Xian - an ancient Chinese capital and end of the Silk Road

We arrived at 8am after an overnight train journey from Beijing. The railway station makes central railway in Sydney look village like. We were approached by a travel service lady who had a van to take us to a hotel - only 30 yuan. Thinking this was only 5 aud we agreed and were driven 2kms to our hotel. We are starting to get used to this.... Foreigner means no idea and therefor all the prices in the free trade commercial tourist areas are whatever you can get away with.

Our rooms in the Canaan international hotel were quite interesting. A black and white theme with a checkered floor meant that one felt quite woosy every time you walked in the door. Unfortunately the beds were no more comfortable than Beijing - they are large but rock hard - think the base part of a mattress and base ensemble and that is the mattress - I actually have bruises on my Lowe hips from the pressure of laying on my side.

Day one saw B1 head to the railway station to book the next leg of our journey and B2, L,M and I walk through the main part of town to get the lay of the land. There was a lot of construction work happening with large parts of the footpath hoarded off. The WHS issues would give an Australian work cover authority regulator heart palpitations if not a full on coronary. We walked through dirt with electrical cables laying across our path, excavators working unhindered less that 50 cm away. All the while the shopkeepers on the route keep trading. The pedestrian congestion at points was amazing - people just came to a complete halt to fit between a 1.5 m opening with the crowd 20 deep in either direction. It was quite confronting for me and even more so for the kids.

Xian is a walled city with an intact wall built the same time as the Great Wall was commenced. There are gate houses to the north, south, east and west and in the centre are two towers - a drum tower that told of the end of the day and a bell tower that informed citizens of the beginning of the day. Unfortunately both these were undergoing renovations so we were unable to have a good look other than to note the sheer size of both in the chinese style. Walking back to our hotel we walked the back streets and looked at day to day life. The economic divide can be to the extremes in less than a block.

Day 2 was a organised tour to Banpo Neolithic village excavations and the army of the terracotta warriors. Both simply amazing and I cannot aptly find the words to explain how I felt seeing that time frame of civilisation before me. These two historic attractions held more for me than the modern city, which I found a little overwhelming - the pace, notice and commercialism of a 4.5 million small city compared to our small 35000 city was a little hard to relax in.

Banpo, with the evidence of a maternalistic settlement from 4500 BC and the evolution of shelter construction, was mesmerising. The ingenuity of these peoples with lack of tools or mechanics to constantly improve their lot makes one marvel at what can be achieved. The information that has been gleaned by archaeological experts by piecing together all the little details to give an insight into life thousands of years before Christ makes me wonder what might be thought of our society in 6000 years.



The army of the terracotta warriors with the connection to the afterlife was a different attraction. The tyranny of the emperor who enslaved 700,000 of his people to build his tomb and army of protectors is hard to fathom. It is no wonder there was a peasant revolt that ended his reign and he only lived to 50. The incidental find by peasant farmers building a well and happening on a pit of broken soldiers adds to the mystique of the whole story. 1 metre of digging to the south or west would have seen this great wonder of the world continue to be buried for another 1000 years - now as it stands there will be work for generations of archaelogists in preserving and reconstructing this magnificent monument to ego. They are sight to behold