Remember how I said that the Great Wall was one of the few famous attractions that had lived up to its reputation? Well, the terra-cotta warriors do not. On my last day in Xi'an, I went to see them and to explore the city's Muslim Quarter.

When my hostel tried to change the 35RMB three-site tour into a 153RMB five-site tour full of things I didn't want to see, I decided I'd try the public bus. It turned out to be a cheap, hassle-free way to get out to see the warriors. Only one of the three excavation pits at the site contain a significant number of warriors, and even that biggest pit made me think more of "Ozymandias" than anything else. The unreconstructed remains of some of the warriors poke out of the earth behind those that have been fully excavated and reassembled. Those that are complete are impressive, and I imagine it was a stirring sight indeed when the vast army was first interred -- but much less so 2200 years later.

After returning to Xi'an, I wandered down to the Muslim Quarter, just west of downtown. There are a number of charming streets there filled with -- you guessed it -- ethnically-Chinese Muslims, who converted when Islam ended its eastward expansion at this last bastion of the Silk Road. Many are selling skewers of meat cooked over open grills. Others sell colorful little discs of sugar and flour steamed together into a tasty, glutinous cake. There's also a covered market of stalls selling all manner of Chinese trinkets. Many of these stalls seem to be run by Muslim women, without a man in sight, and some of these women wear nothing more distinctive than a skullcap much like that worn by the men. It is apparently a more liberal form of Islam than is practiced in the Middle East.

Last night I caught an express train out of Xi'an, arriving 16 hours later in Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan, which is where I'll be spending the next day and a half.