It's the evening of the 21st August and I've just returned from my third and final night in Xi'an. But I'll begin at the beginning.
On the 19th I woke, packed with haste and set out to Beijing West railway station. It was quite large.
Proceeding to the train required interpretation of numbers and signs only - I reached it without hassle or sign language.
The realtime readout inside the carriage indicated a cruising speed of 301 km/h (187 mph). I think Britain needs some bullet trains.
On the train I purchased a meal and a drink, ate it in the dining car and returned to my seat, where I was soon offered an identical complementary meal and drink. I passed on the chance to have two lunches and continued taking pictures.
It's true that there's quite a bit of construction going on in China. All of us Westerners marvel at it, but the Chinese don't seem to. The fact is that not everyone has an apartment yet so they need to build some more of them. I just wish they could get some architects involved so that they could have a few dozen tower blocks and not have them all identical and blocky. It seems a bit lazy - though I suppose another word for it is Utilitarian. Fancy design is optional, and costs money that could be spent on more apartment blocks.
Seeing them I can't help but imagine what they'll look like after China's first Great Recession - whenever that may be. Crumbling squats, entirely abandoned, relics to an age of unparalleled expansion and optimism as with the Soviets? It would be great to see the rusting past of Russia to compare but that would be a bit of a detour.
Some of China is still green, and is even quite beautiful. I saw my first ever rice paddies, something I really quite appreciated. It was one of those instances where you realise that a practice that you have long known happens regularly somewhere in the world is actually happening in that field over there - in this case, growing rice.
If you want to be a smartass and inform me that those are not rice paddies, be my guest. In any case I passed some rice paddies.
I arrived in Xi'an and set about getting to my hotel. Remembering my experience with the airport taxi of Beijing, I went looking for a bus. I followed signs, then walked at random around a brand new, expansive and empty plaza in front of the station where there were no buses - or indeed anything except paving and well tended bushes.
I returned to the station, found the taxi rank (diligently ignoring all the touts) and began waiting. It took over an hour in which time a few people snuck ahead of me. I spent my queuing time working out how best to place myself and my backpack to block the progress of those behind me.
When I finally reached the front the taxi driver didn't understand English and couldn't read the address I handed him, but did call the hotel to get directions. I was feeling happier until we began driving and he said "100 yuan?" - the price the touts had been offering. I stuck to my guns and said, "No - Meter!". He turned on the meter. Success.
I'm sure we crossed the river three times in that hour long journey. The meter had reached 90 yuan and I had began non-verbally tutting when we suddenly pulled over, called the hotel, had a long conversation then handed me the phone. The hotel receptionist informed me that the taxi driver said there had been many traffic jams, there had been road maintenance and that 90 yuan was an acceptable price. He then pulled away, did a U turn and pulled into the hotel which I hadn't yet noticed. In my opinion it's a sign of a guilty conscience when the taxi driver needs to ask your hotel to explain to you that his charge is appropriate. I paid the 90 yuan (£9).
In the reception I met a robust and hairy looking white man. It transpired he was the driver for a trip to Kathmandu. He'd just driven from Istanbul to Beijing, up to and around Mongolia, back to Beijing, then Xi'an, going on to Kathmandu followed by two laps of India. My mere sixteen days is a small section of one of these laps carried out by another of Dragoman's trucks.
I got my first look at the truck:
This is my new home - or at least my new temporary base of operations. Her name is Helena.
Jan, the driver, invited me to join the Kathmandoers and some Beijing-to-Istanbullers for dinner. I met them at 7:30, followed them down strangely Florida looking squares and avenues and settled down on benches in front of a restaurant in a lively alley of lights. A Chinese guide with the group swiftly ordered food and beer for everyone and we were soon well supplied with excellent noodles and adequate lager. The 600ml bottles of lager are 3 or 4 yuan everywhere (30-40p). I think that's a personal record for cheapest pint.
Many of the group introduced themselves to me. I quickly realised that I was in the company of many well versed in the world travelling lifestyle. Some had come from Mongolia with Yan, others had just finished trips round South America, Cambodia or North Korea, most had been on the road for many months. I think the longest was two years.
Back home they were mainly contracting, with homes they owned being looked after by or rented to friends. Those who weren't contracting had quit their jobs. All were taking Xi'an in their stride, simply another stop along a long succession of wonders of variable interest and surprisingness.
One lady stood out. In her sixties or later, she'd been travelling in Mongolia. She addressed every question with a spirit of lightness and frivolity. The only thing that was of great importance to her, she said, was what time she needed to be up the next morning. Everything else just happened. Meals are ordered or cooked, sights seen, and days on the road required only sitting - unless the truck got stuck and people were needed to dig or collect rocks to build a road, as happened to them more than once in Mongolia.
After much casually chatting and drinking of weak and cheap beer with two trucks worth of travellers - around twenty people - I headed to bed.
I had been invited to cycle the city walls with some of the group. All that was required of me for this to happen was to follow people after breakfast. They already knew which bus to catch and where to get off. Walking and bussing with this assorted crew was a complete change of pace to my solitary and twosomey wandering in Beijing.
With a minimum of fuss we ascended the walls and rented an assortment of mountain bikes and tandems. The wall was wide, long and largely empty - easy to ride with the small drawbacks of a hot sun and occasionally bumpy ancient paving stones.
There were a couple of couples with us - one newly formed I think, judging from the distance between their homes (she was from Calgary and he from Wimbledon), the impending divergence of their routes and the shyish way they held hands. I don't know how they left it but only he is on the truck now.
The view from the wall provided a better overview of Xi'an. It was mainly modern and ugly with pockets of well planned retail avenues and semi-ancient pagodas and courtyards.
After the wall we went shopping. Again I felt relief at that China's cities are largely untouristed. The goods in the markets were aimed at Chinese and Chinese tourists - cheap tourist knicknacks were in a minority. There was art (admittedly not great), calligraphy, framed shadow puppets, noodles made with a giant wooden pump and stamps carved to order.
The only snag was that I didn't quite have the freedom of movement as I did alone. The small talk with my companions about jobs back home and previous travels kept dragging me back to the West and I couldn't linger as long as I liked.
After the art street came the food street in the Muslim Quarter. It didn't look especially Muslimy to me but some women were wearing headscarves. I wanted to partake in the largely unidentifiable (by me anyway) snack food but didn't have time.
Finally, there was the general tourist goods street. There we found fake sunglasses and Beats headphones, calligraphy, jewellery and knicknacks.
I found the "Home of Helen". It was one of many art / calligraphy stalls. I picked out my favourite scroll, a painted winter scene. She offered to head it with any characters of my choosing. I wished I'd had a favourite quotation from Chuang Tzu (the founder of Taoism, at least on my tree) to hand but had to settle with picking from her list of characters. I chose "Tranquility", "Clarity" then "Truth". Truth isn't likely to come from observation of a Winter scene (unlike tranquility or clarity) but it doesn't matter so much, only pendantic Chinese visitors to my future homes will mind. The price was 80 yuan and it is not heavy.
By this point my companions were all waiting for me so we headed back to the hotel and lay down in our respective bedrooms to await the 6pm Xi'an to Kashgar trip briefing. This was largely redundant for those already on the trip but they would attend anyway to meet the newbies. I counted myself among them but had snuck in a headstart in getting to know my fellow truckers.
I met two Seattlelites - one a Microsoft programme manager from Singapore working on MS LiveID, two middle aged couples from Australia, Cathy from Australia / India who I've already mentioned, and some other people I don't yet know much about. There are fourteen in total, seven of whom would be going all the way to Istanbul.
We headed out for a big dinner attended by the crew, guides and passengers of both the Kathmandu and Istanbul bound trucks. I must confess I optimised my socialising somewhat by chatting mainly with the Kathmanduers, figuring that I'd have twenty five days of travelling to get to know my own truckmates.
On that truck was a Australian resident Chinese girl named Nina who had just come from North Korea. This was her first overland trip also and she seemed keen to make new friends. She was envious of me that people wanted to take my photo but no one wanted to take a picture of her, ethnically Chinese in China and hence blending in somewhat. She wondered aloud whether there was a place where people would stop and take pictures of her. We later determined from talking with Kelvin (the Seattlelite from Singapore) that this place was Samarkland.
The dinner was wonderful. We sat at two large round tables and our Chinese guide ordered a wide selection of dishes on our behalf. As during the day, the process was easy, comfortable and sociable. Eating Chinese food in company is far better than eating alone, a single dish lacks variety. Also I can't tackle a whole Peking duck by myself.
I was sitting next to Claire, our driver. She told me a little about her time in South America. Dragoman crew sign up for contracts from fifteen to twenty four months. During that time they do not get a day off and work in sickness and in health. Sometimes there is no trouble - hotels in developed areas, tarmac roads, tropical weather. Other times they are faced with dust, snow, closed borders, breakdowns, obnoxious passengers and personal illness. During her time in Peru she came down with Dengue fever, and found herself with no choice but to drive the truck for twelve hours to meet up with a group. Even after she arrived she continued with the trip. "Toughing it out" when times get hard seems very much the spirit of the thing.
The next day we were scheduled to visit the Terracotta Warriors. They were as I expected - lots of Terracotta Warriors:
Most of them are still buried or in a bad way but they've managed to patch up a fair few of them. You can see most of them in the photos above. There's two other pits, one of which is small but comes with a chariot with four horses. The final pit is huge but mostly still has the roof on. They say that the majority of the warriors are still underground (they know they're there because they've scanned the area with radar). They're not going to dig them up because they're painted in many colours and if they were exposed to light and oxygen the colours would decay. I think they should dig them up. Unseen colours are the same as no colours at all.
They have some celebrity warriors in their own cabinets. This, for example, is the sole intact kneeling archer that they've found:
This one seemed to have a noble face, helped by his impressive moustache:
We had a tour guide who spoke good English and was well informed, but even so I didn't have the patience to stand and listen. I'd rather read about it (I haven't read about it).
Ten minutes after we returned from the Warriors some us formed an small ad hoc group to take the bus into town and return (or go for the first time) to the Muslim quarter. There was myself, Claire, Kelvin, Martin and Jenny (a couple from Australia). Kelvin reads and speaks some Mandarin which was very useful. He talked to market sellers, identified foodstuffs and ordered lunch for us. We had traditional Xi'an mutton soup with lumps of bread and fungus in it with garlic and chilli on the side. It was great. We couldn't have found or ordered it without him unless blind selections had turned especially lucky.
After lunch Claire, Martin and Jenny went their own way and Kelvin and I perused the food market. This time I had time to dawdle and try many things, including yellow rice cake on a stick, large datelike things called jujus, walnuts that were oddly enough sold in multiple price brackets but looked identical, green bean cakes in peanut, walnut, red bean and date versions, peanut brittle made with giant mallets, and some things that I mistook for giant dried figs but which were actually persimmons. With Kelvin's help I acquired all of these except the peanut based items. The walnuts were unsurprising, the persimmons very sour and juicy, the green bean cakes rich and moist, and the jujus were sweet and had a very strange light, sticky texture, like soft wet foam made out of sugar. I now had many little bags for snacking on the truck the next day.
After this Kelvin felt tired - from jet lag and heat, not from providing translation services - and headed back to the hotel. I was left alone. I was beginning to feel almost at home in this city, or at least this part of it. I could now wander for as long as I wanted, with the opportunity to enjoy being alone as I had not been alone for several days. I returned to the souvenir street, perused all the stalls at a slower pace, looked at many more painted scrolls then entered the Great Mosque.
I knew that it had been founded about a thousand years ago but I hadn't expected it to be still in active use. Chinese Muslims were slowly wandering the beautiful gardens, some arguing, some praying. I almost felt sacrilegious taking photos near a praying man but decided the best way to be respectful was to be quiet (not a problem), keep my distance and not take photos of him.
Photos were permitted in this Mosque. This version of Islam - the version that existed a thousand years ago in Xi'an - permitted creation of images. I knew this because there were carvings of scenes of nature on the wall. It's the answer to a riddle. "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?". The answer is none, because a woodchuck can't chuck wood. It's part of the definition of a woodchuck, you can't negate it. Its a bit like asking "Can God create a rock so heavy that He can't lift it?".
Not creating religious images is not part of the definition of a Muslim, because here are Muslims who had created religious images. The answer to the question, "What religious images would a Muslim create if a Muslim would create religious images?" is - in part - this:
The Mosque itself was beautiful. They'd combined Chinese garden design with the more focused intentions of Islamic worship. Chinese portals were adorned with Arabic script. The prayer hall dominated one end of the garden but was wide open to it. A gradient between garden to prayer, not a divide.
I found an example of Ming porcelain with Arabic script incorporated into the design. This pleased me immensely for reasons I can't fully explain.
After the meal we watched the fountain display. Our hotel is located in a very swish and new neighbourhood of Xi'an. The ceiling of the mall turns into a giant screen, there are Lamborghini and Aston Martin showrooms, there's plenty of Western chains (including many I've only seen in the US) and then there is the fountain display.
They know how to put on a show. But then the neighborhood also has a monorail which they built five years ago but hasn't yet gone into active service. It works but I don't think they actually need it.
Tomorrow morning we are to leave Xi'an and drive for five hours to Pingliang, a place I know nothing about.
Stephen
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