Life in Cambodia

After a pleasant little night train, we arrived in Xi'an and were immediately whisked away to our hostel. We opted for a hostel in the center of town near the Islamic Quarter of the city. Xi'an was an ancient capital and is the traditional beginning of the Silk Road. Over the centuries, a number of Islamic traders and whatnot set up shop in Xi'an, so now, much of the food is Islamic influenced (with a large population of Muslims as well). We wanted to take it easy that first day and wanted to wander around town a little bit and pop into the Islamic Quarter for some good eats. We were a bit disappointed at first because as soon as you walk into the Islamic Quarter (through the main street) you are greeted by a huge sign that says "Welcome to the Islamic Street of Xi'an! Everyone dutifully wearing their Islamic garb and looking sufficiently Muslim to be working the main street. I will point out though that this street had some good food. However, once you kinda get past the main tourist drag, the Quarter turns into the Quarter that we were looking for: narrow little windy alleyways, old men in skull caps with long white wispy beards chatting in front of their homes, kids running through the streets, corner mosques, and plenty of bread and kebabs. We'd spend a lot of time over the coming days in the quarter, mostly to stuff ourselves with the tasty morsels.

After a little rest, we headed back into the Islamic Quarter to try to find the "Bird Market" which was on our maps. While we wandered and wandered around, we never found the actual Bird Market, but we did find the Cricket Market. We stumbled onto this street where the entire sidewalk was covered with these little tiny cups and we weren't sure what was going on until Maggie peeped in. Row after row of big crickets just kinda hanging out. We were really impressed though by the cages of crickets (see the photos!) that were also for sale. We never really figured out what the crickets were used for though. We don't think it was for eating because there was a lot of care going into the crickets and potential purchasers were eyeballing individual crickets with a eye for something other than a meal.

The next day was a trip out to the Terracotta Warriors, outside of town. There were a few other sights along the way, but we had heard uninspiring things about them, so skipped over them and headed straight to the Warriors. We were (naively) unprepared for the size and scope of the Terracotta Warriors area - it is seriously like a little city. As soon as you pull up, there is probably a square kilometer of shops, restaurants, gauntlets of hawkers and touts. You've got to wander around for 15 mins before you even find the warriors, whose buildings are tucked away in a large garden area. The ticket price was pretty steep, I think the most expensive that we've paid to date, but that wasn't going to faze us! Anyway, we eventually got into the buildings. And the Terracotta Warriors, well, they were the Terracotta Warriors. While it is entirely understandable, it is a shame that you can't really get that close to them. They are down in the pit and you've got to look down on them from anywhere between 10 ft plus. Its just far enough away that you can't see the detail of their faces, the exquisite painting, etc. However, all that said, it was very exciting to be looking at the warriors, to actually be there. As the pictures show, there are literally hundreds of them there and more are expected to be found (the site is not yet completely excavated). However, that also brings me to the point that the surrounding area is like a big concrete parking lot and we discussed amongst ourselves how many warriors and other relics may have been lost during the construction of the area.

The remainder of our time in Xi'an was spent walking the streets (buying and eating lots of dried fruit like apricots, dates, mangos...yum), visiting the 'The Big Wild Goose Pagoda' which was fairly large, but nary a big wild goose to be found. We did some requisite shopping: undies, socks, some warm weather wear etc...and got ready to shove off for our next stop on the train...more soon! see the pictures to the right...