in the world, which makes me a little embarrassed to say that I knew next to nothing about them before getting here.
The market is fairly typical of bazaars and souks — crowded stall after stall selling local food, clothing, junk and souvenir trinkets. The difference is, in most of those other countries, it’s easy to dismiss the trinkets on offer as being mostly unauthentic and made in China. Here, well, all the products are also… made in China. Yep.
We wandered around the market, tasting some of the snack foods and shopping for souvenirs. I bought one t-shirt, just to have an extra something to wear, since this hot sticky weather is making me go through shirts a bit faster than I expected. I’m not big into souvenirs.
Supermarket adventure
On the way back to the hotel, we decided to stop off at the supermarket to pick up some supplies for tomorrow’s 23-hour train ride to Dunhuang, which was a bit of an adventure.
First, we couldn’t quite find the supermarket. Then after stopping some locals for directions, we found it and then couldn’t figure out how to get inside. We found an escalator and started to go up it, but we were stopped by a security guard who made us leave our bags in lockers — and that required figuring out how to operate the lockers. Anyway, we got upstairs and spent about 10 minutes walking around what looked like a giant version of Wal-Mart or Costco — it had products for the home, toiletries, clothes, everything except groceries. We found someone official-looking and made hand signals and figured out we had to go up to the third floor. That accomplished, we wandered around the absolutely enormous supermarket and had fun trying to decipher what things were with only Chinese on the packaging.
Pagoda, fountain and light show
In the evening, I met back up with Colleen and Laurent, and the three of us got a local bus out to see the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. Every night, there’s a big fountain show that takes place in front of the pagoda, so we wanted to go check that out.
The pagoda is quite large — around seven stories — and was lit up around a big haze. The plaza surrounding the pagoda is, as with everything else in China, huge. Shops, restaurants, hotels and entertainment complexes surround it. In the plaza itself, we saw lots of kids playing with laser and other flashing-light toys, people dancing and doing Tai Chi, and thousands and thousands of people.
About a half hour before the show was supposed to start, we went to try to get a good spot to see from, only to discover that we were a bit late. The crowd surrounded the giant fountain square on all four sides, and was several rows deep already. We pushed our way to a spot where we could sort of see a little bit, except for all the people’s heads and hands holding phones and cameras and ipads in the way. In China, all tourist attractions seem to require a badge in pushing and shoving. I’m definitely going to come back to Canada with some reverse culture shock the next time someone lets exit a door before entering, or apologizes for bumping into me.
The fountain show itself was a bit of a letdown. The parts of it we could see, anyway. There was music blasted through loudspeakers, but it wasn’t particularly Chinese. The fountains were pretty, but we couldn’t really see the light show properly because we had the wrong vantage point, from the back instead of the front. It lasted about 20 minutes, at the end of which we managed to get a bit of a better spot. And it was fun and all, but this show takes place every night so I honestly don’t understand what draws such enormous crowds. Then again, crowds are relative in China.
Tuk-tuk omigod
After the show, we stopped off at a noodle bar for some food before heading back. With the series of one-way streets around the pagoda and all the construction going on (it seems Xi’an is in the midst of building a subway line), we weren’t entirely sure where the bus stop was for the return bus. We tried to walk around a bit to find it, but we found a tuk-tuk motorized bike taxi first.
This is the sort of experience that only bears telling about after, since clearly I’m typing this so I survived to tell the tale. Anyone who’s ever taken a tuk-tuk in China is probably laughing right now because they know what I’m about to say. The driver started the ride by going about 200m in the wrong direction, against traffic including cars and buses, before taking a left turn right into more oncoming traffic.
That was just the start: For the hair-raising 15 minute ride back to the hotel, we hung on for dear life as the tuk-tuk wove its way through people, cars, buses, vans and motorbikes with impunity. I won’t count the number of near-misses, and I think I might have prayed to various gods I don’t even believe in. At some point, you just have to figure, well, the driver has lived this long, so the odds are good that we will, too. But it’s hard to see how when you’re making a left turn and there’s a giant bus coming towards you in the opposite direction. By the time we made it back, we were laughing, probably from having actually made it out alive. We got out and paid the driver, but he then insisted on driving us to the other side of the street where the hotel was — which involved another cut across a busy main thoroughfare and a drive the wrong way. Just to punctuate the trip, I suppose.
So I’ve officially survived a Chinese tuk-tuk ride. I feel like my trip wouldn’t have been complete without this experience. Definitely a trip highlight so far.
Westward bound
Tomorrow, I’m boarding a train to head west. So far, I’ve been in major cities, and I’ve had quite good access to internet and other such facilities. I fully expect that to end after tomorrow, so my updates will probably become more sporadic the further out I get. I’ll do my best to post when I can, so watch this space.
Hope everyone’s doing well back home!