Xi'an

Despite our Qingdao Beer Festival adventures we were up early on Tuesday for our first high-speed train in China. Travelling over 1,200km in 7hrs to the inland Silk Road terminus of Xi'an, couldn’t help think of Marco Polo spending months to cover the same distance.

First thing to note: coming inland means the temperature is even higher. This is the third time this year where it's been consistently over 40⁰C in the daytime, and it's always when we get far away from the sea (central Australia, southern Laos). Bodes well for us spending the rest of August and September crossing the world's largest landmass 🫠 Having learned this lesson in Qingdao, we have been trying to do our activities in the morning, spend most of the day indoors with aircon, and then venture out again for dinner when the streets come back to life. That meant getting up early for a taxi to see the main attraction in Xi'an: the Terracotta Warriors at Emperor Qinshihuang’s mausoleum.

Only discovered in the mid-70s by drought-stricken peasant farmers digging a well, the terracotta army comprises 8,000+ life-size clay soldiers built for the mausoleum of the first Qin Emperor, over 2,000 years ago. There was no mass production so potters from across China were engaged (read: forcibly conscripted) meaning every single figure looks different and they represent a wide range of Chinese ethnicities. The buried figures were damaged in looting not long after they’d been made, due to the sudden death of the Emperor and the chaotic rise of the Han Dynasty.

For the last fifty years, archaeologists have been painstakingly uncovering and reconstructing the figures, including horses, archers, chariots, soldiers and generals—it takes five years for a team to rebuild just one figure. The army is split between three pits, with Pit 1 being by far the largest and best reconstructed, but there's an enormous amount of conservation work still to complete. We can only imagine how it might have been to visit in the 80s when everything was still mostly buried, and again now when around 1,500 figures have been restored. It’s also now thought that there is more that will never be uncovered due to development: ancient warriors, sumptuous riches, and courtiers’ tombs sunk beneath sewing factories, highways, and government offices as Xi’an has expanded.

We'd been warned that it gets busy in the summer, so it's best to do the recommended route in reverse: start with the least busy spots, and finish with the ones that would be busy regardless. This was good advice, as it meant we could explore Pit 3 and Pit 2 without too much traffic. The crowds in Pit 1 though were something else. We knew major tourist attractions in China would be like this, so we went in with our eyes open. Hundreds of tour groups standing dozens of people deep for hundreds of metres, shoving, sweating, waving flags, shouting, kids squeezing under your armpits, all for a view and a photograph does detract somewhat from any awe you might hope to feel. We found a gap to get a quick look, and moved on relatively fast!

The army is buried a little out of town, but Xi'an itself is also fascinating. It was the ancient capital, and has an exceptionally well-preserved city wall. Chelsea loves a medieval city wall, and this ranks up there with York, UK and Lucca, Italy. Xi’an’s wall was restored in the 80s by a mayor with powerful foresight and an iron fist, following decades of the surrounding urban poor desperately stealing the wall’s bricks to build shelter. Because of the ancient history, Chinese domestic tourists—especially women—love to come here and dress up in period costumes. The streets are filled with girls in ornate headdresses, flowing gowns and intricate makeup, and in the evening they all congregate at the scenic spots for photoshoots. Whereas Qingdao is like a European beer town on steroids, Xi'an feels like it is straight out of a fantasy novel.

Chelsea got up at 5:30am to do the 14km circuit around the city walls, witnessing early morning table tennis, group dance classes motivated by Boney M, and ladies in loose pink pyjamas glacially practicing tai chi. Dan had a lie-in and then a bumper day of travel planning. We've now locked in most of our travel and accommodation until early September, which gives us a break from the constant rolling admin.

Despite our initial concerns, it has been surprisingly easy to get hold of varied and tasty vegetarian food so far (with some seafood). Sizzling tofu, stir-fried vegetables, veggie malatang hotpots... China hasn't been anywhere near as porky as we were worried it might be. We even took a chance on a Xi'an specialty, an extremely messy tray of crayfish tails, where you suck the meat out of the shells, wearing plastic gloves for protection: no cutlery, no plates. Not sure whether it will catch on worldwide, but it was a delicious novelty. We are very pro-spice; eating here would be much harder if you didn’t fancy setting your mouth on fire. We’ve already clocked an 8 on our 10pt scale 🔥

And the food is only going to get more adventurous as we head to our next stop, Sichuan province. Stay tuned! Czytaj więcej