12 Days of Solo Backpacking in China – Beijing to Xian Overland - Itinerary, Travel Guide, Expenses

This solo trip to China was decided on a whim, and I blame it on CebuPac’s Piso Sale. I usually take a long leave from work and I make sure that there are non-working holidays on my date of travel so that I will I only need to deduct few from those VLs and CDOs. Due to the recent conflicts with the Philippine-China government, my friends were very hesitant to join me on this trip. So I decided to go alone and to dare myself on another solo backpacking adventure.

12 Days of Solo Backpacking in China: Beijing, Datong, Pingyao and Xian

Emperor’s Qin Terracotta Army in Xian, China

I have daydreamed of traveling ever since I was a kid. I would usually hang out in our school library during lunch and free time and look at all those books about archaeology, history and exploration. I was ever since fascinated by a set of army sculptures that have been buried in the ground a long time ago. I may have forgotten what it was called and where it was excavated, but I never forgot what it looked like in that book. Years after, I am now working and planning for my travels that I remembered that image. I looked it up with keywords “terracotta sculptures” and found out that the picture I saw is in China and located in the city of Xi’An. On the last piso sale of 2012, I booked for a flight going to this country. Aside from The Great Wall of China, going to the Terracotta Warriors is one of the must-dos I planned out for my 12-day trip.

Terracotta Army of Xian, China

Yangling Mausoleum of Han Dynasty (Tomb of Emperor Jingdi): Mini Terracotta Warriors of Xi’An

My purpose of going to Xi’An was solely to see the widely-known Terracotta Warriors, I was only supposed to stay for two days but when someone told me about another interesting site in this city, I didn’t hesitate to add more day just to be able to visit it. The joy of traveling flexible. :) Even though there’s still one line of subway train as of writing, commuting to the tourist spots in Xi’An is designed to be very efficient with all the bus circling around all the possible tourist routes in the city. The trip to Hanyangling took almost 1.5 hours, but given the location of the site at Xianyang and the cost of only CNY 4 one way, this was certainly a good treat!

a display of sculptures at Yangling Mausoleum of Han Dynasty

Fun things to do in Xi’An for a day

One of my main goals of this trip to China was to visit Xi’an to see the Terracotta Warriors. Aside from that, I really had no idea what else to see aside from those statues, but it give me the enough motivation to stay in this city for 3 days. After the 8-hour hard seater journey from Pingyao to Xi’An, I decided to sleep the entire morning in the hostel as I was already feeling nauseated due to the summer heat, exhaustion and lack of sleep. Before noon, I decided to go to the Terracotta Warriors, and when I was already in the ticket office, I noticed that I only had 70 CNY and the admission fee was 90 for those with student IDs, I remember having enough money before I left but the hostel key deposit fee was 150 CNY that was supposed to be used for the admission to the warriors. Feeling stupid and wasting almost three hours of travel time round trip, I decided to see the city of Xi’An and make use of the time I still have left for the day. Good thing the sun sets by around 8 PM during summer so I was still left with enough sun light to have nice pictures.

One of Xian's majestic towers

Standing, Hard Seaters, and Sleepers in China’s Railway Trains – Guide and Travel Report

China is a LARGE country, a fact everybody knows. I was expecting that it would be hard to go around as I only expected planes and buses will be the only means of transportation – I was wrong. China’s extensive connection of railway trains presents a very efficient way on traveling the country.

Pingyao Railway Train Station