Xi'an

I am at the midway point of the trip as our train pulls into the city of Xi'an. Unlike Beijing and Zhongwei, it is a bit greener here in Xi'an as it is a little warmer and considerably wetter. Xi'an was an ancient city of tremendous importance back around 1000-1500 years ago. It was the terminus of the famous Silk Road that traveled inland from Europe all the way to China. Xi'an at its peak of importance was the largest city in the entire world with a population of over 2 million people. The modern Xi'an still retains a few of it's ancient past, but like most of China, it has grown up into quite the modern city.

We had two full days in Xi'an and three of us got together to ride bikes along the top of the ancient city walls. The entire central area of the ancient city is encircled by this enormous wall that takes nearly two hours to ride by bike. And unlike the city, the wall was nearly deserted which made for a nice peaceful ride and several great picture opportunities.





My original plans were to visit the ancient/holy mountain of Hua Shan, with some of its daredevil steps and walkways, but it rained the entire day and daredevil stairway climbs aren't the brightest thing to attempt on rain-soaked steps. Instead, our entire group went for most of the day to visit the famous Terracotta Warriors. The very first Chinese emperor, Qin, is buried in a tomb nearby over 2200 years ago. He was the first to unify the Chinese nation and built the original 4500 mile section of the Great Wall. He thought of himself as a deity and desired to have immorality and to extend his rule into the afterlife. He had many of his officials and comcubines buried alive with him. And for protection he had over 500,000 help him build an army of stone, called the Terracotta Warriors to protect him in this afterlife. Over 7000 individuals "soldiers" have been discovered since the original discovery was made back in 1974. The warriors are lifesize and made of stone and built in great detail. They surround the tomb in military formation with horses and chariots, archers, calvary and infantrymen. Each was a reallife representation of an actual soldier and were each individually handpainted. Not all of the soldiers have been uncovered yet and archelogical digs still continue.





On the last morning in Xi'an, a couple of us went to visit the Wild Goose Pagoda, which is an ancient 7th century towering Buddist Temple.



Traffic in Xi'an is pretty spectacular. The ride back from the pagoda featured some really bad congestion. Chinese drivers and pedestrians are just daredevils. It's frequent to witness some amazing manuevers individual drivers will make. You really have to be on your toes crossing the street and it's really difficult to watch when you're riding in the taxi. Chinese drivers make up about 3% of the vehicle traffic in the world, but they make up a staggering 25% of the traffic fatalaties.