The sleeper to Xian & the fearsome Terracotta Warriors!.....



The kids cabin with Anita the guide

 My most over whelming experience was entering the Beijing train station which was the size of a multi story city to catch an over night train to Xian.  We quickly learnt the meaning of 'sticky rice' as the catch cry for all tourists in China - you must keep together, don't get separated or you'll get lost in the crush!



The 'I can't sleep' sleeper train bunk


The sleeper carriage was great we slept 4 to a cabin in tiny bunk beds (we're a tall family so no stretching out for us and no sleep) it has to be experienced - it was right up there as the best thing on the tour for the kids.  They ran from cabin to cabin setting up game rooms and hanging out until a late bed time while the parents plied themselves with alcohol to get through the long evening!

Any way we arrived in Xi'an in the morning feeling a bit tired,  Xi'an was a nice change to Beijing it is a ancient walled city with only a population of 4million.  It was once the terminus of the Silk Road and therefore a melting pot of cultures and religions - Christian, Muslim and Buddhist.


 
Even though it is now a modern city the old city walls still remain intact and vendors still crowd the narrow lanes of the warren like Muslim Quarter. Just outside Xi'an is one of the most famous archaeological finds in the world the subterranean life sized army of thousands standing guard over the tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang for 2 thousand years 'The Terracotta Warriors'.

Rain means no tourists on the city walls.



Rain gnome's on the city walls



Tandem with mummy

The city is walled by a 12m high and 14km long rectangle built in 1370 by a Ming emperor. You can climb up on to the walls (which are about 10m wide) and ride a bike around the city - it took us about 2 hours with the kids on tandems. The day we did this it was raining so we ended up wearing disposable green plastic rain ponchos which made us look like 'big gnome' crazy Westerners. Still the experience was worth it, and the rain added atmosphere and probably cut the tourist numbers down by 97% - just us and some other crazies.

Big Goose Pagoda

We also went to the Big Goose Pagoda - it was completed in 652 AD to house the Buddhist sutras brought back from India by the monk Xuan Zang. His 17 year epic trip to India via the Silk Road was to search for Buddhist enlightenment. The Ming Dynasty novel 'Journey to the West' fictionalised this journey.  In it the monk was given 3 disciples to protect him the most famous one was Monkey King (which inspired the 1970's TV show Monkey - classic 'Monkey Magic'). 

Hollander at the incense shrine

Oren making his offering

Paying homage to Monkey Magic!

The kids made incense offerings at the temple. Our local guide explained that as a Buddhist you would come to pray to the gods and your ancestors to ask for good fortune, good exam results for your children, and a good (wealthy) marriage partner. She said that her parents came every day during her entrance exams to make offerings so that she would get good results.  The exams are life changing for the Chinese they determine what direction you have, but they seem to have higher stakes than here.

Muslim's at the Mosque

On daddy's shoulders at the Great Mosque

We love dumplings!

Xi'an is culturally diverse and it is interesting that it has remained so, in light of attempts to squash minorities in other regions.  We visited the Muslim Quarter of Xi'an, it has been home to the Hui community (Chinese Muslims) for centuries since approx 7th C. The narrow lanes are full of butcher shops, market factories, mosques, men in white caps and women wearing scarfs. The Hui minority currently number about 30,000. Our group visited the Great Mosque and the bazaar markets to haggle for some trinkets. Then we went out for the best dumpling dinner I've ever had.



In awe!



Just outside Xi'an is one of the most famous archaeological finds in the world - the subterranean life sized army of thousands standing guard over the tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang for 2 thousand years 'The Terracotta Warriors'.

We drove out of the city through industrial waste land then farming land, the air pollution was horrendous I imagined acid rain to be the norm here.  The Terracotta Warrior site is a huge regulated arena.  The pits that have been uncovered are now covered and housed in majestic marble buildings. They are amazing but the Emperor must have been a huge megalomaniac to inspire such a mausoleum. 

What amazes me is they were lost to time for so long and it was only in 1974 that peasants who were drilling a well uncovered one of the underground vaults that yielded the thousands of terracotta soldiers and horses in battle formation. The site still hasn't been fully excavated, at night archaeologist continue to work at uncovering and restoring the warriors.

There are over 3 pits one the size of an aircraft hanger, with more than 7000 warriors with weaponry, horses and chariots that have been unearthed. All designed to protect the tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi a despotic ruler who unified China over 2200 years ago.

The tomb and warriors reputedly took 38 years to complete and required 700,000 forced workers most said to have been buried alive within the tomb. He also had 48 concubines buried alive with him. Emperor Qin had a fierce reputation, but he did unify China, standardised measurements, currency and writing.

The farmer who's land was repossessed because of the significant find is now employed to autograph books of the Terracotta Warriors -which we bought.  Its a bit of an assembly line and he won't have his photo taken which is fair enough as thousand of tourists come through each day. His family have been compensated by being given good jobs in factories, and the farmer has since been taught some basic English (because of his notoriety he is requested to meet foreign dignitaries when they come). It must seem like 'Ground Hog Day' for him and he probably regrets the day he dug it up but it is amazing.

Next stop our river cruise from Guilin to Yangshou past the spectacular limestone karst mountains.

Zai Jian!

Susan and the gang.