Week 110 - Luoyang, Huashan, Xi'An, Pingyao, Wutaishan (China)

By midnight our train had been 4 hours behind schedule, by the time we pulled in to Luoyang station it was 8 hours late. We’d been on the train for 20 hours with the only pro being we had our own cabin and an electric point. The full day of sightseeing we’d planned to squeeze into our 13 hour change over in Luoyang went out of the window.

Out of the train station we found a bus that took a ridiculously long time to take us across town to the highspeed station where we dropped our bags after some language difficulties in the left luggage room and jumped in a taxi. We still just had enough time for a quick run around the Longmen Grottoes before we had to be back at the station. Luckily the entrance wasn’t far from the station and a fast walk through 600m of souvenir shops and food carts selling nasty pancakes and we arrived at the ticket booth. 

As we were buying tickets Rhys realised he’d left his itouch in the taxi. Leaving me to go into the attraction as we’d already paid, he ran back to the taxi rank on the off chance it might still be there. I’m told lots of shouting ensued with the group of taxi men just laughing and telling him to go to the police if he wanted.

While he was having difficulties with the taxi men, I had time to run around the site before it closed. The 1,500 year old grottoes are niches cut into the rock face along a 1 km stretch of the Yi River. Filled with more than 100,000 Buddha images, the site is considered one of China’s few remaining masterpieces of Buddhist rock carving. It was impressive to see with the star cave, the Ancestor Worshiping Temple, centered on a 17m tall Buddha with 8 other huge statues guarding him.

View of the Longmen Grottoes across the Yi River, Luoyang.

Leaving the grottoes we took a taxi back to the train station. Our bullet train left on time and reaching speeds of 305kph, we were whisked to Hua Shan where we caught another taxi to our guesthouse. We were dropped at the junction on the main road and after asking a few locals, found the right neon lit shop front that the rooms were behind. By that point it was getting late and having eaten at Luoyang station, we settled in for the night.

The next morning we woke early to catch a taxi to the ticket office where after a bit of confusion we purchased our extortionate entry tickets (all national parks in China cost a fortune to visit, this one was £28 for entry, bus to the cable car and cable car ticket). Although it’s possible to walk up to the North Peak, we opted to take the cable car to give us time at the top to complete a circuit of the East, South and West peaks before walking back down to Hua Shan village. 

Me on North Peak, Hua Shan.

Hua Shan is one of Taoism’s five sacred mountains and sees hordes of tourists visiting everyday to walk the trails, lined with pine trees and chain barriers covered in padlocks and strips of red material, with views of the valleys stretching out below. As the cable car ascended, we passed through a cloud and couldn’t see more than a couple of metres in front of us and were worried it might stay that way all day. Luckily, the peaks were above the clouds and we were rewarded with mystical scenes of mountains floating among the clouds. Even though we’d decided to skip most of the climb, we were still faced with hundreds of stairs and steep ascents to reach the other peaks, the South being the highest at 2,160m with the cable car only taking us to 1,615m. The further we got from the North Peak, the fewer tourists there were and we managed to get away from all the shrieking to enjoy the scenery. 

Clouds at Hua Shan.

One of the biggest draws for us that took us to Hua Shan in the first place, was the Plank Walk on East Peak and when we got there, there was no queue and only a few people on the trail. It’s known as one of the most dangerous hikes in the world but since the introduction of harnesses, is perfectly safe. The path only stretches for about 50m and is a mix of niches cut into the rock face, steel bars fixed to the walls and planks of wood to balance on, with sheer drops of hundreds of metres to the valley below, just the kind of thing me and Rhys love to do.

Rhys balanced on the Plank Walk, Hua Shan.

Rhys on the Plank Walk, Hua Shan.

By the time we’d walked back down to the village we were tired and our legs were shaky from all the steps, from North Peak to the gate there were over 3,000 and that’s not including the steps between the peaks at the top. We grabbed a late lunch and walked back to our room, getting a bit confused on route and walking into the wrong building first. After an easy, fast food noodle restaurant dinner, we turned in for an early night.

We had a bit of a lay in the next day before our 10:30 train to Xi’An. We had booked in to a dorm at a top rated hostel and looked forward to being in one place for 3 nights. Xi’An is a walled city and was once the terminus of the Silk Road. It’s now a modern bustling city but tucked in amongst all the shiny buildings are narrow cobbled streets, pagodas and temples. We arrived at lunch and ate in the coffee shop at the hostel before walking south, passed the Bell Tower to the South Gate of the Walls. The 18th century Bell Tower is on a traffic island and originally held a large bell that was rung at dawn while a drum, at the Drum Tower further along the road, was sounded at dusk.

Once at the South Gate, we paid and climbed to the top of the wall where we hired bicycles to cycle a full circle of the old city. Built in 1370 during the Ming Dynasty the 12m high walls run for 14km and although they have been heavily restored, it gives a feel for how imposing the city would have been.

View of Xi'An from the City Walls.

Rhys cycling on the City Walls, Xi'An.

We walked back to the hostel via the Drum Tower and stumbled upon the entrance to the Muslim Quarter, an area of narrow, cobbled alleyways, full of souvenir and food stalls. After a few laps we headed back to the hostel, tired from another active day.

The Bell Tower, lit up at dusk, Xi'An.

The next morning we took the metro south of the city walls to the ZhuQueDa Antiques Market, the largest in Xi’An. We’d decided we wanted to buy a blue and white vase while in China and hadn’t seen anything that really took our fancy in the souvenir areas. It turned out to be a great experience. Xi’An has quite a lot of Western tourists but all of a sudden we found ourselves to be surrounded by locals as we wandered along the road where stall owners had spread their wares out on blankets on the floor. We spotted a few pieces we liked and bargained as hard as we could with no Mandarin skills. It was only later, back at the hostel that we realised we’d missed the bulk of the market, but had still managed to spend 2 happy hours with the stall owners delighting in dealing with white people.

Traders at Zhuqueda Antique Market, Xi'An.

Back at the hostel we had a quick turn around before heading out again to catch a bus to the train station. From there, we had directions to find the bus to the world famous Terracotta Warriors. The bus took about an hour and dropped us in a car park from where we muddled our way to the ticket office. After a rubbish 360 cinema, we ended up at Pit 1, the most impressive of the three open pits. We joined the masses and entered what looked like a huge aircraft hangar, built to protect the ongoing excavations. The sheer amount of warriors, all standing in rank in separate channels was staggering and it was interesting to see areas where they’re recovering and piecing together fragments of yet more statues. 

Pit 1, Terracotta Warriors, Xi'An.

The Terracotta Warriors, Xi'An.

Lines of Terracotta Warriors, Xi'An.

The other two pits held other figures, horses and chariots with Pit 2 having five soldiers in cases for you to see up close and the exhibition area showing soldiers where the colour with which they were originally painted is still visible and two solid bronze, half size chariots unearthed nearby.

The Terracotta Warriors are a life size army built by the first Emperor of a unified China, Qin Shi Huang, to stand guard over his tomb, he died in 210 BC. Although history suggests he was a tyrannical ruler, his achievements were great, standardising measurements, currency and writing, introducing a centralised government and greatly improving infrastructure by building thousands of kilometres of roads and canals.

No one really knows why he ordered their creation, but for archaeologists, they offer a great insight into the world of ancient China, following their discovery in 1974 when a local farmer was sinking a well. For something so old it really is incredible to see the level of detail and realism in the warriors and it really makes you wonder what was going through the Emperor’s mind. It’s even more incredible when you realise how little of the site has actually been excavated, the tomb itself hasn’t even been opened yet, although they believe it was looted shortly after the Emperors death.

Leaving the Warriors and the stalls of dog and cat furs behind, we caught a bus back in to town and back to the hostel where, after trying a persimmon (squidgy tomatey fruit), we headed back to the Muslim Quarter with one of the girls from our dorm for a street food dinner. We walked up and down the alleyways sampling skewered meat, breads, tofu, noodles, stretched sugar candy, burnt sesames and pomegranate juice, a little off put by the sight of a skinned dog in a butchers, before it was time for bed.

Dinner in the Muslim Quarter, Xi'An.

The next morning we’d booked on to a trip through the hostel to see the tomb of Emperor JingDi, a Han dynasty emperor who died in 141BC. You can’t get to the tomb easily by public transport so we joined two other people for a private car. Within an hour we were at the complex and we donned the obligatory plastic shoe covers and entered the museum. 

As at the Warriors, only a small portion of the site has been excavated so far, about 21 of the 81 pits that have been found surrounding the burial mound of the Emperor. The building has glass floors that allow you to walk over many of the pits peering at the slightly eerie doll sized terracotta figurines below - all missing their arms as they were originally made of wood and have disintegrated. Over 50,000 figurines are thought to be buried there including warriors, servants, eunuchs and domesticated animals. We sat through a random holographic short film and came out not really knowing any more than when we’d gone in but still enjoyed our visit. On the way out, we walked around the burial mound to the south gate of the mausoleum, taking in the sheer size of the plot, before getting back in the car for the drive back to the city.

Terracotta figures, Jing Di's tomb, Xi'An.

We were back in Xi’An earlier than expected and after lunch at a cheap Chinese buffet on our street, we walked to another antique market, at the Western Gate of the City Walls. This time it was an arcade of proper antique shops with real antiques and high prices to match. We wandered around pointing out pieces we liked before getting sucked in and buying yet another vase to add to our collection, fingers crossed that they all make it home without cracking.

Happy with our purchase we wandered back to the hostel where we had a couple of hours to relax before dinner. Although we intended to walk back in to the Muslim Quarter, we decided we couldn’t be doing with the crowds and instead I took Rhys back to the Chinese buffet where i’d had lunch.

Although we’d really enjoyed Xi’An and could definitely have stayed longer, we had a train booked to Pingyao the following day and took an early morning metro north to Xi’An’s highspeed train station where in three hours we found ourselves 486 km north. 

As always, the highspeed train station was in the middle of nowhere. We left the building and found a bus in the empty parking lot and asked the driver if he was going to the Old Town, showing him on a map. He said he was so we boarded and tried to work out how much to pay him. When we reached the outskirts of the town the driver told us to get off. We had no idea where we were and walked along a highway towards the city walls. When we finally found a road to cross through the wall we discovered we were at the southern entrance, our hostel was in the north. A 40 minute walk with our backpacks feeling ever heavier, we finally found the right place.

We didn’t stay in the room long before wandering back to the main pedestrianised street to explore. Pingyao is an ancient walled town and is considered to be the best preserved in the whole of China, bursting with beautiful buildings, alleyways and courtyards. Founded in the Ming Dynasty, it wasn’t until the Qing Dynasty that Pingyao really began to thrive when it became the home of the first banks. The streets are all cobblestone and lined with lanterns. It’s pretty touristy but wasn’t crazy busy and we spent a couple of hours browsing the antique shops in the centre, laughing at the English translations of menus (stewed maternal grandmother anyone?) and eating strange egg wrapped meat parcels.

Browsing the shops, Pingyao.

The main street with the City Tower in the distance, Pingyao.

Back at our room we had a couple of hours to chill before dinner. The temperature dropped and we had to get in to bed fully clothed waiting for the central heating to be turned on.

That night we wandered back into the centre, passed streets lined with lanterns, to find somewhere with English menus or pictures we could point at. Rhys had been craving sweet and sour pork so we found somewhere with it on the menu and ducked in, after being laughed at for trying to order rice we were a bit on edge and happy to be walking back to the hotel.

Lanterns in the centre of Pingyao.

The next day we bought tourist tickets which permitted entry to 19 historic buildings within the town. The old city walls are only 6km in circumference (with 72 watchtowers!) so enclosing an area about a mile square and easily walkable. We spent the whole day walking up and down the main cross roads stopping at every building we came across included on the ticket. We visited many merchant houses, Government offices and the first exchange house, all with series of courtyards and basement safes. Pingyao was at the centre of Ming and Qing dynasty trade routes and after issuing the first remittances to put an end to the dangerous practice of carting huge amounts of gold and silver all over the place, the town became the centre of the banking industry. The restored buildings hold museums and artifacts from the towns, and key families, histories. And in case that’s not enough, there were a few temples just to top it off. 

Rhys at one of the may temples, Pingyao.

By the end of the day all the buildings, although beautiful, were starting to look the same and we decided to stop for a coffee before walking back to the hotel to collect our bags.

We had an evening train heading to Wutai Shan and walked around the city walls to the station. The train we boarded was crowded and we were grateful to have ticketed seats, although we were less happy about the amount of staring we attracted. We’ve been looked at and laughed at in so many countries for looking different but here it feels uncomfortable for the first time, the people we’ve come across are so rude and think nothing of shoving a camera in your face without saying a word of warning or just staring for hours without even a smile, and Rhys had a guy practically sitting on his lap trying to watch his laptop over his shoulder for most of the journey.

We reached Wutai Shan train station which is actually 50km from Wutai Shan at around 11pm. We’d hoped the shuttle buses in to town might still be running and since there’s a real lack of any sort of information, hadn’t been able to find out otherwise. When we got there though it was clear we weren’t getting any further on public transport and ended up taking a taxi. 

The roads were empty and the driver roared around the mountain passes at full speed until we reached the ticketing office and road block. To enter the Wutai Shan area, you have to buy a ticket and me and the driver ended up knocking and shouting at the kiosk until the lights came on and I was able to buy one. 

The next piece of fun started when we arrived at the hotel we’d booked. The driver luckily knew where it was and took us straight there, but it was all locked up. We managed to wake someone who didn’t speak a word of English and we have no idea if he was a guest or the owner. Who ever he was, he practically threw us out of the courtyard miming that we couldn’t stay there and the taxi driver took it on himself to find us a bed for the night. We ended up at another, supposedly 4 star hotel that was twice our budget but the staff, when we woke them, were incredibly friendly and checked us in and gave us a warm room. We were so lucky to have the taxi driver we did otherwise we would have been at a loss and when the temperature is in the minus outside you can’t just camp out until morning.