Xi’an City Walls

05/10/13 

 As Rory spent the entire night throwing up we decided to give the hotel breakfast a miss! Instead we lounged around, got ready and once again headed off in search of Dunkin’ Donuts. I am nothing if not persistent when on the hunt for niceys! It took a while but we were victorious and after a sampling the not so local delicacy we made our way to the Xi’an city walls. The city walls were built in 1370, during the Ming dynasty and form a rectangle with a 14km perimeter. The walls are 12m high, surrounded by a moat and have been restored and opened to tourists. 

This picture is just for you mum!

We thought this would be a free excursion but once again Lonely Planet gave us the wrong information and we ended up having to pay £5 each to get on the wall. In all fairness this is still pretty cheap and we even lucked out by arriving just as the changing of the guard began. It’s obviously done for the tourists, of which they were many (but hardly any whities) but it was still worth a watch. It was also fun watching a group of boys trying not to laugh as they walked around twirling sticks.

 

 After the changing of the guard we rented two bikes and began the 14km cycle of the city walls. The bikes were about £4 each which was great as the walk would have been a nightmare. We also managed to avoid the queues as the Chinese tourists only wanted to rent tandem bicycles. That’s right, they were all riding around on bicycles made for two. While I imagine this would have been a good photo opportunity, Rory doesn’t have much experience in the cycling department and I didn’t want him cramping my style.

Rory, pushing through the pain! haha!

 

A third world looking bus depot

 

The smoggy city!

 

Some cool houses

Thankfully we didn’t share a bike as Rory had to stop every five seconds to throw up. Again I was super sympathetic/far too busy to care as I was having a great time reliving my childhood. Despite Rory’s illness it was a really good day. The city walls were impressive and it was a nice way to see the different parts of the city. However, it was quite smoggy and this was exacerbated by the dust and dirt from all the surrounding construction. Xi’an and China in general is essentially one big building site but if you can overlook the grey haze then I would definitely recommend a day cycling the ancient city walls. They were built in 1300, so maybe they’re not that ancient but they’re still older than America. Ha!