Travels with Kathryn

Right, day 1 of the tour – although in traditional tour itinerary, day 1 doesn’t actually start until the “welcome meeting” this evening, so more on that later.

After not the greatest night’s sleep ever, I breakfasted in the hotel. It was the usual extensive Asian buffet with everything from scambled eggs to chicken nuggets, I got a wee bit overwhelmed and went with a mix of English-ish (scrambled egg on bread with bak choi), Chinese (a bowl of congee) and old person (tinned fruit). I will endeavour to remember to photograph the spread tomorrow.

Anyway, let’s talk about why I am here. I am here to complete the Silk Road – what is the Silk Road you ask yourself, well, for those of you who remember or would like a little reminder I refer you to: What is the Silk Road. Xi’an is considered the traditional starting/ending point and hence my last leg being sort of the first leg as I like to assume one would have started in Xi’an and be transferring bales of silk strapped to the back of my camel – work with me people…

And now for a bit of history, sometime around 1050 BC (I like to start at the beginning!), the Zhou people went on a light conquering spree and their state of Shaanxi (not to be confused with Shanxi province in the South of China) became the dominant power of most of Northern China. They were one of many states competing for power for the next few hundred years until 221 BC when the Qin Kingdom conquered much of what we today think of as China and Qin Shi Huang declared himself as Emperor of China (who we shall be learning about, as he was famous for many things including starting to build what would become The Great Wall even if he only lasted 4 years).

However, for the purposes of a blog post talking about Xi’an, this is relevant as his ruling capital was Xianyang, which is very near modern-day Xi’an. Subsequent ruling dynasties continued to base their capitals in Xi’an. However, by the 10th century, the imperial court shifted eastward, and its fortunes declined from bad to worse. Rebellions and famine were followed by the deadliest earthquake in history in 1556 when an estimated 900,000 people died. Interestingly, and perhaps because of the extreme poverty of the region, Xi’an was an early stronghold of the Chinese Communist Party. It also means that a considerable amount of the ancient city survives within its Ming-era walls even though it is now surrounded by a modern city.

Xi’an is one of the few cities in China where the old walls are still standing and is China’s longest and best preserved ancient city wall- although, when we say old, we need to accept that the Chinese do enjoy restoration and much has been heavily restored or rebuilt:

The wall is rectangular, 14km in length, and 12 meters high. There are 4 main city gates (Yongning/South, Changle/East, Anyuan/North and Anding/South) but additional smaller “access ramps” have been added in order to make it more tourist accessible. Every 120 meters along the wall are watchtowers (which also provide handy shade), but there are also battlements, corner towers,  and parapets. It is surrounded by a dry moat,  which today is a rather nice expanse of green.

You may not be shocked to know that there had been a plan to demolish the walls in 1983 (around the time that city walls in other cities, including Beijing, were being demolished). They were very damaged, and the moat had been used as a garbage dump for decades. However, it was the mayor of Xi’an that led the campaign to save them – his key line of argument being that demolishing would be difficult and more expensive than restoration. Bless him. I suspect the owners of many hotels, restaurants, and tour guides are most grateful today.

Anyway, I shall confess I did not walk the whole 14km (it’s around 34 degrees, 70% humidity, and I am British). However, I did do half from the South Gate to the North Gate, so I am feeling rather proud of myself. I will note that I did it in shorts and a t-shirt, so I was somewhat underdressed whenever I came to a gate (this is West gate in the background) where any number of photo shoots were taking place:

I also cheated slightly by taking the metro to and from the hotel. Well, it is fabulous (and not just because it’s air conditioned)! For the cost of 20p each way (brought via a ticket machine with an English option), I was able to easily navigate, change lines, and only once went one stop in the wrong direction. I will take that as a win.

Anyway, I later returned to the hotel for a shower, to do some laundry (I suspect I will be doing a lot on this trip) and to update this…

Oh, in slightly boring news, I have forgotten my face moisturiser – now people evidently use moisturiser here as I have seen a number, usually women who have whitening moisturiser on their face. I just seem unable to find a shop to sell me any! So far, I have managed at great personal cost (around £2) a tube of Ponds Cold Cream. The search continues… UPDATE with a little help from a local guide Tracy some has been located (it turns out I needed to find the right kind of supermarket) and is now slathered on my face. All hail moisturisation!

It is now 9.30pm and I have returned to my room. The tour has begun! So far, I have met the tour leader (a Brit who is officially in charge of us), our local guide for Xi’an (the aforementioned Tracy) and 3 of my 7 fellow travellers – an American, an Australian and another Brit. All very cultured and well travelled which bodes well.

This tour includes all meals (a novelty for me), so after the welcome meeting, giving us details on etiquette, Chinese cultural differences, itinerary, checking passports/insurance, etc, it was off for dinner which included some phenomenal fried chilli aubergine which I hope to be eating more of…

Tonight the remaining 4 group members are arriving, including my roommate, who is scheduled to arrive around 11pm when I hope to be asleep. In readiness, I have made sure everything is to hand (including finding the piece of paper with the WiFi password on it which housekeeping had hidden in a drawer!), but it could be worse. We start at 9am tomorrow, so bring on more of Xi’an (which will include more history so this post may get expanded and/or corrected – we shall see) and hopefully a slight drop in temperature. Now to bed.