05/24/2007

The Warriors and Walls of Xi'an

We're back from Xi'an (西安) after many exciting adventures.
We took an overnight train there Tuesday night, after finishing Chinese finals and two papers. Didn't sleep very well due to the presence of some very loud snorers very nearby. Arrived bright and early Wednesday morning, except it wasn't actually bright, rained all day.
After checking into our hostel and convincing the hostel manager we could get to the Terracotta Warriors without taking his 190 元 tour, we did in fact manage to find a bus to take us there, about an hour's ride on a bumpy road.
The soldiers were pretty magnificent. They're in three pits, of which the "infantry" in pit one is the most impressive:



The soldiers were all carved thousands of years ago to guard the tomb of one of China's most despotic rulers. They're still being excavated and reconstructed, since most of them fell in pieces. Interestingly, the soldiers are all unique, with different faces, hairstyles and builds. Also, they were originally painted bright colors, but all the traces of paint archeologists find fade when exposed to air.

The next day we headed out early for a bike ride along the top of the city wall. It was wide, mostly flat, and pretty much deserted. We had a great time.



Being on top of the wall also provided a great vantage point from which to look over the city itself, which stretches out both inside and outside the wall.




After our exhilirating bike ride - during which we all managed to not get hurt - we walked to the Small Goose Pagoda, a short distance outside the city walls:



The pagoda was built to house ancient scriptures brought back from India. It was one of the few brick pagodas constructed at the time, designed to be fire-proof. The top two stories fell off in an earthquake, so the pagoda is now only 13 stories high, but you can go stand on the "roof," which used to be the 14th floor:




After climbing back down the 13 flights of stairs (which get longer as you get closer to the bottom, the ceilings also get very low toward the top of the pagoda) we headed to the Muslim Quarter for a quick look around. Although we failed to find the obvious-sounding Great Mosque, we did get to wander around a cool market full of dried fruit and souveneirs. We all bought some pretty Chinese paintings from a man who acted wounded by the low prices we offered - and wound up paying.

Then back to Beijing on the overnight train. Slept much better this time in peace and quiet.

We have some adventures planned for the weekend, including a great wall hike, then off again Sunday night to see some Buddhist Temples. We'll keep you posted!

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