We arrived in Xi’an with a full schedule and plenty of sights to see. The non English speaking taxi driver delivered us to the hotel without too many problems. The hotel was in a perfect location, within 5-10 mins walk to drum tower, Muslim Quarter and the bell tower. The beds however were terrible, a slab of concrete would have been better.

Day 1 Big Wild Goose Pagoda

Today we saw the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda and went for a walk along the city wall. We were hoping to rent bikes to ride along the wall but the age limit was 10 and over. We were all extremely disappointed.

Day 2 Terracotta Warriors

We organised a driver to head out to see the Terracotta Warriors. When we arrived there just happened to be an English speaking guide waiting for us. We were unsure at first but it turned out to be very worthwhile at approx $30 aud for about 3 hours. 

Nothing can really prepare you for the magnitude of this place. The main pit is huge containing thousands of Warriors. Some of which are still buried until technology improves to a point where they can preserve the original colours. It was also very cold, and had snowed the week before.

In the evening we had a walk around the Muslim Quarter and saw the Drum Tower and Bell Tower all lit up. After looking at pictures they look almost the same. The bell tower is the one with car lights in front of it.

Day 3 Mount Huashan

Today was out first major stuff up on our trip. We were about 30 mins along on the metro on the way to the high speed rail when we realised we didn’t have our passports. So we had to go back to the hotel and grab them and lost about an hour in the process. 

After lots of walking, 3 metro trips, a high speed train, local bus, another bus, and then the cable car, we finally made it. It was all worth it as Mount Huashan is spectacular. There are 4 main peaks you can climb, but due to our morning detour we could only climb one peak. So we conquered the west peak. It was windy and cold, there was snow, but it was amazing.