27th October: Pingyao, China to Xi’An, China
I was ill overnight again, so this will likely be shorter than usual. I’ve still got a fever and was awake having wind hallucinations and dealing with a bad stomach, yet again. I’m also very numb and neurologically fatigued to the point I keep tripping up and dropping things. This is the first the I’ve suffered from this on the trip, which I’m pleasantly surprised with 2 months in. I think it is just a combination of illnesses that my body has run out of energy to deal with. Regardless, I could’ve done without today being a travel day!
Kaja took control and made sure we got to the train station with plenty of time. We had to walk out of the old city, which was tough going, but got a taxi from the walls rather than the bus. She also found plenty of snacks, not that I really felt like eating. Whilst I was stood waiting, feeling very out of it, a random guy came up to chat and repeatedly told me I was handsome! Maybe I was still hallucinating?!
As always, so far, the train was on time, and we settled in to our comfy seats. Even second class has lots of legroom and is a comfortable experience. Shortly after leaving Pingyao, more and more huge complexes of heavy and chemical industry whizzed by. As we headed into the deep south of Shanxi, thicker and thicker smog took over and a sunny day became like dusk. Even so, the beautiful autumn colours in the trees gave colour to an otherwise eerily monochrome view. This area is also still the stepped landscape of corn production in mini canyons. This is the geological region of the Pinglu Rift, where a huge chasm splits a nearby city in two (look it up for cool photos!).
Eventually, we passed from Shanxi (with one a) to Shaanxi (with two) by crossing the life blood of this region, the Huang He or Yellow River. I’ve been fascinated by this waterway for almost 20 years and it was moving to see it in person. The yellow colour comes from the colour of the fine-grained loess plateau silt, of Gobi Desert origin. This fast-eroding soil is the reason for the gully-like landscapes we’ve been seeing in Shanxi.
As we approached Xi’An, there was so much building work. Blocks of flats seemed to be popping up by the hundred. Most impressively, however, and this has been the case everywhere we’ve been, are the number of new high speed rail lines and viaducts being built. On the approach to any sizable city, there appear to be multiple new lines being built. If my quick maths is correct, China builds the equivalent of the entirety of the UK’s HS2 (including track, stations, and trains) every 6 weeks.
We pulled in to Xi’An Bei bang on time. I looked left and right and the platforms seemed endless! In all, there were 35 parallel platforms each capable of berthing 16-carriage high speed trains. Walking out into the cavernous concourse, we scanned our passports and the metro card on our phones and were immediately into the metro station directly below. It’s amazing infrastructure and took… 3 years to build from scratch.
We found our accommodation in the Muslim Quarter, which we had to access via a lift through the back of a silver shop. I was still feeling very rough, so went straight to bed. Kaja popped out to get some snacks from the Muslim Quarter, which was buzzing with street food options when we arrived.