Lounging with the Seven Sages

Despite the fact that we had just seventeen days in the mainland, our intention was to get an overview of the vastness that is China. So after a week in Yunnan Province in Southwest China, we boarded a plane for the city of Xi’an in central China.

Julie had booked us into the Seven Sages Inn in the old part of Xi’an. The Seven Sages backpacker’s inn is on the site of an old military housing compound and has maintained the same traditional Chinese communal layout. The inn has a series of five consecutive courtyards with circular moon gates leading from one to the other. Each courtyard had six or seven rooms around its periphery . Like any self-respecting building of any age and importance in China, the complex was built of grey brick.

Of all the guest houses we have stayed in over the last two years, the Seven Sages probably had the largest number of amenities. In addition to the tree-shaded, outdoor café, it also had an indoor restaurant with overstuffed sofas providing seating for the booths. The restaurant had a large screen t.v. on which the staff kept a regular rotation of blockbuster movies for weary travelers to watch. Adjacent to the restaurant was an all-glass sunroom with a large, well-worn pool table dominating the center of the room. In one of the courtyards they had an all-weather ping pong table made of stone. The inn had a coin-operated laundry on site. And of course, they had bank of computers for internet access.

I am convinced that some people travel to the world’s most amazing locations, find a really hip and comfortable backpacker inn, and then proceed to camp out for days or weeks at a time. At the Seven Sages, there was one pair of women –sisters, by the looks of it- who seemed to be either lounging on the sofas or nursing Tsingtao’s on the veranda every time we passed through or grabbed a meal. I couldn’t help but wonder if they knew there was an entire ancient city to be explored on the other side of the walls of the Seven Sages. In their defense, some of these travelers are in the midst of multi-month treks so it is not uncommon to veg out for several days or a week to recharge one’s batteries. A person can only tour so many temples.

True confession: we spent a full day loafing around the Seven Sages Inn ourselves. The previous day, three of us had shared a piece of delectable-looking bread we bought from a street vendor in the market. That night and into the next day we were paying the price. Annika, the only one who hadn’t eaten any of the bread, was fine. The kicker was that while the bread was wonderful looking, it really wasn’t all that good. We too spent several hours on sofas in the Seven Sages restaurant watching the animated movie Happy Feet.

But it all worked out. We were approaching the mid-way point of our seventeen-day trip and were ready for a down day. Besides, the Seven Sages’ banana pancakes were really yummy.