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Published: December 28th 2007
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The train ride was pretty smooth apart from our male companions snoring which he apologised for the following morning!!! We got here on the 18th Dec (Happy Birthday to me), first birthday I've woken up on a train. We had arranged a pick up from the hostel as it was really cheap and the guy was waiting for us outside the station. We checked in and was suprised to find that the hostel is more like a hotel. Far larger than we were expecting and very clean and warm.
After our trials on the wall and not the best nights sleep we decided just to chill for the day. Obviously being my birthday we found our way to the bar a little later and enjoyed an afternoon of pool, cards and dominos. Followed by a mountain of lovely chinese food. Early to bed as we had arranged a trip to the terrocotta warriers the following day.
On the way to the warriers we stopped off at Banpo museum. Inside here there are the remains of a 2200 year old chinese settlement. They have literally covered the village with a large hanger. It was really interesting to see how life
would have been all that time ago. The village moat has been uncovered and the foundation of the old style mud huts the local people lived in. Inside these foundations you can see where they would have cooked and built fires. Unbelievable to think how old it is. Not the best for photos though - sorry!
From here we stopped at a local manufacturing unit where they make terrocotta warriers for sale to tourists. Apparently the life sized ones take two weeks to fire in the kiln. The smaller ones a day. This stop was to encourage us to buy their produce but as we are not collecting souveniers we politely refused.
Then it was on to what we had been waiting for the real Terrocotta Warriers. The pits are very far from the entrance and it was a good 10 miunte walk to get there. It was a bit like entering an amusement park. Far more developed than we had expected. There are 3 pits, number one being the largest so our guide took us there first.
The first sight you get is truly mind blowing even though we have seen footage on TV many times.
Feasting
this was for both of us!!! They are stood in many large lines the entrance being directly to the way they are facing. What first strikes you is how many of them there are and then as you get closer the fine detail of each and every one is so unbelievable. At the back of the pit lines you can see many of the warriers still lying broken. Apparently restoration of one warrier can take up to 3 months of very hard work. Pit 1 contains 2000 unearthed warriers with another expected 2000 still to be excavated all are infantry warriers. To left hand side of the pit there is a sign that shows where the local farmer was digging for a well when he stumbled across the warriers. What made us laugh is how close to the edge of the warriers he was, another metre in the other direction and he probably wouldn't have discovered them!! We took a slow mind boggling walk around the side of the pit then out through the back to pit 3.
Pit 3 is much smaller in size but is home to the some generals and higher grade warriers. There are life size horses in this pit too
happy birthday to me
full of beer and food, ready for bed which are in very good shape. At one side of pit 3 there is still an area where the warriers are in tiny scattered pieces and it is very sad to see. How on earth they manage to put them back together is amazing. They are all individual in style and expression it is mad to think where you even start.
Pit 2 in currently closed as the roof is leaking. Because of this they have set up a museum area with artifacts from this pit including brass horses and carriages. Kneeling arrow man and also pictures of the warriers when they had colour. Not all of them were found with colour but apparently within 3 weeks of unearthing them the colour completely disappeared due to oxidation. They were a multitude of colours and must have been an exceptional sight.
Originally the pits were covered in rows of wooden rafters to form a roof, then cloth and thatching was put over them to seal the rafters and finally earth was put on top of this to completely hide them. We had thought that the warriers were completely surrounded by the ground so it was surprising to find that
Banpo museum
Showing how they built houses, were sure thats not what the guy is doing!!!!! they were actually in underground chambers. It does explain how they have become so damaged though as alot of them have been broken when sections of the roof collapsed through decay. Only the legs of the warriers are solid the upper body parts are hollow.
Emporer Qin was the emporer who demanded the warriers and was also the emporer that started the great wall, this guy knew how to spend money. What is so unbelievable is that he did all this on a mass scale but never wanted it to be found. It was built around his mausaleum for protection and safe passage into the afterlife. All of the 120,000 workers who knew of the warriers existance were killed when the project was completed and if the manufacturers of the warriers did not produce the expected exceptional quality they would also be killed - ungrateful guy eh??
We had a great time here and they truly deserve to be the 8th wonder of the world.
Our last few days in Xi-an have been very cold and as we only really came here for the warriers we have enjoyed some much needed rest. Xi-an itself is a very
modern city which we did not expect. There are shopping malls everywhere you turn and the place is exceptionally clean. We have visited the local bell and drum towers which historically were used to signal dusk and dawn. Bell for dawn, drum for dusk. These are very pretty, especially at night. We popped into the local Walmart to get a few bits and found that you can buy, live snakes, fish of all varieties and even the odd live frog should you wish, we found it really interesting once we'd closed our mouths!!!!!
We leave here today (21st December) to enjoy xmas in Shanghai......Another flight, another adventure!!!!
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Mark N
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XI-AN THE HOME OF THE WARRIERS
Hi Both - Just read your entry about Xi-an and the "Home of the Warriers". It was brilliant; thank you. Really interesting, really enjoyed it! REALLY looking forward to your Vietnam and Cambodia blog entry. Keep Safe!x