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3 New Warriors
Us with the Thousands of Ancient Chinese Warriors There is one main reason for us to visit Xi'an: to see the army of the Terracotta Warriors. Discovered by local farmers drilling a well in March 1974, the Terracotta Warriors are now a major Chinese tourist attraction to rival the Great Wall. The Terracotta Army was built to protect the Emperor of Qin (Shi Huang Di) in the afterlife. Shi Huang Di is also often refered to as the first Emperor of China as he was the first person to successfully unify the country during the period 221 BC to the end of his life in 210 BC. The latest estimates are that there are over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots and 670 horses buried in the 3 pits, however the majority of these are yet to be excavated. OK I stop here before I get carried away, lets go back to the begining:
On arriving into Xi'an railway station we thought it was time to be a little more adventurous & hence we decided to make our own way to the hostel via public transport only. Now this in principal isn't a hugely challenging task, but when you have a rucksack attached to your back bursting at the seams,
The Main Pit
Pit 1 is home to most of the estimated 6,000 Warriors, many of which still have not been excavated everything suddenly becomes slightly more interesting - so 30 plus mins later and several unimpressed locals (who had just had a bag crammed into there face) we left the bus, then navigated a few buildings once (or maybe twice) before finally arrived at the 'Backpax' hostel slap bang in central Xi'an. After a small snack (actually it was a massive burger), we headed 100m or so down the road to view the centrally placed Bell Tower, which was used in times past to mark sunrise each morning. Our ticket also allowed us entry to the nearby Drum Tower, which we decided to savour for later and view it & the city at night - the views were fairly good, but the tower its self was a slight let down. It was fairly safe to say at this point we were all feeling zonked and with the main attraction coming up the following day we decided to retire for the night.
After catching the bus back to the station (much easier this time without the backpacks), we jumped onto another bus heading directly to the warriors and within an hour we had reached our destination. My first impressions as we
Terracotta Warriors
Us looking windswept in the Main Excavation Hall approached the site weren't that of amazement (as most of the sights we had visited to date had been impressive structures protruding out of the ground) - however this was one site that was of course underground, as the terracotta warriors themselves had been buried under centuries of earth. There are 3 pits, which have been discoverd so far and we decided to tackle them in size and impressiveness order. Pit 3 is the smallest and contained only a few of the warriors. Pit 2 is much bigger in size, however it is under an on going and painfully slow process of being excavated by a huge team of archeologists. There wasn't really that much to see in this pit, but once all the earth has been removed it will certainly rival that of pit 1. So with two of the three pits done, I think its safe to say that we had well and truley whet our appetites, all that there was left to do now was to head for the famous pit 1.
Only when you enter pit 1, do you realise just how massive it actually is. According to the information provided, it houses approximately 6,000
warriors - it should be noted that none of the warriors excavated thus far have been 100% intact, they have all have required extensive work to be piece back together. After fighting through the mass of tourists we finally got to the front and snapped away like a crazed paparazzi group. After circling the massive pit, we took a few last photos and mental images before departing and heading back to Xi'an.
We made friends with a group of americans staying in the hostel and we all decided to head out that evening to one of Xian's many night clubs to unwind from the days activites. Like all of the clubs we had seen in China, it was highly decroated, with almost as many staff as customers and plenty of entertainment (ranging from a live singer, cocktail spinning barmen & dice games on the tables). We decided to share a bottle of spirits between the group, which came with a soft drink mixer (it turned out to be an isotonic sports drink) in a shot glass, but as in China this wasn't enough - accompanying this was popcorn, fruit and some type of nuts. It was going to be
Terracotta Warriors
Warriors undergoing reconstruction a fun night...
After the required lie in time, we packed up our bags and checked out of our dorm. The final site we had planned to see in Xian, was Xian itself from the 10m high city walls. We walked down to the south gate and after climbing up the wall we hired out mountain bikes and took a gental ride around the city's 10K walled perimeter. Later that evening we picked up our backpacks and headed to the train station to catch our final overnight sleeper to Beijing!!
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