- Xi'an
- (14)
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China
This section of the city is amazing. It has a real Middle Eastern feel combined with far east. There is one main street next to the ancient city wall which you can turn off to reach the Great Mosque. The street is alive with people and the perfect place to sit and enjoy the unique Chinese Muslim culture and food of spiced meats, noodles with a type of bread dough and delicious spicy flatbreads. I enjoyed many a beer here watching the world go by.
City centre
In 1998 the car park was right at the entrance to the museum, very convenient.
The car park is now a long way from the museum entrance (1km or so) and you now have to walk past a shopping centre to get to the entrance. When all the retail units are open this is going to be a nightmare!
The one saving grace is that you can get an electric buggy (at a price) to drive you to the museum entrance.
You get all the way there and you see the sign. It was heartbreaking for me as I had carried my tripod all across China.
Good results can be obtained however by using a slow shutter speed, resting the camera on a ledge and keeping it steady.
I went on a sunny day in January so there may be more natural light shining through the windows when the sun is higher in the sky.
Rough Guide says that the walls have not been restored completely, well they have and very impressive. Hire a bike to cycle all the way around when you climb up onto the top. It takes about 40 mins if you are a reasonable cyclist. Bumpy at times but very much worth it!
Xi'an city walls
Don't stay near the train station within the city walls; it is teaming with brothels and unsavoury characters.
Do go to the Muslim quarter for a fantastic cultural feast for your eyes and stomach. The quarter comes to life at night; go just before sundown so that you can visit the most unusual of mosques with an oriental design, hidden in a corner at the back of the main drag. Here you'll find restaurants and street hawkers and then you can bargain away in the goods market. Don't buy any warriors as they crumble before you've even got back on the plane.
By the drum tower within the city walls
The water fountain at the Large Wild Goose Pagoda is much better viewed at dusk/early evening, when the lit-up pagoda provides a beautiful backdrop.
Near the Large Wild Goose Pagoda
Be prepared to bargain hard for these Terracotta Warriors. We bought some from a shop in the night market and got them for what we thought was a bargain price of £5.
However, we bought some others from some hawkers at the Terracotta Army site at a fraction of the price (and the quality was only slightly inferior).
Xi'an night market and Terracotta Army site.
I bought a few of those cheap fake (well, obviously not original out-of-the-tomb) warriors and they are well worth it. Cost about 50p each and retail at The Pier and similar places in the UK for about £20.
Anywhere around the site
Why Big Wild Goose? Nothing to do with the 1978 action film Wild Geese, legend states that Xuan Zang (Monk Tripitaka) and the Monkey King were saved by a big wild goose during their epic journey to the west. Built during the Tang dynasty, as pagodas go this is one of the country's best.
AKA Dayan Ta, located in the south of the city
Despite promising that they will not stop at jade shops, pearl shops etc, the tours always do and you hardly have any time at the site.
China never fails to throw out a surprise for you now and again. Xi'an was once the capital city and the starting point for the Silk Road to the Middle East and ultimately Europe. Xi'an was thus pollinated by a variety of influences and today it is still an oasis of Islam in a secular sea.
The Muslim Quarter has one of the best street markets in China for souvenir shopping, with trinkets on show from Little Red Books to Arab coffee pots and everything in between. It's also a great place to see life as it once might have been, when China was a centre of world trade much as it is now.
Xi Dajie, near the Bell Tower
A good 90% of visitors to Xi'an come for the famed Terracotta Warriors. Don't bother. OK, do bother, it's nice to say you've seen them, but what the brochures describe as 'The Eighth Wonder of the World' is really little more than an unspectacular bunch of mannequins in a big hangar.
Once you're actually there, they just don't have the impact they have in the photos. Sorry. There's plenty other stuff in Xi'an to keep you happy instead.
By bus from the train station - quite far out from the city centre
A lot of visitors end up negotiating their own van and guide for the day. Along the road out to the site of the Teracotta Army, many very unworthy sideshows have sprung up, including what looks like a plastic pyramid, a jade shop, and an uninspiring garden. Tour guides get paid by the attractions for each tourist they bring - our guide tried to bring us to each one along the way. They all charge an entry fee, and severely reduce the time you get to spend at the main attraction. You may need to be firm with your guide and tell them that you don't wish to see these sideshows. Wad to in the end.
This hotel may not be very central, but it provides excellent value for money with great facilities.
Rooms are available for as little as £40 for a double. The hotel has all the usual five star facilities, including a good deli bar downstairs with good coffee and tasty sandwiches – ideal for those who have been on the road for awhile and can’t face any more Chinese food, or badly done Western food. There’s also some nightlife here with a disco and a cocktail bar.
Sheraton Xian hotel
No. 262 Feng Hao East Rd, Xian, Shaanxi Province 710077 , China
Phone + 86 –29- 8426 1888
sheraton.xian@sheraton.com
www.starwoodhotels.com/sheraton/search/hotel_detail.html?propertyID=475
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