Day 24 Xian, Terracotta Army

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Hi all,

We didn't sleep too well last night-there is a snorer in our room (and it isn't Neil). We woke about 8am so get breakfast from the local street sellers and buy lunch for the day trip. We also bought our train tickets for Chengdu. I forgot my passport 😞 so once the woman had worked out what train we wanted when, (took a while with the language barrier) she sent us away to get my passport. It was only a 5 minute walk back to the hostel but it was a pain as we only had a little while before our tour started and because we then had to go through the process again with this woman.... sorry Neil :-(



We met the rest of our minibus for our tour to the TCA of the first Qin Dynasty (260-209 BC), took about an hour to get there and our group consisted of Germans, a dutch guy and Korean/Chinese Americans who were studying or working in Shanghai. The tour guide spoke most of the way about the history and what we were about to see-she was good but spoke so fast that Neil and I had to analyse and process quickly every time she came up for air, which wasn't often.



There are 3 pits at the TCA containing, so far, 8,000 soldiers modelled of terracotta clay, all were built for Emperor Shihuangdi's success and protection of his empire in the afterlife. Each pit contains life size models, including commanders, charioteers and horses and chariots. We went into each pit in the following order for the 'wow' factor of the biggest pit being last: Pit 2, Pit 3, Pit 1 and then a 20 minute cinema clip.

Pit 2: a chance to view soldiers up close- a kneeling archer, a standing archer, a cavalryman and horse, a mid landing officer and a general

Pit 3: believed to be the army headquarters due to the high ranking officer here

Pit 1: 6000 warriors stand facing east

what i didn't expect or realise: all soldiers have unique faces!!! That all the soldiers were found in 1974 broken due to the destruction of the roof and surrounding walls encasing the army, so archaeologists have to reconstruct nearly every solider to the way that 8,000 soldiers stand today! Also the soldiers were originally found by a later Dynasty that set fire to the cave the army were held in after stealing all the weapons that each clay soldier held (including spears, swords, dagger axes, and other long shaft weapons).

Afterwards we had a short drive to see the man made hill where Emperor Shihuangdi's tomb is buried.



We got back about 4.30pm, having a little rest now and then it's a toss up between the Wild goose Pagoda fountains or the free beer pong in the hostel tonight....

We choose beer pong as its so cold out, Then a nice early night consisting of a film and bed!!



Love V&N x

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