I don't remember Xi'an being as developed as it is now. It feels like a huge, sprawling mess of a city and I didn't warm to the place at all. It finally struck me here that I'm fed up with Chinese food. I didn't think the day would ever come but it has: there's simply not the variety or quality to keep me interested. Sure, duck is fab and everyone with sense loves sweet and sour pork, but does everything have to be so oily? Even the veg are covered in oil. And nothing's ever cold. In 40 degree heat I do not want hot, oily veg for lunch. So, we ended up having lunch in Starbucks every day bar one in Xi'an. I'm not proud of this as I've always been fairly anti-Starbucks but you know what? They actually do pretty good sandwiches, and they have air-con!
The air-con was vital given that we were in Xi'an during a three day heat wave. The city recorded its hottest day ever on one day and we could tell. It felt like walking through warm bath water, much like Turpan and Urumqi did every day actually. We were moving from cold drink to ice-cream to cold drink pretty much every minute of every day.
The Terra-Cotta warriors are exactly as I remember them although the dude who discovered them is dead now. I did not remember the appalling surround screen video at the site though, and nor did I remember the museum being quite so dull. However, the warriors themselves didn't disappoint, which was the main thing. We thought we'd hire audio-guides in order to ward off the pushy human guides who busied themselves by emotionally blackmailing tourists in to hiring them. The typical conversation would go like this:
Guide: Do you need a guide? 100 Yuan.
Us: No, thank you.
Guide: Listen to me. Without a guide you will understand nothing. It's all in Chinese and you will understand nothing. You'd better hire me. 80 Yuan.
Us: No, thank you.
Guide: Listen to me. It is very complicated and you will understand nothing. 50 Yuan, last price.
Us: No, really, we don't want a guide, thank you.
Guide: Look, if you don't hire me I'm going to lose my job (tear in eye)
C. was great with this and calmly asked if the guide thought emotional blackmail was a good idea and if it was really likely to work on tourists. The guides weren't wrong, there was a lot of information that was only in Chinese but given what the audio-guide told us, I don't think we missed out on much. Of course, some people may like to know how deep, how high, how wide, how many bricks etc. etc. I'm not sure most of them are allowed out of North Korea, though.
We also visited the Xi'an museum, which was dull, dull, dull. It was free but we had to wait in an hour long queue to write our passport numbers down before they would let us in. Guess who doesn't know her passport number? Guess what, she made it up. Bad girl.
The most fun thing we did in Xi'an was hire a tandem bicycle and cycle around the city wall. What fun. Neither of us had ever ridden a tandem bike before and we definitely enjoyed the experience even if one of us did want to ride up or down every steep bit of path and the other didn't (not because she's a wuss but because sitting on the back seat her feet would hit the ground every time). I do feel a bit bad though, when I was choosing my latest drink, a country mouse came up to me and bashed me on the back. When I turned round she gestured that she wanted to take my photo with her kid/grandkid. I was hot, sweaty, dirty and tired and had just been hit. I refused. I do feel bad and I know she meant no harm by bashing me, but really? Did she think bashing me was the way to get me to do something for her? If I had been nicer I might have done it but I didn't really want a picture taken looking like that anyway. Can't be nice all the time, I guess.
And then it was time to go to the train station, a heaving mass of humanity in a station that only has enough space for about a fifth of the people pushing and shoving to catch the right train.
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