M-whY

Now on the road, the simplest errands can sometimes eat up a lot of time. Finding where things are is the biggest problem. Back home, if I needed socks, I'd just head to Walmart. If I needed a box of tools... Walmart. A new light bulb or rolls of toilet paper? You guessed it. Walmart. In other countries, the megastore has yet to set up business. I remember in Bangkok, the simple task of buying a box of floppy disks took an entire morning. So I didn't expect finding a jacket to be an easy task.

The main street of Xi'an is lined with designer labels like Prada and Gucci. Even the wares in the department stores were ridiculously expensive. I couldn't afford this stuff even when I had income. Another problem was that clothes weren't my size. I'm average sized in the States (5'10", 175 when I left home), but here, XL sizes were a bit tight. Finally, down one of the smaller alleys, I found a shop that sold light jackets for a reasonable price. The sleeves were a bit short, but had I continued looking for the perfect fit, the search conceivably could've taken hours.

Jon had patiently followed me while I was doing all this, and so now with an extra layer for warmth, we caught a bus to the train station. My guidebook had indicated there were buses that ran the western tour line, stopping at sights of interest. Looking around, all the buses were labeled as going to the terracota warriors, the eastern line, which we had already done yesterday. I asked somebody where the shuttle to Famen Temple was.

"[There's only one per day, and it left hours ago!]" he said. It was already 11:00am, and what he said could've made sense. Famen Temple is a good two hours away, and if the bus were to stop at the Imperial Tombs along the way, it probably would've had to leave fairly early.

We asked the man how much it'd cost to hire a car for a day, and we ended up negotiating a price of 530 yuan for two people. "I think we've just been had," remarked Jon. "It's too convenient that this guy is a driver too." But the price wasn't unfair - we had shopped around a couple days ago - and it'd probably save us time anyways.

This probably goes against what parents tell their kids all the time: Never get in a car with strangers. The driver didn't seem like a bad guy, except maybe he told a fib to get some business, and at times, seemed lost, often pulling over to ask for directions. The car was in poor shape, nearly everything that could be broken was. It would be a long trip, part of the reason why all the tour operators were charging so much, and it would've been a minor miracle if we didn't break down along the way. Still, it's all part of the adventure, and as a duo, I was pretty sure nothing would happen to us. (That said, had I been by myself, I still would've gotten in...)

Qian Ling, about 80km out of Xi'an, was negotiated in our itinerary, and as is customary with hired drivers, he waited in the parking lot while Jon and I went to have a look. The Imperial Way was lined with stone figures; At the end, 61 headless dignataries stood in mourning. Jon and I made the climb to the top where farmland stretched as far as the eye could see. Emperor Gao Zong and empress Wu Zetian, who had some an Oedipus-like relationship, are buried somewhere underneath; Their tomb is easily the largest among the ones nearby.

We didn't have time to see the others though, as Famen temple would be another 40km out. What's remarkable about this temple is the story of Buddha's finger. As the tale goes, Sakyamuni's finger bone was buried in the crypt under the pagoda, and emperors would come to pay their respects. With the fall of the Tang dynasty, the bones were forgotten about, and the story dismissed as legend, until 1981, when the tower collapsed. Workers sifting through the rubble came upon a crypt filled with precious objects, including a box containing the legendary finger.

An adjacent museum housed a sample of these precious relics. "I thought you didn't like museums," jibed Jon. Yeah, but who wouldn't want to see the boxes that the bones were found in, and (when he wasn't looking), flipped him the finger for his wise-ass remark. In the main exhibit, the Matryushka-like boxes, made of gold, silver, jade, etc., were on display. The numerous guards made it difficult to take photos, but they proved helpful in clarifying the story a bit.

Now according to most english guidebooks, three piece of bone were found, each in a set of boxes (like the one pictured in the previous link). In reality, there were four. This was kind of weird, because looking at my own hand, there are only three parts to a finger.

"[Well, they're not really finger bones,]" said the guard. "[What they found was too big to be from a human finger. They're from some other part of the body.]" Furthermore, science has shown that the four pieces belonged to four different people, so only one - I'm not sure how they determined which - is actually from Sakyamuni. Whether you believe any of it is a personal call, but it still makes for a fascinating story.

"I'm glad we came out this far," Jon said on the way back to Xi'an. "I didn't think it'd be that interesting, but it was." Our driver pushed the car to its limits on the highway, and the car, miraculously, made it back without problems. A good thing too, because while it would've made for another interesting travel story had we broken down, it was probably a bit too cold to be stranded on the side of the road.

Thanks to everyone for their support and comments! Knowing people are reading keeps me motivated to continue the updates!