Laura: We arrived at Chengdu train station expecting it to be chaotic but it was very well organised. Ahmad was quite disappointed to note that nobody was smoking or spitting and was suddenly fearful that smoking was banned on Chinese trains. We boarded and found our sleeper cabin which was very similar to Indian ‘3AC’ class. We were travelling on ‘hard sleeper’ which consists of 6 beds to a cabin among about 10 of these in one train car. You can travel ‘hard seat’ which is basically loads of seats in a train cabin, ‘standing’ where you just sit or sleep on the floor or ‘soft sleeper’ which is a private cabin with four beds. Nobody travels soft sleeper because it’s really expensive and only a little upgrade from hard sleeper. We were amazed at how much food the Chinese were eating on the train, they had bags and bags of snacks and were chomping all day. You can smoke on trains but only between cars in allocated spaces. We were in the cabin nearest to the smoking place and it stank all night long! The Chinese tried to talk to us a bit and we used the phrasebook to respond but after they had acknowledged us and then stared at us for a sufficient time, we were pretty much left to ourselves. The most irritating thing about Chinese trains are the TV screens which blare out adverts at full volume from 8am until 10pm. We were on the top bunks near the speakers!
We took a taxi to our hostel, the Shuyuan International and spent the day settling in because we didn’t sleep to well on the train. The hostel was pretty good with great communal areas but the dorms were in the basement with no natural light and sand bags for pillows! Ahmad hardly slept the entire time we were there and was exhausted when we left for Beijing. We met some great people at the hostel, the main person that stands out was a Brazilian guy called Rodrigo who we got a lot of street food with (he was on the same budget as us!) and gave us loads of good advice about South America. The first night we went to the Muslim quarter which is full of curio shops and great street food – notable were the lamb and beef skewers! One evening we had some bbq and a lady asked Ahmad if he was muslim. She kept saying how handsome he was and what a beautiful face he had! She then commented that his hair was not very muslim and screwed her face up. We left after that, I think Ahmad was worried about being dragged into the mosque! The muslim quarter was also a great place to buy things and after some tough bargaining I bought a huge painting with Chinese calligraphy and a picture for my nana for 6 quid!
Xian is a great city with very friendly people. Lots of people asked to take our photos and even more tried to speak to us. The children didn’t really know what to make of Ahmad’s hair, one little boy actually tried to run away and then balled his eyes out!
The next day we visited the drum and bell towers and walked to a temple outside the city walls (the centre of Xian is surrounded by high walls used back in the day to defend it and you enter via north, south, east and west gates). We also visited the most famous attraction – the Terracotta Warriors – which is a site the Chinese stumbled upon accidentally and excavated to discover a terracotta army. Ahmad didn’t rate it when he came to China 7 years ago but wanted me to see it. It was ok but the Chinese had restored the army to almost perfection which took away some of the authenticity. One major bonus about the language barrier in China is that most people can’t read English and let you get student discount when you show your driving licence! The Terracotta Army should have been £11 but we got in half price, as with every other sight we saw. Another day we walked around the entire length of the city walls which took us about 3 hours.
The food in Xian was great. We had breakfast every day on a local street for 40p which consisted of 8 steamed buns filled with pork – they remind me of sausage sandwiches! We told the lady that her cooking was great in mandarin and she was really stoked. Another great place for food was the pac man restaurant opposite (it’s a chain in China) where you can get a substantial meal for 50p. We usually headed there with a group from the hostel, the staff were really happy that westerners were eating there!
We spent most evenings at the hostel having a few beers with other travellers. Backpackers in China seem to be the same quality of people we encountered in Africa which was great. Of course there are always a few uncle nob heads and I am ashamed to say that they were English at this hostel. There were about 4 people who were drinking in the morning and became dickheads by 3pm. We’d get back from sight seeing and they would either be in a coma on a settee or bothering people.
We had a great time in Xian and were sad to leave – also because we had booked hard seat overnight to Beijing! I am really falling in love with China and right now we are talking about staying longer. It would be easy to live here because it’s so cheap but also very cosmopolitan with western comforts if you need it.