Day 117 - 26 November 2009: Terracotta Warriors & Dysfunctional UK to Oz Clan

I am disturbed in the night by Essex Sam shouting down the hall something not very polite to the tune of ‘Here We Go’. This is directed at me I feel, having shouted at him a number of times to shut up when he’s being too loud when he comes back to the hotel drunk at night. Also, curiously, he had been one of a few who didn’t take the partying on the truck the previous night. Essex is a curio. He is actually articulate and very intelligent, having done his teaching certificate at Oxford University, but this is sometimes countered with a tendency to loutishness. Fortunately, he doesn’t know which room I am in, and it is the occupants further down the hall that are kept awake by him. The UK to Oz group has become somewhat dysfunctional while in Tibet and China.

In the morning, Laurie and I go to see the Terracotta Warriors, an hour’s bus ride from Xian. We are careful to avoid booking a minibus ride with touts as they are much more expensive. On the bus, we chat to student from the University of Beijing. She tells us that her English name is Raven, which suits her well. She acts as out interpreter when we get to the complex, but she goes off after a while as she doesn’t have too much time to saunter around. She does us leave us her contact details for when we get to Beijing though.

The Terracotta Army exhibits would be more interesting if it assumed people were more interested in the history of the Qin Dynasty, from which the warriors date. However, most of the info, which does have English versions, is about the history of the discovery of the Army and the history of the museum itself.

Anyway, we have ticked it off. I bought some cheap (20 Yuan) models of Terracotta Warriors from a man wandering about selling them, having told me that they are 40 Yuan at the stalls. I discover that they are only five Yuan at the regular stalls selling them, but they are good quality so I am surprised at how cheap they are.

We all meet at the truck at five on the afternoon to go to the station for the 8:30 overnight train to Beijing. We only get tickets for seats though, although there is an option to upgrade to a bed if there are any available. They turn out to be pretty expensive though, so I stick to my policy of no upgrades. We hang around at the station for three hours before they finally open the gates to the platform.

at the train station

Getting on board is chaos and there isn’t enough room for our luggage so many rucksacks end up on the floor. The train is modern, but it isn’t quick and there follows twelve hours of sleepless discomfort. Laurie’s discomfort is added to by the fact that there is not a no smoking policy anywhere in China.