Cycling Atop Xi’an’s Ancient City Walls

Xi’an, in north central China, is probably best known for the nearby Terracotta Warriors. However, Xi’an itself, dominated by the massive walls of the old city, is a wonderful place to explore. As a VI, the most important thing to remember was to keep in touch with your sighted partner, though not just because of the crowds.

Once the start of the Silk Road, Xi’an attracted Muslim merchants who settled here, creating a distinct local culture and cuisine. Crowded with both locals and tourists, the Muslim Quarter comprises a main street with smaller side streets running off it, all lined with shops, restaurants and food stalls, and was the place to go if you wanted feeding. The fast-food stalls seemed to specialise in barbecued meat, laying out on skewers ready to be cooked to order and served as-is or in a bun. The fact that they were just lying out in the warm street air put me off trying them, but those of us that did seemed to enjoy the flavours.

Built to protect the old city, an original enormous earthworks version of the city walls was constructed at the end of the 14^th century, during the early Ming Dynasty. Later faced, topped and finally encased in stone, the walls now stretch for 14 km, are 12 m high, and are over 12m wide at the top, wider than many UK high streets. The only practical way to go right round the walls was by hiring a bike. And so, when we climbed one of the gatehouse towers to the top of the wall, there were several bike rental places, happily collecting tourists’ money.

Needless to say, bicycles and I don’t get on as well as we used to. With the loss of my sight, especially peripheral vision, anyone in front of me might be OK, but anyone approaching from the side would be in severe danger. Therefore, it was great to find out that they also rented out tandems. This was my first go on one of these things, and it showed, with us needing several attempts before I managed to both keep balanced and with my feet on the pedals at the same time. Fortunately, Tony knew what he was doing, and off we went.

As we pulled away from the bike hire shops, we had to carefully steer our way through the throng, but eventually the crowd thinned, allowing us to chat as we cycled round. Soon there were just cyclists, those tourists who knew there was more to the wall than just the sections either side of the gatehouse through which they’d climbed to the top, and occasionally one of the fleet of white, open-sided mini-buses that could give the less energetic visitor a tour. The top of the wall had obviously been maintained to be cycle-friendly, but there were still the odd places where the original had not lined up correctly and so ramps had been built. In these cases both Alejandro, the other VI on our bike trip, and I had to trust that our sighted buddies would remember to warn us to hold on tight.

I loved the look of the old guard towers constructed at regular intervals on top of the wall, their three-storey pagoda-like shape belying the fact that they had been built an arrow’s flight apart, protecting that section of wall from either end. Their design also made them look slightly incongruous, with their backdrop of modern tower blocks and the traffic running nearby contrasting with their ancient design and the stretches of the battlements linking them together.

We didn’t rush our trip round, chatting and stopping to look down into the low buildings and greenery of the old city or over the battlements at the high-rises of the modern city: though I don’t think that trying to race round on tandems with Vis on the back would have been a good idea anyway. I don’t know how long it took us to go round, but it must have been less than 3 hours as we didn’t have to pay any late returns fee. It had been a great way to get out of the crowded city.

That evening we went back in through the walls to see the old city in its night-time splendour. The bright frontages of the restaurants and shops threw everywhere else into deep shadow. The streets were again thronging with people, for me just dark figures as they crossed in front of the bright windows. If I’d lost my friends now I would never have found my way back to the hotel. Our goal was Xi’an’s 38m high Bell Tower, another Ming Dynasty architectural masterpiece, standing in the centre of the city, where the roads from the four main gatehouses crossed. It looked magnificent with the illuminated ancient building standing proud against the dark night sky. It had been a busy, tiring day, yet again different from everywhere we’d been so far on our exploration of China.