We arrived in Xian after a long days driving. Jimmy had arranged to spend a few days at his cousins who lives in Xian. On the first day we got on the mountain bikes and went out exploring. As expected the city was massive, spotlessly clean and full of historical gems. We stopped at the largest water fountain display in Asia. It was pretty impressive. Then we continued on the bikes towards the town wall. Its a 16km long defensive wall surrounding the old city. The next stop was the Muslim quarter, bright lights, vibrant colours and amazing street food. After eating our way through the narrow streets, tasting everything that took our fancy, we decided to head back to the van, which was parked on the outskirts of the city....somewhere. It was Friday night and the city nightlife was beckoning. On our way back to the van we got lost, 'I could of sworn it was that way...' we stopped and asked some police for directions. They replied with 'follow us'. We followed the car full of 5 policemen the few km back to the van. It was getting on a bit so we decided to give the night out a miss promising a big one the following night.
We woke up excited because we were going to see the terracotta warriors. One of the big things we were looking forward to seeing on the whole trip. The warriors were discovered by a local farmer in 1974 when he was digging for a well in his field. The site consists of a whole army made from terracotta entombed in three pits by the first emperor of China. The army consists of 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses spread over three aircraft hanger sized pits. No two soldiers or horses are the same, each with their own facial features. The detail on them was intricate enough to identify different hair styles which can be used to distinguish different ranks. The warriors were situated next to the emperors tomb and were said to be protecting him in his afterlife. They were built in 210BC and took 700,000 workers to complete. It was a pretty impressive sight.
Up until now we had been driving on fast but expensive toll roads. One days toll had totaled £120 on one of the big driving days. Jimmy had assured us they were the only option. On our way to the warriors we ended up on a Chinese national road, similar to our A roads in England. It was virtually toll free and allowed us to see so much more of 'real China'. We made the decision to only use the national roads from that point onwards.
On the drive back to Xian the two non drivers bought a couple of beers, we were ready for a big one. We parked the van up and had some pre drinks. A few Cass Reds and fire waters later we were ready to hit the town. We rode our bikes into town stopping for supplies and also at the fountains again but for the night music/light show. We rode to the central bar street and locked the bikes up. We went to a few bars then ended up meeting some other travelers. After some karaoke we hit a club. A group of Chinese beckoned us over and offered us a drink, and another, and another. I thought something a bit fishy was going on so I stopped drinking and offered my drink to Dunny. He drank it but noticed something hard in the drink so spat it back into the glass. Out came a little black pill. That was our que to leave, we rounded up the group and headed to a different club. After some research the following day we discovered the black pill was most likely opium. Luckily everybody was OK. Our next task was to find the bikes, which proved much more difficult than anticipated. After walking around Xian for two ours we gave up and returned to the van in a taxi, without the bikes. We woke up and went on a search for the bikes. After an hour we found them locked up to the same lamppost, pretty lucky!
We spent the rest of Sunday recovering from our big night out and eating our body weight in Pizza Hut. We really enjoyed Xian, it was on a par with Beijing and Shanghai for our favourite city in China.
Rob.
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