So where did I leave off in my trip to Xi’an. Oh right, I just spent the whole day on a bus. Finally I’m back in Xi’an at the bus station. It’s pretty late at this point so I decide to head back to the same hostel I stayed at the day before because I know where is it and my phone is almost dead. I have the address so all I need to do is find a taxi. When I get off the bus there’s a ton of people asking if any of the bus people need rides. I’ve been warned to ignore these people and get a street taxi. I make it to the street and flag a taxi, show her the address and I’m on my way. 20 minutes later we’re still not there and there’s no traffic. hmmmm. Long story short, this is where I got scammed by a taxi. I suspected it would happen at some point, but man does the universe have impeccable timing. Already feeling down about messing up the bus all I can do is sigh in frustration. Not wanting or knowing how to make a fuss I just pay the taxi and get out.
The room I get has two other people in it. They seem to be a couple so I claim a bed in the corner and figure out what I should do tomorrow. My train doesn’t leave until 20:44 so I still have time to explore the city. I definitely want to go to the Terracotta Warriors but that means I have to actually figure out how to get there. I decide to ask the two other people in the room. They’re chill and give me the address of the train station and tell me to just get on bus 306 line 5 once there. Someone will come around and collect the fare so don’t bother getting tickets in advanced. It’s late and I go to bed only to wake up at 3 with a ton of mosquitoes buzzing around me. Turns out the other two people left the window open by their bed and there’s no screen. I kill as many mosquitoes as quietly as I can and try to go back to sleep. There are too many mosquitoes so as soon as it starts to get light I check out. The city is sleepy and there’s not too many people out. The first bus doesn’t leave until 8:30 so I decided to aimlessly walk around until then.
After walking around for a bit I found this alley covered in flags so I follow it.
I’m glad I did because it gave way to the Duchenghuang Temple of Xi’an which i didn’t even know existed. There was no one around which was slightly creepy. Apparently you can go in the temple at 8:30 so I made a note to come back. (hint: I didn’t go back because I couldn’t find it).
The temple was built during the Ming Dynasty. That’s AD 1387 if you can wrap your mind around. It was built for Taoist devotees to live and practice their doctrines. I could only get pictures in the courtyard.
At this point its 7:00ish. I pull up maps and see where the Muslim Quarter is. On tripadvisor it says to go early since later in the day it gets really crowded. It’s not too far from me so I leave the Duchenghuang Temple and head back to the main road. About 30 minutes later maps says I’m there but there’s nothing indicating I was ‘there’. I mean with temples and monuments it’s easy to know ‘hey, you’re definitely here, there’s what you’re looking at’. So I do what seems rational. I look for people wearing hijabs and follow them. It sort of works because I definitely end up in the Muslim Quarter but it’s not what I expected. This part of the city is known for it’s twisted, narrow streets with stores and street food on either side. I read it was good to get there early as the street can easily get over crowed. Well I’m there early but instead of feeling like a tourist I get a different vibe. I feel in the way. The internet wasn’t kidding when it said this street was narrow. There’s not enough room for two food carts pass side by side. Throw in a stupid american that doesn’t know where she’s going and people going off to work/school and you got a lot of people leaning on their horns. It seems I’m there too early. People are still setting up their wares and don’t have time to entertain tourists so I decide to get out of there. I duck down an alley and see a sign that points to the Xi’an Mosque. What a conscience I think: that place is on my list of places to see. So I follow the sign. Can you guess what the sign says? Open at 8:30. I’m too early. At this point I head back to the main road to go to the train station. I don’t know where the metro is so I flag a taxi who knows exactly where I want to go. In fact he has pictures of the train station on his dash board and points to it. Getting my confidence back I know what I’m doing, I make sure he starts the meter before heading back into the road.
Once I get to the train station I know I’m in the right spot due to this helpful sign:
I don’t think I will ever stop feeling dumb about yesterday. It literally says on the sign IN ENGLISH where to go. Anyway I get on bus 306, pay my 7 kuai and try to ignore everyone smoking. The bus ride is suppose to take 90 minutes but we get dropped off in a giant parking lot in about 45 minutes. There’s no signs for terracotta warriors but there’s a ton of people selling souvenirs so I know I’m in the right spot. There’s about 50 other buses in this parking lot so I follow everyone else getting off. After getting out of the giant parking lot, there’s a bunch of ticket tellers where I get in line to buy a ticket. I start to see signs and follow them. To get inside you have to go through two rounds of security who punch your ticket. Before this I hadn’t seen any non-Asian people but suddenly there’s a sea of westerners. I don’t know where they came from because they weren’t in the parking lot. It’s not super crowed because it’s still early but I wouldn’t call the place deserted either. After getting in there’s about a 15 minute walk through a beautiful garden. Eventually I get to the entrance. The terracotta warriors are arranged in three pits (or buildings). I pick the building closest to me which is pit three. Outside it does not look impressive. Man oh man was I wrong. Inside there’s a cool 3-D map of the area in the lobby. The next set of double doors opens up to an enormous chamber. I don’t think I blink for an entire minute. The shear size of this room is just astounding. I can understand why it’s considered one of the greatest archaeological sites in the world.
It’s a couple days later since I was there and I still cannot describe my amazement over this army. The number of soldiers alone that are intact is unbelievable let alone all the ones that didn’t survive. If anyone comes to visit me in China, hands down I suggest you go here. I know it’s the first place I visited and an extremely tourist thing to do but there’s a reason people visit this place from all over the world. Even crazier, these are only 2,000 of 6,000-8,000 soldiers! I can’t imagine the construction of these 2,200 years ago.
Next up is pit 2. It’s said that pit 2 is the most speculator of all the pits and it doesn’t disappoint. Unlike pit 1 where all the soldiers are lined up, pit 2 introduces chariots, archers, more horses, cavalrymen. They are displayed in military formations. It is my favorite of all the pits because you can get closer to the sculptures and see every detail on them (behind glass of course). Each solider is wearing the same style clothing but each face has distinctively different features as if based on a real army (which there’s speculation it was). I spent at least an hour walking around in pit 2 until it starts to get too crowed to see over the edge without shoving people.
Pit 3 was a little tricky to find and I ended up back in pit one. That was fine with me as I walked around again taking my time to pick out individual soldiers. When I got to pit 3 I didn’t think the other pits could be topped however pit 3 was just as interesting. It houses the original well site where the Terracotta warriors were found.
It’s almost noon at this point and the day is turning out absolutely beautiful. The pits are surrounded by a lovely garden so I sit and decided what to do next. My train back to Nanjing doesn’t leave for another 8.5 hours so I decide to head back to Xi’an to find more cool stuff to see. I originally was going put the whole day in one post but it’s getting too long. Stay tuned for the rest of the day and how I spent 12.3 hours on a train.
