The city is continually shrouded in smog obscuring much of the cityscape. But it is warm; warm enough to go in T-shirts even in the evening. There is no let up to the crowds and noise. This morning we are woken at 6am by blaring music as a precursor to the chimes of the local clock tower! Today is an organisation day – we are planning to leave Xi’an on Sunday – don’t think we could stand it any longer – to go to Chongqing where we want to pick up a river boat down the Yangtse. We also need to organise tomorrow’s trip to see the Terracotta Army. So the morning is spent researching on the internet, having breakfast (dumplings for Andy and noodle soup for me), organising laundry and visiting the travel agent.
Jackie, who runs the hostel, also arranges tours and apparently should be in the lobby everyday, but of course when you want him he is nowhere to be found. So we head across town to another agency near the station. Taxi’s are incredibly cheap and the journey only costs 75p! We manage to hire a car and driver to go to see the Terracotta Army but train tickets prove more difficult – the national holiday is continuing to restrict availability. So we take a motorised rickshaw to the station. What an experience! Dodging in and out of the traffic, playing chicken it seems with on-coming buses and weaving across the junctions, all the while feeling slightly unstable. Not an experience to be repeated in a hurry, but Andy thinks it’s great fun! When we arrive at the station the queues for tickets fill the concourse in front of the station and there is no foreigners ticket window to be found. So we come away empty handed. Hopefully Jackie will be able to help us after all.
In the evening we wander into the Muslim quarter which has the feel of a Moroccan Bazaar and it just as easy to get lost in. Covering a huge area around the Grand Mosque it is full of small stalls selling an eclectic mix of local crafts, mostly jade but also silk, calligraphy equipment, mah jong sets, terracotta warriors, pashminas etc. There are also many street food stalls and little shops with their goods laid out on the streets, sometimes literally. The atmosphere is very different from the area around the hostel and makes a change from soulless shopping malls. We’ve heard that the food here is very good, but the conditions in which it is prepared don’t fill me with confidence so we give it a miss.