China's Xian offers a lot more than just its famed terra-cotta warriors

Walking through the alleyways of Xian's Muslim quarter, assembling a movable feast of snacks made from dates and sweet potatoes, I felt as if I were wandering the back streets of Cairo rather than one of China's oldest cities.

The meal was a reward for a windy bike ride atop the city walls, where the views from the ancient stone watchtowers are of skyscrapers and construction cranes.

Travelers on a tight schedule can fly into Xian in the morning from Beijing, see its most famous attraction — the Army of the Terra-Cotta Warriors — and catch a plane or train out later that night.

But day-tripping through this 4,000-year-old city would be like flying into Seattle, taking the elevator to the top of the Space Needle and leaving in the afternoon for Portland or Vancouver.

At the eastern end of the Silk Road trade route, Xian became one of China's great melting pots. The capital of the modern Shaanxi province, it was once the capital of some of China's most powerful dynasties.

With three nights booked in a $23-a-night European-owned chain hotel, my husband, Tom, and I spent a half-day touring the warriors site filled with thousands of life-size soldiers and horses dating from 210 B.C. Then we set out on buses and bikes to discover what awaited us in modern Xian.

Riding on the ancient city walls

Enclosing the oldest section of the city are 39-foot-high walls, originally built out of lime, earth and glutinous rice extract on the foundations of the Tang Dynasty's imperial palace.

Restored in the 1990s, the walls form a rectangle around Xian, with entrances from four main gates. Walking is an option for visiting the historical exhibits at each gate, but biking is the fastest way to see it all.

We rented one-speed Chinese bikes for $3. The ramparts are flat, which made for an easy but windy ride around a nine-mile circuit. The views revealed a mostly modern Xian where skyscrapers outnumber ancient sites.

Below, in a park that was once part of a moat, women exercised to recorded music. Close to the south gate was the Forest of Stele (Beilin) Museum, housing the world's heaviest collection of books. Writers engraved poems and stories on hundreds of stone pillars and tablets.

At the west gate, we looked over the walls and spotted orange-robed monks lighting incense at the Guangren Tibetan temple.

One drawback on the bike rental was the 100-minute time limit. We pedalled leisurely at first but had to pick up the pace when 45 minutes had passed and we hadn't yet made it halfway.

The Muslim quarter

North of the Drum Tower, in the center of Xian's busy downtown, is the Muslim quarter. Chinese-speaking Muslims known as Hui live and work in its maze of narrow alleys and low buildings that contrast with the surrounding wide streets and shopping malls. (Xian is hundreds of miles from Xinjiang province, where violence has broken out between the Uighur Muslims and Han Chinese.)

With streets too narrow for cars, locals get around on three-wheeled motorcycle taxis. The neighborhood's best-known landmark is the 1,000-year-old Great Mosque, a complex of stone and wooden buildings with a minaret built in the shape of a Chinese pagoda.

Mutton grilled on skewers is the specialty at dozens of sidewalk restaurants. Street vendors offer a smorgasbord of fried and steamed snacks. My favorite was "Eight Treasures" pudding, a 20-cent disc of sticky rice flavored with dates, sugar, sesame and nuts cooked in a tiny wooden box, then removed intact and served on a stick.

Big Wild Goose Pagoda

Xian is not only a blend of ancient and modern architecture; it's a blend of ancient and modern life. Getting a feel for both is a good reason to explore outside the walls.

Inside the old city, bicycle vendors selling sliced pineapple and watermelon show up on the streets in the afternoons to catch the after-work and school crowds. Outside the walls, crowds gravitate to areas such as the modern Datang Shopping Street, lined with Indian, Korean, Malaysian and Japanese restaurants.

Nearby is the Shaanxi History Museum. It houses one of China's finest collections of ancient weapons, ceramics and pottery. Admission is free but officials limit the number of visitors, so it pays to show up early.

Within walking distance is the Dacien Si Buddhist temple complex, where the seven-story Big Wild Goose Pagoda, built in 652 A.D., houses sacred texts brought from India.

Buddhist statues and shrines are tucked into peaceful, parklike surroundings, but just outside the entrance, a sprawling new development promises to turn a once-remote patch of countryside into a major tourist mecca.

Under construction is a housing complex designed to replicate a traditional Chinese village; a hotel and a shopping mall where the major tenants are a Subway, Dairy Queen, and McDonald's.

Carol Pucci: cpucci@seattletimes.com