Xi’an, the ancient capital of China

July 4, 2011

In Chinese New Year we planned to visit Xi’an and Tibet. We spent the entire month of January planning the trip and obtaining the special permit foreigners need to visit Tibet. We planned to go by train and come back by plane, but buying train tickets for during Chinese New Year proved to be impossible. This is the biggest holiday in China and millions of migrant workers move out of the coast to meet their families in the west.

Here is the video we did on the trip, please do not have high expectations!

Chinese New Year train tickets are a big opportunity for corruption and for people that profit buying all the tickets and then reselling them on the black market. Buying tickets in Chinese New Year is difficult for locals and proved too much effort for a laowai. At the end we book flights to get to Xi’an and Tibet and then we hoped to train tickets to come back from Tibet once they became available (In China you can only buy train tickets 10 days before departure and only from the city of departure)

Cycling on top of Xian's wall

Xi’an
Xi’an was our first stop. The city has a long history as capital of several Chinese dynasties including the Zhou, Qin, Han and the Tang and as the endpoint of the silk route, one of the cities in China most receptive to foreign influence. Nowadays Xi’an is one of the biggest cities in china, part of the touristic triangle that most of the tours do in China and the place where the famous Terracota Warriors are.

The Terracota Warriors
The complex where the warriors are is impressive in size. It is clearly prepared for the hordes of Chinese tourists that visit it in high season. Fortunately we went on Chinese new year when all the Chinese are spending time with their families so we could explore the entire place by our own. The highlight of the exhibition is in a building named Pit 1 that contains most of the reconstructed terracota warriors and horses into battle line formation. There are another two buildings with terracota warriors and chariots but those are quite unimpressive after visiting the Pit 2.