Xi’an is talked about (from a tourist perspective) for two things: the Terracotta Army and the Muslim Quarter.
What people fail to mention however is its fabulous atmosphere and people.
My friend and I arrived in Xi’an on the same train but in very different carriages. She was coming from Beijing, which was a darned long way away and so she had a bed in a hard-sleeper carriage. I on the other hand only had 5 hours so came on the hard-seat carriage. This was a mistake.
Hard seats are the cheapest option for long distance trains and I applaud anyone who endures them for a whole night. It was filled with people, all trying to make the best out of a very uncomfortable situation. There was smoking on board, there were bare feat everywhere and shouting at all hours. I was stared at for the full 5 hours and the seats were at such an angle that sitting upright was very unpleasant.
I arrived in Xi’an grumpy, which was made worse by the fact that someone had spilled pot noodle on my rucksack. However, I found my friend on the platform and we advanced into Xi’an.
Accommodation in Xi’an: See Tang Hostel
Being in my grumpy mood, we decided we would take a taxi rather than a bus to our hostel. We stayed at See Tang Hostel, just by the south entrance of the city wall. I hate to sound all advertorial but it was a gorgeous place to stay. It was one of the cheapest places we booked and yet it was the cleanest, it smelt gorgeous, had multiple different hangout zones and was pretty well located. Although we took a taxi, the bus drops you at the same place as the taxis would. You walk down a lovely ancient street with all sorts of traditional things being sold and find it hidden on your left. It’s about a 10 minute walk from the Muslim Quarter.
I have friends who stayed at various other hostels in Xi’an and loved theirs just as much as I loved See Tang so by the sounds of it, you can’t go too wrong in Xi’an.
Perhaps one of the reasons Cat and I enjoyed See Tang so much is that it was the first time we were sharing a dorm with other travelers like us: we got chatting to the people we were staying with and it was nice to give each other tips and share experiences.
Xi’an City Wall
We had arrived in the morning and so after a little bit of recuperation time, we decided to go up the city wall and rent a bike.
It was a fun activity but it doesn’t really show you Xi’an. Nevertheless, we rented our bikes and started pootling along. We were lucky
enough to have chosen a day when a professional sportive was happening: it was quite cool/surreal to have 100-odd cyclists zoom past every now and then.
The deal is that you get the bikes for 2 hours otherwise you pay a surcharge. We thought it seemed like an easy feat to do the full square in two hours but in fact, we had to give it a bit of welly at the end. The city wall is big. You don’t have to leave your bike at the stand you picked it up from, but we didn’t fancy walking the rest.
Although the cycling wasn’t a particularly cultural experience, it really blew the cobwebs away and prepared us for the next day.
Xi’an Terracotta Army
In any hostel you stay in, there will be an organised tour to the terracotta army but trust me, it will cost wayyyy more than you need to pay and your tour guide won’t necessarily speak English… or at least English you can understand. For this reason, I advise doing it yourself. It’s very easy: simply take a bus to the train station and from there you go to the coach park and get another bus. The only thing I will say is GET OFF AT THE FINAL STOP.
Cat and I stupidly followed a crowd that got off at the penultimate stop and found ourselves at some museum. A Chinese man who worked out we spoke an adequate amount of Chinese and who seemed nice enough offered to drive us to the real site for 10 Yuan (about £1). We followed this man as his friends jeered him on and hopped in his car. Suddenly, as our common sense began to kick in, we got a bit nervous; private taxis have been the only place that any of us have had issues in China…
Thankfully, after much banter about how English girls are good at dancing (really?!), he dropped us somewhere that looked like it could be the Terracotta Army. It wasn’t. It was in fact the mausoleum. For reasons I still can’t work out today he told us we should buy our tickets there because it includes the army and we can do it afterwards. This too, was not the case. He hung around and whenever we tried to ask someone else for help he would jump in and repeat what he had already said. Fin
ally, we asked a man in a uniform what the situation was and he pointed us to a little bus that would take us to the army for free.
The army, forgive me for saying this, was slightly underwhelming. We had been advised to do pit three last because it was the most impressive. This was not a lie. But pits one and two just felt like construction sites. Of course, I do recommend going; if you really force yourself to consider what you’re looking at it’s absolute madness and very impressive. But just be prepared for a lot of people pushing to see a lot of soldiers without heads.
The Mausoleum
Now, you can walk to the mausoleum from the army site and it’s included in your ticket so you may as well do it. Just be warned however, you will not see what you are expecting to see. The mausoleum is in a lovely garden and I genuinely do recommend the gardens because they’re pretty. But the mausoleum is in fact a big open square. We kept wondering why signs for the mausoleum would just disappear… it was because we kept getting to it.
If you’re pushed for time, don’t feel you have to do it but otherwise, you may as well.
The Xi’an Muslim Quarter
We were trying to save the Muslim Quarter for our final day but decided to head there that same eve
ning to have some Paomo for dinner. This is a traditional dish from Xi’an. It’s kind of like a stew: you choose what meat you’d like and you are then brought a bowl with some flat bread in. You rip up the bread into little pieces and they take it away again to add the stew. It’s probably delicious… we never had any because we got so distracted by the street food.
The Muslim Quarter was absolutely buzzing: it starts just near the Xi’an drum and bell towers (which I’ve come to learn every Chinese city seems to have). We were buying fresh pomegranate juices and trinkets before we’d actually got into the real z
one.
The thick of the Muslim Quarter has food stalls everywhere you look with people stretching out 20 metre-long noodles, battering squids and grilling tofu. Just take everything in and walk down the streets with a grin from ear to ear.
Nightlife in Xi’an
Bit tragic, I’ll be honest. There were some nice bars that did some decent deals for nice cocktails but, as with most places in China, after a certain hour you’re left with western men leering after Chinese girls and drunk Chinese men taking their tops off… or at least that’s what happened on most my nights out in China!
Xi’an is a place where you go for a nice drink after dinner and then head home. I don’t recommend a wild night there.
Xi’an Train Station
There are many train stations in Xi’an. West, South, North… you name it, they’re all accessible and pleasant. ‘Xi’an Station’ however, is neither accessible nor pleasant. After failing to find the right bus for an hour or so, we got the most expensive taxi of our lives to travel a long, long way into the countryside to Xi’an Station. We were ogled and jeered at for being foreign, we were never left alone, we were being bitten by all sorts of bugs and the station was literally just a building. Sadly, we’d over-prepared and had a very long time to wait there. We watched Green Wing on my iPod and pretended we were elsewhere!