Le Grand Détour

 Déjà nous quittons Xi’An (à prononcer « sienne »), dans le soleil couchant d’une superbe journée qui couronne 2 jours et 2 nuits très sympas dans l’ancienne capitale de la Chine. A Xi’An nous avons trouvé les gens plus courtois et plus souriants, sans oublier un air beaucoup plus respirable et un ciel bleu sans nuage. Ici, on nous a laissé descendre de la rame sans nous bousculer, les serveuses nous ont souris et plusieurs personnes nous ont bien aidé pour trouver notre chemin. C’est probablement l’effet « Capitale/Province » que nous connaissons également en France lorsqu’on compare les parisiens et les gens du sud, par exemple.

De ces deux jours nous retenons d’abord la fameuse armée de terre cuite de l’empereur Qingshin Huangshi, célèbre ici car c’est lui qui unifia la Chine en 221 avant JC. Son tombeau à Xi’An est connu depuis des siècles. Ce que l’histoire avait oublié cependant, et qui aurait pu être à jamais perdu si des paysans chinois n’étaient pas tombés dessus par hasard en voulant creuser un puit en 1979, c’est que cet empereur avait décidé de se faire enterrer avec toute son armée ! Bon, pas littéralement, bien que la Chine ne soit pas en reste quant aux despotes sanguinaires le long de son histoire. En fait cette armée est une reproduction en terre cuite mais grandeur nature (!) de plus de 6000 hommes, avec leurs équipements, leurs armes, leurs chars et leurs chevaux. Ce trésor archéologique incroyable, classé au patrimoine mondial, est d’ailleurs toujours en cours d’exploitation et c’est ce qui le rend d’autant plus intéressant à visiter. Il se compose de 3 fosses que nous parcourons dans le désordre sans le savoir, ce qui nous permet de terminer par la fosse N°1. Gigantesque structure couverte qui abrite le site principal, la fosse N°1 révèle ces milliers de soldats plus vrais que nature, prêts à partir au combat si l’empereur l’exige. Il faut comprendre que ces soldats en terre cuite n’ont pas été moulés, non, ils ont été sculptés à la main ! Ainsi il n’y a pas deux visages identiques, un boulot titanesque… Non moins titanesque que le travail de l’armée d’archéologues que nous voyons travailler en direct pour dégager minutieusement les sculptures et surtout pour reconstruire le puzzle géant de centaines de soldats en miettes. Encore une preuve s’il en fallait de la démesure chinoise. Nous faisons le tour de ces fosses, hyptnotisés par ces sculptures, tellement fragiles et pourtant tellement vivantes après 2200 ans.

Au retour nous nous baladons à pied dans la ville, ce qui nous donne encore une fois l’occasion de constater la joyeuse énergie des chinois qui n’hésitent pas à se mettre à danser, à chanter, à faire leur gymnastique où bon leur semble, sans se soucier des autres. Dans un petit parc, un salon de danse s’improvise et des couples se mettent à valser à la chinoise, un peu plus loin un gars se fait son karaoké tout seul en hurlant dans un haut-parleur qui couvre la musique…

Le soir nous dinons dans un restaurant recommandé par notre auberge de jeunesse… enfin nous pensons y manger mais rien n’est moins sûr car les idéogrammes sont difficiles à reconnaître. Ce qui ne nous empêche pas de nous régaler même si nous commandons encore une fois à manger pour 3 et non plus 4… La prochaine sera la bonne ! Sur le retour nous rencontrons de nouveau avec Christian et Michael qui restent également dans notre auberge. Ils nous racontent leur expérience de train de nuit, apparemment pas si traumatisante que ça. Dommage que la photo que nous prenons de nous quatre soit floue.

Le lendemain nous décidons d’y aller mollo. Notre train part à 18h30 ce qui nous laisse le temps de flâner dans la ville. Nous descendons à pied de l’avenue principale de Xi’An dont la taille et l’envergure n’ont pas à rougir à côté de nos Champs-Elysées, avec tous les magasins et enseignes de mode, de beauté, de technologie, de bijoux qui vont avec… Nous visitons la tour de l’horloge qui se pose là tel un arc de triomphe sur un rond-point au centre exact de la ville et qui offre un point de vue imprenable sur les quatre portes aux quatres points cardinaux. Xi’An respecte en effet le plan typique de la ville chinoise en carrée avec ses rues à angle droit. Cette tour est en fait une construction de trois étages en forme de temple aux poutres colorées et avec une grande cloche suspendue qui servait d’antan à donner l’heure, d’où son nom. Non loin de là, la tour du tambour ressemble à la précédente mais propose également une impressionante collection de tambours chinois, dont certains de plusieurs mètres de diamètre et une superbe exhibition de meubles chinois de la grande époque.

Nous déjeunons le midi dans une dans une gargote bien locale mais où nous réussissons à commander un délicieux repas – que nous ne pouvons finir encore une fois. Enfin l’après-midi nous montons sur les ramparts de la vielle ville de Xi’An. Ces ramparts sont tout simplement les plus grands qu’il m’ait été donné de voir à ce jour : d’une circonférence totale de 14 kilomètres, plus de 15 mètres de haut et avec un chemin de ronde de plus de 20 mètres de largeur, ils en imposent ! De nos jours ils permettent surtout de se promener tranquillement avec une vue imprenable sur la ville. Nous louons des vélos pour en faire le tour. Ou plutôt le demi-tour car il faudra être à l’heure pour notre train. Une après-midi très agréable, sous le soleil et le ciel bleu.

Que nous réserve la suite ?

 Our aim today was to go and see the army of terracotta warriors just outside of Xi’An and the girl at the reception had told us to get the 103 bus to the railway station and then the 306 for (what we heard as) 20 minutes.

We didn’t manage to find the 306 and were grabbed by a couple of women who tried to get us to get onto their bus. We said that we wanted the 306 and that it was 7 RMB — one of them lowered her price to 8 and the bus started to pull away. We agreed and leapt on. We were the only occidental tourists on-board. The bus drove incredibly slowly for quite a long time as people leapt on the bus at what seemed like random places and I started to get annoyed that we hadn’t searched properly for the 306…

Stéphane is a very patient man but even he started to get annoyed by my moaning. He tried asking a young Chinese man in the seat opposite if this was the right bus. By translation applications they managed to have a bit of a conversation though not all of it made sense! ^_^

The man told us not to pay for an official guide as they don’t tell you very much and take you to see things that aren’t really interesting. When he got off he wished us a happy journey — using his mobile phone of course!

We did finally arrive and, after checking the map next to the road, we headed towards the terracotta army. The tickets were 150 RMB each…next to the ticket desk was a sign, in Chinese, with 65 and 5 RMB noted. Stéphane pointed to this sign and said that we’d pay 65 (as we were both convinced that we’d seen that the ticket price got you into 3 sites and we only wanted to visit this one). The seller said “Chinese” which Stéphane took to mean that that was the price for Chinese people only and so walked off. We asked a few other occidental tourists how much they’d paid (as 150 RMB is more than we’re paying for the hostel for 2 nights!) and, though most of them were in groups and had no idea, a couple of them confirmed the 150 price.

We sneakily got some more money out of our hidden pouch and queued back up to pay — though at a different desk this time ^_-.

Once inside the complex, after a short stroll through a lovely, green and quiet park, we saw a plethora of amazing things. In the first building there were statues of horses, drivers and colourful carts that had been discovered and rebuilt where necessary. The second was “Pit N° 2” which was discovered in the late 1970s (if I remember correctly) and which, alongside Pit N° 3 gave us a little taster for what we were to see in Pit N° 1.

The hangar that covers Pit N° 1 is just ginormous. The pit, which was discovered in the mid 1970’s by a farmer digging a well, contains several corridors containing hundreds of terracotta soldiers, archers, horses, etc. A lot of them have been excavated but not all and so there is an army of archaeologists working in the hangar trying to put back together the jigsaw of warriors and horses. There are probably nearly as many tourists as there are warriors but it doesn’t bother me this time as I am just hypnotised by these life-size statues. The ones that do have heads are all original, there was no mould for the faces of this army. It truly feels like it could have been a real regiment that have been turned to stone (or clay) by some force. Suddenly I’m pulled back out of my dream world by a Brummy accent just behind me — I’m tempted to go over to them and chat, but I don’t, I turn back to this silent army in front of me and stare some more!

On the way back we catch the 306 bus, but it takes nearly as long as the 912 did…maybe we had misunderstood the lady at the desk. Once back at the main station we opt for a stroll back to the hostel rather than the bus and after a few streets lined with dirty looking greasy spoon type restaurants we find a park and opt for the greener option. There are a group of people line dancing, as we head towards them a little boy stops in front of us and crouches down. We notice that his trousers have a split in them from the front to the back and that he has no pants on. He’s peeing in the middle of the path right in front of us. I feel somewhat grateful that it’s only urine as we change direction and head down a different path. It’s only now that we notice that other small children all have this kind of trousers and their bums visible…it must be breezy! Stéphane points out that if that’s how they learn to behave as children then it’s no wonder that we’ve seen half of the things that we’ve seen since we’ve been here (people peeing into bins, pooing in the street, etc).

We ask at the hostel for a recommendation for dinner this evening. The girl tells us to turn left out of the hostel and walk for three minutes to a large restaurant called “Asia something”. As we walk we notice that none of the restaurants have their names written in anything other than Chinese…and we don’t know the Chinese symbol for Asia. After about 10 minutes’ walk we head back and stop at one of the larger restaurants that we’ve passed. We order two mains and a portion of egg fried rice…once again we have ordered too much and end up leaving about half…we promise that next time we will order one dish and one rice/noodles….if we remember!

On the way back we stop at a little supermarket to get some juice for the morning, on our way out Christian and Michael walk in. They too had been to the Terracotta Army today. We had a nice chat in the entrance to the shop, with the loudhailer in the background screeching in an attempt to win customers…personally I find this really strange but, hey, if it works for them then who am I to criticise!

Once back at the hostel we try and work a bit more on the blog to catch up with some of what we’ve been up to in China. The wifi seems to work better in the bar so we’re forced to have a beer whilst we work….it’s a hard life this travelling malarkey!

Saturday 10th October — Xi’An to Chongqing

The main thing today is our sleeper train to Chongqing from Xi’An, but it’s only at 18:30 this evening and so we have another lazy morning in the hostel and pack our bags before heading off for a wander south of the hostel to see a bit more of Xi’An before we leave.

First stop, the Bell and Drum towers. These are fairly central buildings (one of which is in the middle of a roundabout which in some ways makes me think of the Arc de Triomphe. Once again they are mainly wood buildings and exquisitely painted (I expect there will be photos in the gallery further down in the article!). The Bell Tower has a bell outside of it and the Drum tower has a large number of drums both inside and outside and all different colours and sizes (including a God Drum…don’t ask why, the explanations were only in Chinese ^_-).

Upstairs in the Drum Tower there were examples of Chinese furniture and decoration which we both found really interesting — mainly dark wood, marble and some excellent statues of funny looking mice or dogs.

Our last activity before heading back to pick up our bags was to go to the South Gate and walk on the ramparts. Just before doing so though it was lunch time, we headed right in front of the North gate and went into one of the first restaurants after the maternity hospital. It was full of locals and noisy. We grabbed a table and the waitress came and gave us a menu, in Chinese, with a few photos. We ordered one dish and some noodles. We didn’t manage to finish either of them…this time only 2 bowls and still too much food! But it was delicious.

Up on the wall for a digestive walk Stéphane suggested hiring a bike and riding the 14km around the wall. I wasn’t too keen, especially having just eaten and also unsure that we had time before we had to be back at the hostel to get our bags and get to the train to the North station.

We hired them and it was quite a nice flat cycle around the walls, we only did half however as we were both getting sore bottoms from the bikes (cobbles + no suspension…) and so we returned them to the North gate and walked the short stroll back to the hostel.

Stéphane had a great idea and checked with the guy at reception that our sleeper train to Chongqing really left from the North station. It didn’t, it was from the main station, we didn’t need to leave for another hour according to the guy at the desk!! Cool!

Jour 1 / Day 1

Jour 2 / Day 2