We waved goodbye to Beijing this morning and found our way to Beijing West train station to catch a bullet train to Xi’An some 1,100km away.

We were both looking forward to the experience of travelling at high speed and due to the relatively straight train lines, you barely realised the speed we were achieving.

Sitting in airplane like seats and in relative comfort we watched the info board in our carriage as we quickly reached a cruising speed of 350kph!

Our destination, Xi’an is the capital of Shaanxi Province and is the third most populous city in Western China with a population of 13 million.

Along the journey we were taken with the number of high rise apartments we flew passed, often comprising blocks of a dozen or more 30-40 storey buildings. It’s perhaps no surprise when you’ve got a population of 1.5 billion to house!

Within just over 4hrs we had arrived at Xi’an over 800 miles from Beijing. Quite a journey and all thanks to the speedy Chinese bullet train, that then heads back to Beijing with all the seats then spun round in order to be facing the right way on the return.

Within 30mins we had arrived at our hotel in the Old City Walls of Xi’an and were pleased to see a large comfy bed decorated with an old country scene on the duvet.

After freshening up, we headed out for a tour of the city and a visit to the Muslim quarter, close to the Bell Tower and Drum Tower and is popular with tourists with a food market and traditional stalls.

The Xi’an Muslim Quarter can be traced back to the Tang dynasty, when Muslim merchants came to and aggregated in Chang’an today’s Xi’an, via the Silk Road.

We walked along one of the main streets to The Drum Tower, which got its name from the huge drum located within the building. In contrast to the Bell Tower, where the bell was stricken at dawn, the drum was beaten at sunset to indicate the end of the day.

The Muslim food in Xi’an can be traced back to the Tang dynasty. Later, it developed its special characteristic of mainly using beef and mutton and complementing with pastry.

Today, the Xi’an Muslim Quarter is famous for its traditional foods and cultural activities, notably beef/lamb stew of bread, steamed soup dumplings, meat skewers and wooden cages mirror cake. The latter is Xi’an’s traditional dessert with ground stick rice and steamed, covered in sugar, nuts and rose flavored jam. A real treat!

Xi’an has a minority Muslim community, most of these Muslims are from the Hui group, with an estimated 50,000 Hui Muslims in the city. There are seven mosques in Xi’an, the best known being the Great Mosque which we visited.  

An active place of worship, this courtyard complex is also a popular tourist site. It now houses more than twenty buildings in its five courtyards.

The Great Mosque of Xi’an represents the Gedimu tradition of Sunni Islam, which is the majority jurisprudence that the Hui population follow.

Overall, the mosque, like the majority of Chinese mosques built between the Ming and Qing periods, combines a traditional Chinese architectural form with Islamic functionality. Though the mosque was constructed using traditional Chinese forms, unlike most buildings that follow a north–south axis in accordance with feng shu.

The prayer hall is a monumental timber building with a turquoise hip roof, a six-pillared portico, and five doors. Contrary to most mosques in many Muslim-majority states, the prayer hall does not feature a dome-shaped ceiling but has a traditional Chinese, pointy ceiling covered with ceramic decorative tiles.

After all that culture we keen to take a break and grab a drink and relax. We found a a great bar called Drunk Wall, next to the Old City Walls where they served local ales. Andy managed to find a great IPA and Michelle went for a classic G&T.

Later on we went in search of a restaurant we’d been recommended by our guide selling Peking Duck. Our walk to dinner took us through the heart of the city where we enjoyed the buzz and energy of a Friday night in Xi’an.

Dinner proved to a great success with a delicious duck, pancake & dips along with some local vegetarian side dishes.

We grabbed a busy subway train back to our hotel and prepared ourselves for another busy day tomorrow when we visit the world famous Terracotta Warriors and then go a bike tour along the Old City Walls of Xi’an.