Mainland China, Xi'an and the Terracotta Warriors

J After almost a week it was time to say goodbye to our cramped room in the ChungKing "Mansion" and make our way mainland to experience a little more of the authentic (and less developed) China. We started the day off on a bad note as the bus to the airport took almost an hour, so when we got to the airport we had 2.5 hours before our flight left. As we walked into the airport and found the checkin counters for Dragonair we saw a lineup, a big lineup. The problem of course, was that the economy counters were greatly outnumbered by the first class and business class counters, because after all you pay more you don't deserve to wait in line right? Here is the math, 3 checkin counters for business class, 2 for first class, (neither had much of a lineup if any) and then for the 200+ people flying economy and standing in a huge lineup.. 4 counters.

Having flown many times in the past month, and knowing full well that if we missed our flight they would be footing the bill to put us on a later one.. we relaxed, I grabbed us coffee and a muffin and used up my remaining Hong Kong dollars, and we waited.. and waited.. and waited.

After two hours in the lineup the incompetent staff finally checked our bags, leaving us a mere 20 minutes to get to our departure gate. My bad mood was compounded by the fact that the staff (realizing people were going to miss their flights) started asking people going to Soel at 8:10 to come to the free counter. Then, 5 minutes later they asked for those people on the 8:15 flight to Shanghai to come forward, I stopped this woman who was going around and said "how about Xi'an at 8:20" and she repeated her previous announcement completely ignoring me as those 5 minutes didn't seem to matter. 10 minutes went by (painfully) and we finally got moved up to the front, although we were almost to the front of the line anyway, and now it was 8:00. Twenty minutes to go through passport departure, security, and find our terminal, in Hong Kong international airport, thanks Dragonair!

We ran (we had to run) down two stairs of escalators and jumped on this unmanned tram thing that whizzed us to another terminal building, and then UP two long flights of escalators.. we ran past a woman holding the final boarding call sign with our flight number on it. We made it, but not after feeling humilated and really exhausted. Of course as soon as we landed I wrote Dragonair an email (to which they never responded).

So we arrive in Xi'an, and make it through security (as we technically have re-entered China, even though HK is China, sorta), and we're waiting for our bags. Michelle's bag shows up, mine doesn't, apparently her bag was faster then mine. The security officer that asked me to come with him "upstairs" really had our hearts racing as we figured cavity search and interrogation were next in line, or maybe they had found out we had smuggled in a Lonely Planet guide book with is not allowed in China. We were relieved when he dropped us off with some nice Dragonair staff who took down our hostel information and promised to have my bag dropped off when it arrived.

M We took the bus to the main stop in the center of town. We then wandered around looking for our hostel knowing we were within a block but could not find it. We asked a few tuk tuk drivers and other locals for help and quickly realised that similar to Japan they do not speak any English, despite this being a popular tourist destination. We did eventually find it, and were relieved when we were shown our room, it was clean, spacious, and the hostel had great amenities. This was only the second official Hosteling International hostel we had stayed at thus far on the trip.

We decided to talk to a few travel agents now that we were in China about a flight from Beijing, home as we were having bad luck finding a cheap flight and thought it may be cheaper to book in China. We went to two places only to find they found the exact same flight as we found on the internet. We took a break from planning and decided to see the drum tower. It was full of.. you guessed it.. drums, that they used to bang to let people know the time during the day and the Bell tower we would see another day was used at night. Shortly before a drum preformance was to start I had to use the washroom. I was rushing as I did not want to miss the show. As I was stepping out of the squatter toilet stall I forgot that the toilet was on a platform about a foot and a half off the ground. I pushed open the door and fell hard onto the ground knocking the wind out of me, and scraping up my knees. When I got up I could barely walk. It was not fun as our room was on the 4th floor of a hostel with no elevator and it was very painful to go up or down stairs.

Anyways I hobbled back and we watched an impressive drum show, although other than us and one other foriegn couple nobody clapped. Not sure if the Chineese just don't clap, or if they didn't think the show was good or what.

That night we went back to the hostel to use the computer and book our flight home, only to find out our visa card was frozen. We could not use my credit card as it was stolen with my purse earlier in the trip. We tried to call visa, but the computers at the hostel were not set up with Skype, and we were having trouble installing it. Then at about 11:30pm Jesse's bag finally arrived. Although they do not tip in China the guy seemed to expect one from Jes and when he didn't give one the guy got mad and slammed the door as he stormed off. Jes signed a form saying everything was fine, then we realized the bottom of his bag had a few good sized rips in them (nothing duct tape couldn't fix though). So all in all between the mess with dragon air, loss of luggage then ripped bag, my bathroom injuries, the visa not working, and skype not working.. it was a hard day.

J The next day we joined a tour that the hostel put together which took us to the famed Terracotta army. Our tour guide Emily was a wealth of information and we thouroughly enjoyed the outting. One of the highlights was going to the obligatory terracotta warrior factory where they build the replicas, of course everything was overpriced like usual, but as our visa wasn't working, and we were having problems finding a bank that would allow us to pull out money from our account.. we were broke and with no way to pay for anything. We even had to borrow money from our tour guide to pay for lunch.. thankfully we found a bank that worked by the end of the day.

On that note, there was much discussion how the banks in China are going to need to smarten up prior to the Olympics, as other travellers have had similar inconviences, even in Beijing. Back to the terracotta army. The first emporor of China, who had many great achievements in his time, including unifying the country (by force when needed) and creating a common language. He also had many roads built from city to city and of course created the Great Wall of China. His burial Chamber, although located right beside the excavated Terracotta army, remainds undisturbed. Mostly because the Chinese still respect and fear the guy, I mean he was very accomplished, and of course he had a whole army built of stone to defend him in the afterlife. Although some of the warriors were damaged/destroyed over the years, many are still intact. If you haven't seen them, they are practically life sized, have complete armor, they had color as well, although that faded almost immediately after they are exposed to fresh air. The most amazing thing, of these hundreds of stone warriors, no face is alike. I found this hard to believe at first, until I started looking at them up close. There is also different ranks of warriors, with different hairstyles and armor to destinguish them. Finally they are in different positions, the archers of course kneeling, and the horsemen don't have swords or bows. Oh, the weapons were not made of stone, unfortunately that means they oxidized over the years and not much remain.

During our outing we met another couple that were staying at the same hostel as us. They were a few years younger then us but we got along fine. Dave and Stacey had been dating only a few months, she is an American student who has been studying in China, and is fluent in Chinese, and Dave is a comedian (although not professionaly-lol) from England. We decided to meet up with them later in the day and go out for drinks.

We had a good evening on the town, went to a few different bars and had some drinks, the music was blaring, and thanks to Stacey we were able to communicate with the locals, and at the second place we went to we made some friends. We exchanged names, shared our home countries, and spent the evening playing drinking games with our new found friends. As the night wore on we decided to hit a nearby dance club, which was a blast.

The next day our fearless foursome was temporarily disbanded as we had different itineraris in mind. Mich and I enjoyed breakfast at the hostel, and then headed out on a city bus toward the Big Goose Pagoda. We ended up getting a surprise tour of Xi'an before realizing we had grabbed the right bus, but at the wrong spot. We had been driving around for 15 minutes before I saw a tower in the distance, then as we got closer I observed that it sure looked a lot like the Bell Tower in the middle of the city.. and a moment later as we pulled up beside it we realized it was the Bell Tower, we had gone in a big circle. One of the great joys of travel is getting lost you know. lol

So another 15 minutes on the bus and we arrived at the right tower, well much more, it was the famous Pagoda. The site was pretty neat, a large concrete area with gardens here and there and bronze statues depicting life in the past. We meandered around the many booths selling souvinours before heading inside the temple complex to see the Pagoda up close. The building itself was erected in 652 A.D. The name apparently comes from a legend that the monks have passed on down the ages; this sect of Buddhism believed they were allowed to eat meat, and one day while looking for meat to buy but not finding any this poor goose broke its wing in mid air and dropped to the ground in front of these monks. Instead of thanking the Gods for the meal they decided it was a sign that they should stop eating meat, and so they built the Pagoda and stopped. With all the american companies popping up in China (Hagen Daus for example), I thought it would be pretty fitting to open a KFC nearby, I wonder if the locals would appreciate it as much as the tourists though.

We opted not to go up the Pagoda itself as we were heading to the Small Goose Pagoda afterward, which apparently has a better view of the city. There were a bunch of people out flying kites on this day, a favorite pastime of the Chinese. We decided that waiting for the bus might take too long, and the Taxi was quite reasonable (although the bus was simply dirt cheap), so we jumped in a Taxi and showed him the page from our Lonely Planet book that we had tore out, and we were off to the next Pagoda.

M When we arrived we were dissapointed to see that to get in we had to go to a museum as well, which was extremely expensive so we skipped it. We then went to a restauraunt close by that was reccommended in our guide book. It was a very expensive looking restaurant with high prices to match (we're talking close to what we might pay at home for an average restaurant).We were quite disapointed, as although some of the menu was in English and it was in a hotel so you would think the staff might know English, nope. Even things like bathroom and rice that I am sure many people ask them for. We accidentally ordered a couple dishes that were extremely spicy and my mouth was on fire, so we finally got the point accross that I wanted some water they lady actually said "no" and walked away. We flagged down another lady and who again said no but offered me coke, which I am sure would not have helped.

So after not eating much we walked over to the sister hostel to ours as they were hosting dumpling night. Jes took pictures while I made them, and afterward we enjoyed eating them while talking with other travellers staying at the hostel.

The next day we met up with Stacey and Dave and went out to the Tang Dynasy theme park. Unlike our theme parks there are no rides, but beautiful parks, lakes, shops, a parade, shows and eateries. At one point we paid to be dressed up like emperors/emperesses and they took our picture with our own camera. Not only were they taking our picture, but so were all the other chineese people there. Luckily Stacey speaks mandrin, so she yelled out 5 quai per photo to them and many people quickly hid their cameras. We had a good laugh. After being in China for a few days you get used to people staring at you, and even asking to take their picture with you, or they "descreetly" snap a shot as they pass by. Yep white people are the local freak show. Our friends had to leave early as they had an overnight train to catch, but we stayed late and went on a paddle boat build for a family of 6, but with the misscommunication we ended up with that one rather than the one build for 2 that we wanted. We also watched an amazing light show done on water that sprayed up and acted as a screen. We then caught the local bus back to our hostel.


The next day we decided that it did not look too far on the map to walk to the train station to book our tickets to Pingyao. It was not only farther that we thought, but we also ended up getting quite lost. We were exhasted, but managed to stop and do some shopping along the way. Unfortunatly like in other Asian countries their largest sizes were generally way to small for me. Not to mention most girl things are very "cute". They have lots of sparkles or bows or cartoon caracters on them. It is the style for Chinese girls to be very cute and sweet in many ways. Anyways, we finally made it to the train station and start to realize why the hostel reccommended they book the tickets for us for a fee. Although they were not trying to get more money out of us, the train station was not very tourist friendly. We walked up to a guy at a counter and said "Pingyao?". After standing in the line he pointed us to for half an hour the lady their directed us to another line as we could not answer her questions. Another half and hour later we get to the front and see a small sign that says English. The guy behind the counter did speak some English which we were very grateful for. He said the soft sleepers were full, but we could have a hard sleeper for the train that left the next day at noon. We asked if there were seats as this was a day time trip. He looked shocked as he repeated our request making sure we really wanted seats not sleepers. It was a third of the price so we reasured him we did. So we got our tickets. Our tired feet and empty bellies were calling so we took a taxi back to the hostel.

Later that day we went to see the big bell tower, full of course with bells. We then paid to go up on the city walls that circle the old sector of the city of Xi'an. Once up we decided to rent a bicycle build for two to peddle around the wall. It was hallarious. The wall was very bumpy and we often felt like we would fall over. The back seat was set up so that I would often knee Jes in the butt as we biked along. They gave us an hour to get back, but as we started to go we realized if we were going to do the whole loop we had to really push it. We made it back just in time to avoid a penalty. Then enjoyed the view some more. It was dark and there were christmas style lights all around. We had a slow walk back afterwards, and slept like babies that night after all the excersie we got.

The next morning we packed up and headed to the train station to catch our train to Pingyao.