Terracotta Army Mission Impossible? Nah!

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Today's mission, should we choose to accept it, was to try and make it to the Terracotta Army without the aid of a guide. It sounded like a tough call and the people at the hostel tried to advise us against it (might be due to wanting to sell us a tour perhaps?) but we decided to give it a go anyway and here's how we got on.

8am we left the hostel armed with 2 big bottles of water, Jish tucked away safely in his pocket and a few munchies for lunch. We'd read in the guide book that we could catch the 306 bus from the train station so we caught a local bus there and then hunted around for the bus we needed. Thankfully we spotted one quite quickly as it headed for the pick up bay and before you could say '7 Yuan please' we parked our bums on board and congratulated ourselves on a job well done. So far, so good. The journey took us through local villages giving us a glimpse of what 'real' Chinese life is like and we even got treated to a full-on explanation of the terracotta army from the bus company guide, albeit in the wrong language for us! About an hour after we set off, we arrived in the vicinity of the TA. What the guide book didn't tell us was where we would need to get off. We stopped at a lot of different tourist spots and each time Glynn and I gave each other a nervous 'are we supposed to get off here?' look. We decided it would probably be really obvious where to get off when we got to the Terracotta Armay but it actually wasn't quite the case. Basically, the bus pulled into a big car park and the last of the passengers got off so we figured we should get the hell off too. As it turned out, we were in the right place after all!. All that for just 7 Yuan each which is about 50 pence - bargain!

Just as we'd been departing from the city, we spotted an older Aussie lady traveller called Jean who we met at the hostel last night. She was also going to see the TA but there were no seats left on our bus. She managed to catch the next bus and by a stroke of luck, arrived at the same time as we did. As she was travelling alone and had mentioned that she gets a bit lonely at times, we offered to go round the place together and she seemed chuffed to have some company. It was a long walk to the ticket office and we had a good chance to get to know each other better. We'd decided to try and get a discount entance fee - us using our fake student ID cars and Jean playing on her old lady status. Alas the ticket officals were mean and we all had to fork out the 90 Yuan entry fee. Ah well, you win some, you lose some.

The Terracotta Army is on view in 3 separate chambers or pits as they are less glamourously called on site. We entered into pit 1 and were greeted with the sight of hundreds upon hundreds of soldiers stood to attention. It was a phenomenal sight that somehow still takes your breath away, even though you've seen pictures of it beforehand and think you know what to expect. The pit was enormous and it took us a good 45 minutes to walk around it all and take it all in. On the far side of pit 1, there are doing some restoration work so we got a chance to see some Terracotta Warriors in jigsaw formation. There were arms, legs, hands, heads and bits uniform lying in piles next to patially reconstructed ones with bits missing. Whrn you consider that they estimate there are 8,000 warriors in pit 1 alone, there's a lot of jigsaws that need doing. Not a job for me!

Pit 2 was less impressive as most of it was still unexcavated. In places it was possible to see piles of broken soldiers and horses (the horses were also impressive though only made to be half their real life size) and also to see how the army had been covered by roof beams and matting before a covering of earth was placed on top. Apparently the instructions from the emperor was to keep the army a secret so they were completely covered up. That accounts for why there's no written history about them and they were only found by accident by some local men who were digging a well in 1974. Was was good about pit 2 though was the display in glass cases of 4 immaculate warriors - an archer, a horseman with his horse, a general and a high commander. They are the ones you see all the immitation statues of and are the faces you most associate with the whole thing.

the last pit, Pit 3, was smaller than the others and also not quite so impressive though it did feature what looked like a chariot that had been ,ade of wood and rotted away with all the footmen and horses still in formation. When you see the scale of the whole thing, it really does blow your mind to think of all the work that must have gone into this. In addition to making the army itself, there were chambers to be built, the floors of each corridor of each chamber were also lined with tiles and a kind of roadway system had to be built to get the warriors into position. Unbelievable!

After viewing the pits we headed over to a dull looking building that turned out to be a bit of a museum. Unfortunately, aside from a couple of spectactular half real size bronze chariots on display in the basement, the rest of the museum was a waste of time being full of exhibits on how the buildings around the pits were constructed and also featured a bunch of photos on the opening ceremony of the area. Basically it was a museum of self-glorification for the Chinese to give themselves a big pat on the pat for being so good at organising stuff. Dull, dull, dull.

We stopped briefly in the souvenir shop but on seeing the extortionate prices, we soon took our leave. Jean was going to head off to see the emperor's tomb but we weren't too bothered with it so we were just saying our farewells and heading back to the bus when we bumped into some Dutch travellers from our hostel who we also befriended the night before. It turned out they had a private mini-bus for the trip and they were about to go back to the hostel. Before we knew it, they'd reaaranged everyone inside and freed up 2 seats for us and we were soon whizzing back to the city in comfortable seats and with the very welcome luxury of air-con, Big smiles all round! They were a fun bunch of people and seemed to take a shine to us, so much so that Glynn got himself on the receiving end of an on-board waterfight - cool!

Back at the hostel we said our goodbyes to the Dutch group for the time being and went in search of a decent feed. Round the corner from the hostel is a series of food counters serving lots of bizarre foods that we've been dying to try out. We each got ourselves a couple of steamed buns (mine vegetarian of course), spicy fried layered pancake and Glynn got himself a chicken thing on a stick covered in breadcrumbs and coated with a sticky sweet chili sauce. All that for just 6 Yuan - about 42 pence! The food was tasty and filling - just what we needed.

After taking a well earned rest, we went out in search of the night market. we had seen it marked on the map but despite walking the length and bredth of the area, we didn't find what we were looking for. What we did find instead was another slice of real Chinese life. Xi'an feels like a safe place and we have never felt like we couldn't wander off at random even at night. Tonight was no exception and we were rewarded by seeing a host of restaurants serving not only fresh seafood such as clams, shrimps, lobster and eel but there also things like grubs and toads on the menu. What made it more shocking was that all the food on display in front of these restaurants was still alive! The grubs were wriggling around, the toads were trying their best to free themselves from their meshy prison and the clams would periodically make a lurch for it and fall off the display but they never got any further. It was a bit of a sad sight but neither of us were overly surprised by it as we'd seen some quite nasty treatment of fish and seafood in the markets in Hong Kong where they cut the fish open in such a way that the heart still beats to keep the fish fresh though the fish itself is missing some of its vital organs. Yukky. Makes me all the more glad I'm a veggie and even Glynn had to admit he could now see my reasoning behind it. We did meet some nice restaurant owners and learned that people really do eat this stuff - it's not just a macabre display for the tourists. One guy took a shine to Glynn in particular and before long they were talking like long lost brothers. In fact, I think this guy could well have been Glynn's Chinese brother in another life!

Later on, as we wandered yet further off the tourist path, we came across a group of ladies playing Mah Jong in the street. It's a different type of Mah Jong to the one I've played on the computer so I stopped to watch for a bit. I tried to ask one of the ladies if it was ok for me to watch at which point she pulled up a stool and beckoned for me to sit down. A minute later and a yound lad produced another stool for Glynn and we happily watch the game progress with absolutely no idea of what the hell was going on! Eventually we worked out that it's some weird cross between dominoes and poker but I couldn't tell you any more than that. It was just such a nice feeling to be invited into the group as if we were old friends :-)

The last stop on yet another epic long walk before we wandered back to the hostel was to an out of the way supermarket. Glynn had chocolate cravings so we popped in and found not only chocolate but deodorant! If you've read previous blogs, you'll understand how hard it is to find this stuff in China so we were really happy. All in all, a good end to a brilliant day. And as if that wasn't enough, we actually stumbled across the night market after all in a completely different place than was marked on the map, so we got to do what we set out to do anyway!

Tomorrow is our last full day in Xi'an and we're just going to have an easy day of it, so I may not bother to blog. On Wednesday, we're back on the train for a 15 hour journey to Chengdu, home of the Giant Panda Breeding Centre and a base from which to do a Yangzi river cruise. Can't wait!

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