The World's Best Xinjiang Diary Ever: Spring Festival Travels 24

8th February 2008 // Day 25 // Xi'an (Shaanxi) --> Chengdu (Sichuan)

For this, our final day in Xi'an, we had very little left to do. We got up and showered and had breakfast. Liam had beaten me downstairs and greeted me with the news that his camera had been stolen. He was surprisingly calm actually but obviously seriously annoyed at this turn of events. What was worst was not the camera, which is just an (albeit expensive) material possession, but the loss of his memory card, which had all his photographs from the travels stored on it. Fortunately Liam and I often take very similar photos, so he had that to fall back on if nothing else, but it's not the same and he had some better quality or different photos than mine that I had asked to borrow from him later. Liam worked out that his camera must have been taken on the busy bus of the day before. He'd been holding the overhead rail with one hand and was protecting his bag with his other, and had completely forgotten that he'd left his camera in his pocket. A seedy-looking man on the bus had bumped into him a little too much but Liam had thought it was just the movement of the bus. A real shame.
We left for our massage. We were about 5 minutes late already and had decided to check out before going off. There was a huge queue at reception as a tour group were just checking in (I HATE tour groups), so I went out to meet the masseur, Hans, as agreed. He was practically hiding round the corner but I saw him and told him what was going on. He asked very nervously if we'd told the hostel about the massages. I said no and he seemed pleased and relieved. After finishing checking out, we went back outside and he walked us to the massage parlour. It was all very cloak and dagger, and I started to get suspicious until he told us that he was obliged to hand over to the youth hostel 50% of his takings for each massage booked through them. Which is frankly unfair. 50% is a bit steep! If that was all true, then I'm glad I didn't tell the hostel. Particularly as later on he told us about his baby son and how he was saving all his earnings for his son's education. He seemed like a really nice guy and we found out he'd lived in Urumqi. However the old myths had been perpetuated and he thought all Uyghurs were thieves, and that their kids didn't go to school but just learnt how to be thieves and went to cities all round China to steal. Oh yeah, and of course, they all like to dance. His very first comment really took me by surprise though: "Oh yes, I lived in Urumqi. The Uyghur women, they are so very beautiful." VERY strange coming from a Han! Liam told him he had his camera stolen. Hans said: "I think it was a Uyghur." Liam told him he KNEW it was taken by an old Han Chinese man on the bus. This surprised the masseur but he seemed a lot more open to new arguments than the average intolerant Han, and I hope we left him with a slightly different view on the Uyghur people as we jumped to their defence instantly. This seems to be our role almost constantly these days - I am fed up of prejudiced people, when almost all the Uyghurs I have ever met have been extremely friendly and trustworthy.
Seeing as we hadn't paid through the normal channels we were worried about being ripped off, but aside from not telling the hostel, it was all above board and Hans was a really nice guy. Liam chose the Tui Na massage which improves circulation and helps head and backache. I chose the slightly longer and much more extreme Hong Kong style, which involves cracking of various bones and back stamping, which I was really excited about. Hans did me and Liam's was done by a woman who we think is Hans' wife.
The massage itself was incredible. It was hugely painful to the extent that sometimes I could barely take it and I spent a lot of the time wincing, but it felt like a good pain, like it was getting right to the root of my aches. It was all-over body and Hans somehow managed to use every single part of his body to massage mine. The back stamping was in fact better than any massage I've ever had with hands, and not at all painful. I asked Liam how he was doing it, was he holding on to anything, and he said no, he was just balancing on my back. Amazing. He also expertly cracked my neck and spinal column, like my osteopath when I'm having back problems. My body felt worked but healthy. Liam's massage, being shorter, had finished but the woman offered him free cupping, so he tried it. At the end of my massage I couldn't help but try it too. First they rub deep heat onto your back and then they attach little plastic cups and suck them into a vacuum so your skin is pulled up. This supposedly releases toxins. Then you're left for a while, and after a bit they pop the cups off. The back ends up with raised lumps all over it, but it doesn't especially hurt. We were told we had no toxins as our backs were just red and not darkened. I find it hard to believe somehow!
After our massage treatments walking felt easy and comfortable. We went next to get Liam a new camera. He had just bought the last one in China a few months previously, so it really was a shame. He bought one identical to the stolen one. Next stop was Starbucks. We were both relaxed after our treatments and could barely be bothered to stand. Liam managed to though and went off to buy souvenirs while I stayed for a chocolate volcano cake. I went down to the market to look for him, but I couldn't find him and as I didn't fancy buying my souvenirs all alone, I returned to the hostel to see if he'd turn up. I was playing around on the internet when he walked in, so we went back out together and got some Terracotta Warrior figurines and other general tacky rubbish. I also got me a blown sugar rat on an ox's back. In case anyone doesn't know, the Chinese divide their time cycles into 12 year periods, each year being represented by a different animal. To decide the order, 13 animals decided to race over a river. The clever rat realised it was never going to win, so jumped on the back of the ox, and the cat tried the same technique. The rat pushed the cat in the water, so it never came in the order. Incidentally, according to legend, this is why cats chase rats (for revenge) and why they don't like water! As the ox came up to the water's edge, the rat jumped off his back and won. So the rat heads the list of animals. The order is rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, pig. So for the New Year all the sugar blowers make rats on top of oxes, and I bought one. They had been tempting me for days. I was disappointed that they tasted not like sugar, but like licquorice, which I don't really like.
Before going out we tried to get our laundry back so we could pack it into our monster rucksacks. They wouldn't give it back without the receipts, though they hadn't told us we needed them before. Cue frantic search for little torn piece of paper. Our stuff was soon ready to go, and we stopped in the street to get a fried omelette thing and takeaway Starbucks for the wait at the train station.
The wait for the train was not long, and it was nice to find that we were alone in our sleeper compartment. We had the two bottom bunks, which are more expensive. On the sleeper train from Wuhan to Xi'an I had also been on the bottom bunk and realised why they are pricier - because getting in and out of them is so convenient! As per usual, they turned the lights out without ceremony, though this time at something idiotic like 9.30pm. Ah well, if the Gods tell me to sleep, then I sleep : )