Day 37 - Xian, Hua Shan

28.08.09

Today's idea is either very very very stupid, or perfectly safe and will result in a fantastic morning view. Just outside of Xi'an is a 2160m mountain called Hua Shan, in all the literature it is know as a very dangerous mountain and has resulted in deaths from climbers falling off it's steep sides or venturing off the path and falling down a sheer cliff face. To put some scale into it, Scafell Pike is 977m, Snowdon is 1085m and Ben Nevis, Britain's tallest mountain is 1344m high. The interesting twist to the story is that I want to do a night climb to make it to the peak for sunrise, which is supposed to be an amazing sight. I've done my research and know it's possible and many people do it and I have all the right equipment with me as I think I might not be the most technological traveler I've met, but I am definitely the best equipped and have the essentials (torches, first aid kits, thermals, water purification tablets, etc.)

I get on my train at about 3pm and get to the train station, which is a 20 minute taxi drive from the mountain's base at just after 5pm and considering I want to start climbing at about 11pm I've got some serious time to kill. In an interesting note the taxi drivers think I'm crazy when I say I want to climb Hua Shan tonight and because of the rain tell me it's very dangerous and one even said I'll be swept off the mountain (a nice touch). It's about 7pm, far too early to climb, so I kill some time at the base listening to music and mandarin tapes. Interestingly, the wind picks up and the rain starts coming and it actually gets quite nasty, so I have a walk up to the mountain gates and buy my ticket and then toy with the idea of starting the climb early, but decide against it as I don't want to be on the summit waiting for ages for sunrise. Lucky I didn't as about an hour later, they shut the gates and don't allow anyone else to climb up as the conditions are too dangerous. There are around 15 of us waiting and at around 12.30am we have to leave the gates and I end up with 4 Chinese students who decide to sleep it out in the village over night. Once again I manage to bump into some lovely people who help me out.

Day 35 - Xi'an

26.08.09

With man flu in tow, I have an activity rate of about -5 for the morning and so do practically nothing, the afternoon however is very interesting. Me and Jenny decide to take a walk around the Muslim Quarter in Xian, which just breaks all stereotypical images you have of religions and how people should look. Compared to the other markets in China it's selling so many different things and is like a toned down version of the market in Marakech, really bizarre for the middle of a massive Chinese city. The women wear hijabs and burkas and the men head caps, with their clothes having a distinctive Arab flair. There is Arabic calligraphy as opposed to Chinese characters on the shops and around the quarter and occasionally people will talk in Arabic.
A walk around the city walls and the parkland that surrounds it, has us land in a traditional Chinese dance performance and singing, which is 'interesting'. Also in the park are the communal exercise bikes and machines which seem to feature in much of China. It's such a good idea and there is the usual collection the older Chinese generation on the machines doing their afternoon routines. We really should adopt this idea in the UK.

Jenny also solves the conundrum of how so many Chinese people can afford to go to the tourist sites today. She says that there is only a small percentage of people in China who are actually rich and can afford to spend money on cameras and gadgets and travel around, while the majority of the country is extremely poor. This very small percentage is smaller than in other countries, but when you have 1.3 billion people it equates to around 97 million people, more than the whole population of the UK, who have enough money to buy what they want, travel around the country and support a huge (and expensive, even by UK standards) domestic tourism industry.

That solves that one then.

Day 34 - Xi'an

25.08.09

Getting off the train at Xi'an feels like breaking out of prison. The station is just outside the north city walls and I decide to walk to the hostel which is at the south gate, once again the Lonely Planet map is way off and an hour and a half later I rock up at Shuyuan Hostel. It's set over three lovely courtyards with a cafe at the back courtyard and a lively bar in the basement underneath it all. It is a lovely place and I'm glad I'm booked in for 5 nights as it will give me time to get over my cold and see the surrounding sights.

After I check in, they tell me my bed isn't ready yet, so give me a free coffee voucher and let me store my luggage, after my first coffee in a month I decide to get the terracotta warriors done as it's still early and make my way to the site about an hour out of town. It's blistering heat and the sun has decided to just be offensive, so the air conditioned air craft hangers the warrior pits are set in are a god send. It's a massive complex and is really impressive, especially inspecting some of the warriors up close and seeing the details on the life size models. I decided to take an audio guide to get some more information, in the pits it's quite interesting, but in the exhibition halls the masses of Chinese tour groups push past you and you can't see anything, also the audio guide gets a bit boring here. I am determined to listen to all 74 tracks, which means I end up sitting down on a bench for about 20 mins just playing them one after the other. I didn't actually listen to them and day dreamed for most of it, but I had to get my monies worth.

Once back at the hostel I crash in a pile of exhaustion through illness, and the sun's barrage of burning rays. I later meet my room mates, Jenny from Germany, Javier from Chile and Alex from the UK who lived in Hong Kong, it's an eclectic bunch and we ending up discussing life, the universe and the Chinese until about 3.30 in the morning.