20 hours is certainly a long train ride, but the trip from Dehang to Xi’an actually wasn’t too bad. I hadn’t realized central China was so mountainous, but the train must have passed through a hundred tunnels along the way. Maren and I met a couple of nice Chinese kids sitting near us who gave us these cool miniature dolls. We arrived in Xi’an the following day, and were once again in a giant metropolis after the week and a half we spent hiking and biking in the countryside. We went to a restaurant the first evening which was famous for its noodle soup. The funny thing was, the soup came with only one noodle! It was thick and wide and about 10 feet long, it came in a big bowl of broth. Our server saw us struggling to figure out how to eat the thing with chopsticks and we were a bit embarrassed when she came over to help us cut it up.
The center of Xi’an is surrounded by a rectangular wall, which we spent the next day walking on top of, looking down upon the city. The wall is quite well preserved and very wide, with bikers and vendors and numerous towers. The weather had turned gray and rainy, but it was still quite warm as we walked the 14 or so kilometer loop to get back to the point where we started. We ate more good food in the evening. The whole hot green peppers in chili sauce were particularly interesting and actually brought tears to my eyes.
We saved our last day in Xi’an for the amazing cultural relic which put the city on the tourist map. The Terracotta Army of an ancient Chinese emperor was discovered only 35 years or so ago by some local farmers just outside of Xi’an. The emperor had a massive terracotta army built to protect him when he died. There are literally thousands of life size soldiers, not to mention horses and chariots, all of which are still in the process of being uncovered from their dirt tombs. Many of the soldiers and their weapons have been removed and are on display, but the vast majority of them are still in battle formation in a few giant pits. We stopped to watch archaeologists at work in several areas. The detail and the degree of preservation of the soldiers is really unbelievable, even more so considering they were built more than 2000 years ago.
After the highlight of Xi’an, we packed up and headed to the train station for our overnighter to Beijing… and promptly missed our train. The bus ride to the station took longer than we had expected, and the train station itself was unbelievably crowded. We had to wait in a long line just to enter the station and go through security. By the time we finally got to our train platform, it was too late. Fortunately, we were able to change the date of the tickets we had bought, but it cost us a whole day in Beijing. We had seen most of Xi’an, so we spent the next day mostly relaxing and eating assorted steamed buns from street vendors J. In the afternoon, we went to a temple which was set in a beautiful park filled with pagodas. It was a serene and peaceful spot right in the center of the massive urban city center.
We arrived this time at the train station extra early, and had plenty of time to load up on snacks for the train ride. I found the very popular ramen noodle bowls to be great train food. They’re dirt cheap and steaming hot water is available for free in train stations as well as on the trains. Unfortunately we didn’t manage to get a seat on the overpacked train. That meant we were stuck with our bags on the ground in the aisle with people on all sides of us, everyone trying to catch some sleep in awkward positions. A teenage Chinese boy noticed us and came by to practice his English for several hours. He was nice and even tried to teach us a couple of phrases in Mandarin, but his persistence made it even tougher to get any sleep. We arrived in Beijing in the morning, very tired but excited to explore the capital’s sights.
