Terracotta warriors

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Another early start saw us heading 40km out of Xi'an to the terracotta warriors. There are three pits, one with a large number of figures that have been pieced back together, but the majority still not excavated - it is very large. The second pit is a similar size, but mostly not excavated, and the third is small and has the figures of army commanders. Quite impressive that they were constructed so long ago, although apparently the emperor whose tomb they guarded ordered all books about technology to be destroyed, so it took many years for techniques used in their construction to be reinvented.



Back in Xi'an in the afternoon, we had a couple of hours of dry weather, so we cycled 14km around the city walls - it was a good view of the city, with pagodas and restored ancient city gates against a background of a very modern city the size of London with lots of high rise buildings.



The rain started just as we finished cycling, but eased off a bit in the evening, so after dinner we got a bus to the big wild goose pagoda to watch a fountain show.

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