September 27 to October 2, 2019
Population: 8 million
The city is 700 miles south-west of Beijing in the Shaanxi province, a 3h30 train ride on a D-train (fast train) from Pingyao.
The girls are getting used to this and the journey is pretty smooth. We get them busy with homework, reading, card games, coloring and naps for Lana (hence our heavy smaller backpacks packed with activities and food).
When we arrived in Xī’ān at 4:45pm, the train station is so huge that it feels like an airport. Then we headed to pick up our next trip’s tickets with an agent, that will allow us to arrive closer to departure time that day, less stressful. We are getting the hang of this!
Xi'an's train station looks like an airport terminal
Afterwards, we hopped on the subway and off we went to our apartment. The thing is that the booking’s location was not at all as indicated on the map provided by Booking.com. And as you probably already know from Instagram, it took us 3 hours to get to the apartment. We had to ask 3 people to confirm the address for us and call the property owner (it ended up being 10km away from where we thought it was). The first couple helping us were a Chinese lady and a Russian guy who could both speak English (thank God). After that, we relied on a translator app and the few Chinese words we know and our hands. By 6:45pm, we went to a hotel reception to ask that they call a cab for us because we were unsuccessful and desperate (with heavy backpacks and hungry kids). The meeting point with the property owner was in front of the provincial hospital, a needle in a haystack so we lost another 45 minutes. A lady living the neighborhood that we would not understand helped us by calling the owner that she seemed to know and who arrived out of breath, just back from the hospital meeting point. Anyways, after she took us to an apartment that did not correspond to our rental, we finally arrived to our location and wrongfully paid for the 5 nights. But the place was a dump: terrible cigarette smell although shamelessly having ‘’no smoking’’ signs (even found a cig butt in the bedroom), broken furniture, filthy bathroom and kitchen, noisy nearby construction site until midnight. The only upside for the girls were the Hello Kitty sheets in their bed ☺️.
So, the next day, we wanted to leave and called Booking.com to complain. They contacted the owner who said that we could not get a refund. Regardless, we needed to leave for our own sake. We found another booking not too far that was very promising, with reviews this time (that was our mistake for the 1st apartment, no reviews… we learned our lesson). To check out, we went to see the owner, they discouraged us from asking money because of contract breach. But we fought hard and got what we wanted: a refund for 4 nights. The guy was sweating and we would not let go, so we were right to just keep asking. It’s amazing how I was suddenly able to ask for our 1,000 yuan back in Chinese!
Anyways, so we went to the other apartment and everything worked fine. It was very well located and we even had 2 bedrooms so that was another improvement. The rest of our stay was great. There is always an ugly story, hopefully that will be the only one (yeah right)!
Our neighborhood (Starbucks seem to be following us or the other way around 😉)
There is always an ugly story, hopefully that will be the only one (yeah right)! After that adventure, we were ready to enjoy Xī’ān and its highlights...
Downtown
History bubble: The city was once the terminus of the Silk Road and a melting pot of cultures and religions, as well as home to emperors, courtesans, poets, monks, merchants and warriors. Starting with the Qin dynasty (the same Emperor that started the Great Wall) and up until the early 10th century, Xī’ān (西安; pronounced 'see-an') was the political heart capital of China.
The following day, we went to the Terracotta Army, an hour to the north-east.
Terracotta Army
The site is immense and there were a lot of Chinese tourists (it was on a Sunday). We got there by public transportation, which was pretty straightforward. When we got there, we saw it’s a well-oiled machine for tourists except that very few people speak English. We were surprised as it is the 2nd site the most visited in China by foreigners. For example, we had to ask for an English map as none was on display.
There are thousands of terracotta warriors buried underground and split in 3 pits that were discovered in 1974 by farmers while drilling a well.
Why were the warriors buried? It was part of the 98 sq. km burial site of Emperor Qin who ordered the site shortly after ascending the throne. He believed that they would protect him and demonstrate his power in the afterlife. Its construction involved 700,000 workers and took 38 years (it was stopped 1 year after Qin’s death and apparently never completed to plan). Oh and that was done 2,200 years ago!😳
For the visit, we followed the Lonely Planet’s advice to start with the smallest pit and finish with the paramount. All pits are indoor.
The army was buried 5 meters deep in the ground
Pit 3 contains 72 warriors and horses. It is believed to be the army headquarters due to the number of high-ranking officers.
Pit 2 contains approximately 1,300 warriors that are still mainly covered. When we enter, it looks like a big hangar with wavy soil.
Untouched area in pit 2
In some areas we saw uncovered heads, bodies, horses and chariot wheels but a most of it is shattered.
Damaged findings in pit 2, which will probably require several months to get fixed
Pit 2's big highlight though is to be able to examine 5 warriors from up close and that’s when we realized the level of details with which this endeavor was executed. The shoe sole of the kneeling archer blew my mind, as you can see on the picture. We could also understand the differences in outfits between a high-ranking officer, a mid-ranking officer and a simple soldier.
Kneeling archer, high-ranking officer (both sides), mid-ranking officer, horse
With this level of details, there is no doubt that this enterprise took 38 years to be executed!
Pit 1 totally blew our mind. It is the size of an aircraft hangar and believed to contain 6,000 warriors and horses. 2,000 are on display and archaeologists are working on uncovering the rest and mending those that broke. It was absolutely fantastic and it was hard to believe that we were actually standing by such wonder.
Pit 1: phenomenal!
Archeologists' work area
Site of the well that led to the site discovery in 1974
Naema had studied China in 1st grade and when she saw the warriors, she was amazed at the uniqueness of each statue’s face (that we could see really well even in pit 1). Her favorite statue (mine too) was the kneeling archer, and she has been practicing archery with her diary’s elastic band and a pen ever since 🏹.
After that, we deserved a good ice-cream and we exited the site via a Disneyland-type of set up: it was ironic to see Starbucks, Mc Donalds, in such a key Chinese touristy site.
Our goal was to quickly get back to the bus and head back to Xī’ān before the traffic got too bad. The bad news was that we hit traffic, the good news was that the drive back was only 45 minutes longer (1h45 total) and we were sitted (the bus was packed and 20 people were standing in the aisle).
On the way (and we have seen it in other places on the train), we saw 2 nuclear plants just outside of Xī’ān. The city is very dense (5 times more than Beijing) and there are multiple clusters of residential skyscrapers, dozens concentrated at the same place.
High-rising residential buildings in Xi'an
Muslim quarter
As already said, Xī’ān marks the end of the Silk Road and the many exchanges it enticed: spices, fabric, food and religion.
We visited the Great Mosque whose minaret is a pagoda and, on all buildings, we can appreciate the strong influence of the Chinese architectural style. Although we could not enter the Prayer Hall, we could see beautiful mats on the floor.
Pagoda-shaped minaret of the Great Mosque
Inside the Great Mosque
We had passed by the quarter 2 days earlier and knew already what street food we wanted to try and where. We went back for dinner. The area was very lively, from people shouting out their menus to workers pounding on a white sugar paste trying to flatten it out and make a nougat-style out of it.
Muslim quarter's Main Street
The streets were flavorful, colorful, and super crowded.
After making sure that everything ordered was “bù là” (non spicy), we tried the rice cake, dumplings, potatoes, skewers of lamb and squid, fresh noodles, flat bread, fancy ice cream balls, deep-fried banana. Everything was delicious. We felt like we were in a souk in Lebanon again!
We are quite amazed at how much the Chinese still use traditional/manual methods. For example, we saw ground hot pepper still done with a granite grinding wheel in the shop, spaghetti-type noodles made from scratch in 2 minutes time, policemen directing traffic instead of a traffic light and the list goes on.
Minute-made noodles
Inside the City Walls
The entire inner city is surrounded by walls, wide enough to be able to ride a bike and go around its 14 km perimeter. Like in Beijing, there is a Bell tower and a Drum tower (which were used to strike time before, same as our churches in France). All are illuminated at night, which gives a timeless atmosphere to the city.
Bell Tower, central to Xi'an
National Day (October 1st, 70th anniversary of PRC)
Since we arrived in Beijing, we saw the preparations: first, in Tiananmen square, but also hundreds of national flags flying, huge posters, signs on buildings, houses, across the visited cities...
We knew that the Golden Week starts with the holiday and that public administrations are closed for a week. We had booked our train tickets consequently because of the surge of vacationers.
On the night of September 30, we noticed that more people were crowding the streets and festivities had started. It was confirmed when we got out of the subway station to head back home and ran into parades, people dancing and even a light show by the south gate of the wall. People looked extremely happy (vacation or patriotism?) and were gathered with friends and families. As always, we were standing out in the crowd and only came across a handful of Europeans that night.
October 1 was a rainy day so we did not have a chance to see celebrations or fireworks. However, we saw the CCTV program in Tiananmen. Very impressive. First, the extent of the parade, but also the impeccable military step. We saw the program replaying in the Chengdu metro up to 8 days later to make sure it remained fresh in people’s minds.
Besides the great visits we did here, our stay in Xī’ān will remain mitigated.
Our apartment and the weather were prone to kicking back : homeschooling, reading, blog writing, trip planning (Vietnam is our next stop and we are meeting up with a friend of ours). It was much-appreciated !
We actually found a nice groove now: homeschooling in the morning, afternoons visiting. And having a living space in Pingyao and Xi'an allow parents to have some adult time and kids to be in bed earlier. Everyone ends up less grumpy 😉
However, we found people a little colder than those encountered so far in other cities. We struggled as less people spoke English and menus did not necessarily feature pictures (no go for us).
The city felt suffocating: not a lot of parks but a LOT of people, and the girls’ frustration to be constantly photographed and touched by strangers (they love Lana’s hair).
Our VPN did not work at all for the whole stay. It was most likely due to the cybersecurity levels maxing out around national holidays. At home, even hooked on the wifi, we could not have access to gmail, our own blog and plethora of websites, google, whatsapp, facebook, instagram unless hotspotting on Salah’s phone equipped with an unlocked 3G (purposefully bought before the trip) Hence, we emptied the card and found out we couldn’t top it up before October 17 (the end of our trip in China). Gloomy times !
In the end, the card would still work except for hostpot capabilities so we could survive even outside the apartment! And we were able to hook up to the VPN for the 1st time in 6 days at the end of October 1. Fortunately, connection will be back to normal October 4 onward.
Coralie
Comentários