74. The Terracotta Army; Xi'an, China, 2011

The city of Xi'an is green and seems younger than Beijing. The city has a lot of universities, a metro has recently been built, the city is active and full of young people. The fact that there are a lot of young student is encouraging for tourists as they can expect to find someone who speaks English. Though dialogues of the type may surprise:

- Where are you from?
- Canada
- Aaaaa! Chinada!!!
- OH no! Thanks! Not yet!!! (((

The old city is surrounded by a big ancient wall. Inside we can find a lot of old blocks and streets with arab-chinese people making famous eastern sweets (and we have tried almost all of them!). There is even a unique mosque-temple. Though the major attraction of the city is the Terracotta Army which is situated outside of the city.

We took the bus to see it. In the bus someone offered me a place (as to the foreigner???). I was extremely surprised and tried to offer the seat to an old lady. In the beginning she didn't understand what I wanted, refused for 5 minutes, finally sat down and looked at me with admiration.

Air conditioning in the bus was controlled by the speed and open windows. All bus drivers work in a uniform which resembles that of police.

To a newcomer, Chinese traffic appears to have no rules or, if there are rules, it appears they are neither followed nor enforced. In reality, of course, there are rules; they do generally manage to avoid hitting each other. However, Chinese rules are very different from what most travellers are used to.  To Western eyes, appallingly bad driving is the norm, and insane or suicidal behaviour behind the wheel is fairly common. Do not assume that Chinese drivers will follow any rule you know.

Foreign drivers must try to adapt to this (or, perhaps more sensibly, give up and take taxis or hire a driver). You do not have to learn to drive like a Chinese, but at least you should not be surprised when they do. There is absolutely no point getting angry if someone cuts you off or drives against the red light or on the wrong side of the road. You simply yield and carry on as if nothing had happened.

Every car/driver has a "body language" which predicts what they will do next. It is essential to learn this "body language" and drive by it. If you are driving down a four lane road, and the lane in front of the taxi to the right of you and slightly ahead of you is blocked, the lane ahead is free, you should immediately assume the taxi will move left into your lane without any warning. On the roads there are a lot of bikes and cycles, often heavily charged. Trucks are often overcharged covering rear mirror views. Thus if you want to pass it leave free lane between you and the truck. This sort of thinking ahead, or defensive driving, can help you avoid many problems but of course you cannot predict everything that may happen.

Another way to look at it is that there are only two rules you must obey, both equally important. Don't hit anything, and don't get hit by anything.

Which is why I was really surprised to see only two accidents on the streets. One of them was when two cycles bumped one into another, drivers calmly explained what they think one about another and they continued. Generally Chinese do not yell - a very phlegmatic nation.

The Terracotta Army is huge: around 8000 sculptures dating from around the late third century BC. All the figures produce realistic appearance having around 300 details each. There are warriors, infantry men, archers, cavalry, officers, horses, carriages, etc. For now only 1500 are restored and exhibited. The complex is composed of numerous pits the biggest being 800 feet by 200 feet and 23 deep. Pit two has cavalry and infantry units as well as war chariots and is thought to represent a military guard. Pit three is the command post, with high-ranking officers and a war chariot. Pit four is empty, seemingly left unfinished by its builders. There are some containing smaller figurines of animals, cooks i.e. everything the army could need. All those pits are situated near Emperor's Qin tomb, the first Emperor of China. He managed to conquest and place under his rule the various kingdoms/duchies thus making a lot of enemies. This could be the reason why he wanted to take an army with him into another world after death.))


As always welcome to my new gallery:
http://www.artiomkusci.com/foto/galleries/074/?en

Don't forget my previous photo sketch: http://blog.artiomkusci.com/2012/12/interesting-things-ive-noticed-in-china.html

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Interesting things I've noticed in China

Hide and seek	Tree on a drip...	Vodka made of ginseng
funny crossing	One of the numerous sources of hot water available almost everywhere	Quite joyful...
Smile! I am taking a picture...	Father lives in the biggest cave, mother in the one with double arch, toilet is outside...	Another example of a tree with a dropper
Welcome!	A village where everyone is dyеing threads	An example how were made architectural decorations (papier maché)
I would like Pentium 18, please )	Religious symbol	peephole...
CocaCola?

73. Datong, China, 2011

In Datong we stayed in a kind of super-hotel near the train station. The room had a mixture of smells of train wagons, toilets and cigarets. Everything needed fresh paint. The room was on the 7th floor, no elevator. No water neither. Well, at least we could sleep.)

Upon arrival to Datong we have decided to exchange our tickets to Xi'an (the city we planned to go next). In Beijing we managed to buy tickets only in the sitting wagons, as all sleeping ones were sold out. And all this for 16 hour ride at night! Though in Datong, on the contrary, there were still some tickets available. As we understood later 70% of tickets are sold at the departure point and 30% are available for purchase in other cities. Strange system, and it is hard to plan a trip.

At the train station it was easy to distinguish european tourists - all two persons were a head higher than the rest of the crowd. These were two polish guys. One visited another who was working in China as a teacher of English in a kindergarden and was travelling during his vacations. They told us that when they arrived they tried to find a hostel, the address of which they have found in the internet. On its place they have found 5-star hotel so they went on searching for their plan B about 5 blocks further. When they passed two blocks they were surprised seeing several demolished buildings. Two blocks further they found themselves in the middle of ruins! As if the city was bombarded! (As we found out later the whole city was "renovating"!) Finally they have found some place 12$ a room, no shower, communal toilet.

Thus chattering we have entered into a restaurant. Well, it is hard to call THAT a restaurant. Some sort of room about 70 square feet in a one-story private house. On a dirty concrete floor a dog chased a cat among scarce clients' feet. The food was good and well cocked though to be sure we had to sterilize ourselves with a bit of local home-made ginseng alcohol.

While we were eating one of the guys went to a shop across the street to ask for a few carton boxes. By the way the shop was of the same type as our "restaurant" – a room in a private house full of products flooding to the street. We were surprised and inquired why they needed those boxes. And the answer was more surprising. Our polish tourist were leaving that night by train and they had standing (!!!) tickets. We laughed a lot though we shouldn't have as for our next part of the trip, from Xi'an to Shanghai, we had only two choices: by train, standing, or by airplane. By train as always 18 hour night ride. Guess what we have chosen?))

Visually, seen for the first time, Datong doesn't seem to have 1.5 million inhabitants! A typical image was ruins on one side and a wide 4-lane boulevard just nearby with a 6-way traffic on it. Downtown was very nice, new, entirely renovated but at the same time it managed to preserve some ancient architectural charm. It was fun to visit but for a foreigner it was linguistically harder here than in the capital. More we forgot "inglish" the better was comprehension. While walking around we wandered to a hutong (slums). We were observed by locals with the same undisguised interest as we were observing them. There were groups of people here and there on streets sitting, chatting, watching their kids playing or playing themselves cards, domino, some sort of tokens with hieroglyphs on them on a wooden board, or more active games like badminton or feet birdie badminton. While we were passing by all they looking at us, smiling and saying the same: hello, hello, hello…

Trains in China resemble sovietic ones though wagons have 3 superposed suspended beds. Rails are often made of concrete. There are numerous salesmen selling books and a lot of food stuff and everything is calm and organized without screaming and bazar. From the train Datong seemed a mixture of ruins and construction sites. Quite impressive! I didn't noticed any cemetery outside the city though on some private terrains there were some things resembling graves. Vast corn fields were stretching out till horizon. I didn't notice a lot of domestic animals: four cows here or a horse, some goats there. It is possible that livestock farming is more developed south.

As always welcome to my new photo gallery at:
http://www.artiomkusci.com/foto/galleries/073/?en
www.artiomkusci.com/foto