April 12, our last day in Xi’an

Got packed and checked out of our hotel this morning. As we were booked on an overnight train to Shanghai which was due to leave Xi’an at 5.12pm, we opted to take an extra tour with our guide, which we enjoyed. First, we visited the local art museum. Might not sound too interesting, but in fact the museum is connected to the local academy of art and we were provided with a very knowledgeable and interesting guide. First, we were shown the highlights of the museum’s collection, and of course it’s always better in these circumstances to have someone with you who knows what they’re talking about. We learned a lot in a short space of time, not least about “Farmers’ Art”. At the time of the Cultural Revolution under Chairman Mao in the 1960s, art teachers were sent out to the rural areas to teach the farmers how to paint. I don’t know why this was thought to be a good idea at the time, but what it achieved was a particular style of art – bright, very colourful and somewhat primitive – which is now known as farmers’ art.

After the tour we were taken into a workshop where we sat down to try our hand at calligraphy and were taught something about Chinese characters. Good fun, and we have our handiwork in the suitcase as we speak. We were then invited to look around the workshop where, inevitably, the work of the students at the academy was for sale. The examples of farmers’ art were fairly small (maybe 50 x 60cm) and we bought one which we really liked. No problem getting that in the suitcase. Then we spotted a more traditional piece hanging on the wall. It was a depiction of ladies in the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) playing polo. Sounds odd, but wait till you see it! It has loads of Chinese characters down one side, which have been translated for us, and is going to look great in the flat.

In the garden of the Small Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi'an

Ringing the bell and making a wish.

After leaving the art museum we visited a pagoda south of the walled city and the Xi’an history museum, which is nearby. We then had a strange but pleasant lunch in a hotel not far away. A number of fresh, raw ingredients are placed on your table (very thinly sliced beef and lamb, mushrooms, thinly sliced potato, noodles, cabbage, raw eggs, tofu) and then a metal container of vegetable soup was produced and placed on an oil burner – one soup container per person. While you are waiting for the soup to heat up, you go to a table in the centre of the restaurant, pick up a small bowl and then select from about ten different large bowls to make up a dipping sauce. I chose sesame paste, ground peanut powder, chilli oil, soy sauce and a couple of other things I can’t remember now. It was lovely. Jen had something similar, but without the chilli oil. As the soup boils, you add the various other ingredients, which cook fairly quickly, and then take them out of the soup with your chopsticks and dip them in your own sauce before eating. All in all, thoroughly enjoyable and it made us feel a bit more intrepid!

Cooking our own lunch in boiling soup!

When we reached the railway station at about 4.20, after collecting our bags from the hotel, we felt REALLY intrepid. So intrepid, in fact, that we began to wonder if we should have flown to Shanghai! The concourse outside the station and the main hall once you get inside were both jam-packed with people, many of whom did not look too savoury or clean. It was the first time in China that I have actually been grabbed by beggars and we really had to struggle with our heavy bags to get through the crowds. Luckily, our guide stayed with us all the way, and once inside the station, we took the escalator up to the “soft cabin” waiting room, where things were calmer and the people looked a bit less scary. Even though this is a communist country and there is no First Class or Second Class on the railways, they have soft cabins and hard cabins. The hard cabins, which are much cheaper, have three bunks per side of each cabin, with no mattresses! (Or so we are told, we haven’t been along to check). The soft cabins have two bunks per side, with mattresses, clean bedding and aircraft-type TVs (which don’t work – our guide said that it was unlikely that they would). Jen and I have a four-berth cabin to ourselves. We had to pay for all four berths, of course, but for a 14-hour journey to Shanghai it cost a total of £196, which is not bad, especially when the alternative would have been two flight tickets and an extra night in a hotel. The best news is that our guide had warned us that there were no western toilets on board – just holes in the floor that you squat over. Thankfully, she was wrong. There are western toilets, and they are even reasonably clean.

After we left the waiting room, we were faced with a fairly large flight of steps down to the platform, and I thought that I might have to take my bag down and then come back for Jen’s, because they are so heavy. At that very moment a tiny Chinese lady in a sort of uniform appeared and stuck her face in Jen’s, announcing “Porter!” She then hoisted Jen’s bag up on to her shoulders and trotted off to the bottom of the stairs, at which point she demanded “Money!” It was the best 10 yuan (£1) I’ve ever spent. She was even willing to take my suitcase at the same time, but I managed it myself.

A little bit cramped, but it was only for 14 hours!

We are now trundling through the Chinese countryside, it’s 7.20pm, and we arrive in Shanghai in 12 hours from now.

Good night!

Jenny’s bit: Western toilets – enough said.