Day 36 - Xi'an

27.08.09

Another visit to the Muslim Quarter and a walk around the Great Mosque. It's an interesting mix of Islamic and Chinese architecture and art and is set out like a Chinese temple, but with an Islamic prayer hall and spires decorated using pagoda style architecture.

I get chatting to a shop keeper outside who at first I think is just trying to sell me something, but it turns out he thought I was Muslim and just wanted to chat. It happens a second time round in the evening and a guy I buy some food from is convinced I am Muslim, after he probes and finds out I went to an Islamic school for a year, he latches on and keeps asking.

At night time the Quarter transforms into a circus of people selling food, artists offering to draw your portrait, people selling kites and other entrepreneurs wanting to cash in on tourist money. The kites are amazing, consisting of many small kites tied to one another in a long string, they must stretch at least 100m into the sky and you could buy 5m sections for around 50p. The best example of money making were the guys with full on telescopes mounted onto the back of motorcycles, who for just under a pound will let you look into the sky at the moon or Jupiter. When I say telescope I don't mean a small hand held thing, but massive white industrial telescopes that have supporting frames and are turned using wheels and gears. I'm not sure how good it is for the optics, being driven around on the back of a motorcycle and being bashed around going up curbs over bumps and I'm sure if any astronomer saw it, they would have a heart attack.

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.

Day 33 - Pingyao

24.08.09

I really have nothing to do today, I've seen the sights and walked around the walls, been outside the city gates and explored and now am just killing time until my train leaves at 11pm. The only option is to sit back outside the hostel and attempt to learn some more Chinese with my Mandarin recordings and bask in the sun. When that gets boring I break out the Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, which was given to me in Novosibirsk by Sasha. I guess she
knew I would need it at some point.

I'm starting to feel a bit ill today and my throat hurts and I think I have a cold coming along, which is seriously bad timing considering I have an eight hour hard seat journey ahead. It's nothing more than a small cold, but when you're perched on an uncomfortable, reasonably hard seat designed to hold 3, with 4 people on it; the gangways packed with people standing; no air conditioning; it smells and people spit and throw their rubbish onto the floor. It turns out to be a horrific journey and I get about 2 hours intermittent sleep, hugging my rucksack trying to use it as a pillow.
Chinese hard seat trains are definitely for day journeys and not long night ones, but when there are no tickets left it becomes the only option (although it is considerably cheaper, for a reason).

Day 31 - Pingyao

22.08.09

Dodging the onslaught of taxi drivers at the station who literally stalk me as I cannot possibly walk for some reason, I trek around the town's intact 600+ year old outer walls and in the north gate in search of my hostel. It is like walking through some kind of time warp as you enter the town, the buildings all look original and the streets are cobbled and narrow. I can see why it is a Unesco World Heritage Site, the town is really beautiful and to top it off my hostel is located right in the middle of town in a Ming dynasty courtyard house.
Once I've checked in I take a walk around the town and as it approaches 9am, the town starts to pack out with Chinese tour groups and weird electric large scale golf carts. You aren't allowed 'engined' vehicles inside the town, so electric buggies are used instead of taxis or coaches to ferry all the tourists and tour groups around.

My first foray into the world of Chinese hostels and I'm sharing my 3 bed room with one guy called Marcus who is from Italy. He's got some good stories about the places he's been and gives me some tips about where to visit, but says the best place in Asia is North Korea. It's hard to go and costs a bomb to get into, but he says it is an amazing and a fascinating place and makes everywhere else seem boring.

Today I am again stunned by the domestic tourism market and how many people there are in Pingyao on tour groups. Where do they all come from and how can they afford to all go on these expensive tours.

Day 32 - Pingyao

23.08.09

Another day in Pingyao and I'm sure I've already done most of the sights. I get chatting to two people from the hostel, Graham from Newcastle and Kieron from Cork in Ireland. Kieron is in his 40s, but every year since his mid twenties, heads off for a few of months and travels around a different region of the world, then comes back and finds some work so he can make some money to do it all over again. Graham is the same age as me, but didn't finish Uni and then worked for a year before motorbiking it around Europe and camping for several months.

I get chatting to Graham, who tells me that China's death penalty rate is higher than the rest of the world combined and it's normally carried out by local official, using a gun to the back of the head. They are now Implementing 'Death Vans' that will come to your house and do it by lethal injection as it is easier, less traumatic for the official and guarantees a clean 'result'. Also there are apparently forced labour camps which anyone can be sent to, including tourists.
In near enough the same conversation a man who works at the hostel talks about how China is extremely poor and all we see is the tourist side, we will never be allowed to see or go to the the real rural China, away from the cities or tourist areas. It's an interesting conversation and he says that Chinese people might not appear poor as they spend their money on making themselves look comfortable and image is very important. He contrasts it with India, where he says it is more spiritual and people care about within, rather than their external appearance. He says that there has been violence and protests due to the inequality between the rich and the poor and that the government are trying to build temples and increase the spiritual focus of the nation to try and calm people down.
It turns out to be a very interesting few hours and it's quite rare to get people talking about the political state of the country, especially with any kind of negative view. China is definitely not all rosy.

Day 30 - Datong

21.08.09

The Yungang Caves is today's task and it all starts off with a round trip on the bus much like my first Vladivostock adventure. Apparently the bus everyone told me to catch isn't running for some reason, so I have to catch a number 4 and then change for 3-1. I obviously have no idea where to get off and change, but charge on into the journey blind. 45 mins later and I'm back at the train station and asking people again, all of whom tell me to jump on the 4 and change onto the 3-1. The second time round I stand right next to the driver and bother him every few minutes so he doesn't forget me. He eventually tells me where to get off and change to jump on the 3-1 and I end up arriving at the entrance to the caves at about midday.

The Yungang caves are a series of Buddhist caves carved straight out of the cliff face and when you see a 17m high Buddha statue sitting in a cave that's all be carved out of the cliff face over 1500 years ago, it's phenomenal. In contrast I also take a more extensive walk around Datong when I get back and come to the conclusion that it's a bit of a rough city. I jump on my hard sleeper at night and totally paranoid that I will my miss my stop at 6am I wake up ritually every 20 minutes and freak out. Although there was no need as the attendant wakes you up when you get to your stop anyway.