The Wandering Chocoholic

Hi from Xi’an. This city, the capital of Shaanxi province, is the official eastern starting point of the Silk Road. So I’m officially on this journey now, I guess. Beijing was a bonus.

Xi’an is a “small city” by Chinese standards, since it only has 8 million people. Of course, by my Canadian standards, it’s a very large, busy city, only slightly less chaotic than Beijing, though that might also be because it’s Sunday. In China, they don’t even consider a city to be large until it hits the 10 million population mark. But Xi’an was an ancient capital in many of the former dynasty periods, and has a ton of history.

Chinese sleeper train ‘experience’

We arrived here early this morning after a thirteen-hour overnight train journey from Beijing. The train itself was, well, an experience. We had second-class hard sleeper tickets, which meant we had beds in an open compartment with six to a compartment — three bunks stacked atop each other. I had a middle berth, which was fairly easy to get up to, but climbing to the top bunk required a fair bit of upper body strength. To add to the fun, our compartment’s air conditioning was broken, so it was stiflingly hot most of the night, until it suddenly kicked in around 2am and then we were freezing. The toilets and sinks in our car were also broken, refusing to flush or drain, which was a special brand of gross until Julie located the magic western-style toilet three cars down.

To pass the time on the train, we played cards and ate instant noodles and waved around our folding fans to try to stay cool. I updated my blogs with a magical combination of mobile data and a USB power pack. Sam tried to get a workout in by doing pull-ups on the bar from the top bunk. Laurent made friends with a Chinese guy in the next compartment who spoke a bit of English. The lights went out at around 10, and we all tried to get some sleep — some more successfully than others — until we got to Xi’an around 8am.

Bleary-eyed and sticky, we loaded our bags onto a van and made our way to our hotel for breakfast. The rooms weren’t ready yet, but we got a couple of temporary rooms so we could quickly shower and change before setting out for a day of sightseeing.

Terracotta Warriors

Way back around 210 BCE, the First Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, died and was buried near Xi’an. To protect and defend him in his afterlife, an army of over 8,000 terracotta warriors, horses and chariots were buried along with him. After all, you wouldn’t want the emperor to be unprotected, would you?

Anyway, these warriors were undiscovered until the 1970s, when a bunch of farmers near modern-day Xi’an were digging for well water and happened to discover them. The archeologists got really excited — for good reason, as it turns out — and cue an upheaval the likes of which this region had never known. The farmers were relocated elsewhere; the Chinese government owns all their land, because communism, so presumably they didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. We stopped off in the village near the excavation sites for lunch at a local couple’s house who had been among those who were former farmers prior to the 1970s on excavated land. They’ve ‘retired’ now and are busy serving lunches to foreign tour groups.

After lunch, we went to the museum itself to see the warriors. To date, four main pits and the emperor’s tomb have been excavated, with the findings painstakingly restored piece by piece like the world’s most frustratingly impossible jigsaw puzzles. The bodies were all mostly alike for each type of warrior, being made with giant molds. The heads were all hand-made though, and fairly unique. Some of the warriors were headless, not because the heads hadn’t been found, but because in the early days of excavation, some enterprising people stole them to try to sell. Those who were caught were executed — a pretty stiff punishment for stealing ancient artifacts, but apparently it got the message across since nobody’s tried anything like that since. The added security probably helps, too.

The museum complex is huge, and it was absolutely jam-packed with people. It being a Sunday during peak season, the numbers were probably higher than usual. We pushed, shoved and cajoled our way through giant tour groups to see what we could see of the warriors.

Lots of photos, some cheesy pictures we paid to take next to the warriors, and a few bumps and bruises later, we’d seen most of what there is to see at the museum. I have to say, the sheer size and scope of even the small parts that were excavated was impressive. But I’m having trouble adjusting to all the crowds at the sights. It feels exhausting trying to navigate through the crowds, and I’ll be relieved to hopefully get to some less packed places in the later part of this trip.

On the way out of the museum, instead of the normal souvenir stalls and gift shops that you’d expect at a tourist attraction, we walked out through a veritable city full of them. It took us over a half hour to navigate through it. Sorry, Texas, but you’ve got it wrong: Everything’s bigger in China.

Dumplings and Tang

For dinner, we went out to eat some of Xi’an’s famous dumplings while watching a Tang Dynasty cultural show. It was one of those made-for-tourist type events that, even when you know to expect it to be cheesy, it is. But somehow it’s okay, because after all, how many times will I get to come to Xi’an?

First, in a giant hall of tables, we sat down and waiters brought out tray after tray of dumplings. Steamed dumplings, fried dumplings, spicy dumplings, you name it. We stuffed ourselves until we couldn’t eat any more.

Then, after dinner, there was a show given by a group of musicians and dancers. They were re-imagining what entertainment was like during the time of the Tang Dynasty. The show featured elaborate brightly-coloured costumes, traditional musical instruments, and dancers with very long sleeves.

After the show, we were all pretty tired from the lack of sleep last night, so we headed back to the hotel to crash out. More tomorrow from Xi’an.