Day 153

The officers....
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Another early morning, which I have to say, was my fault as we had arranged with our new Israeli friend to meet for breakfast at 0800. Caz got up first at 0730 and showered and when she returned at about 0750 I got up and did the same, we eventually made it down stairs at around 0815.

Ordering the over priced, but nice English breakfast for me and the European breakfast for Caz, we waited almost an hour for them to turn up.

containing 6000 warriors and horses standing in battle formations

It's not just warriors, they've got chariots as well!!
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Already behind schedule we went downstairs, went back to the cash machine we knew that would work and hopped on the 611 bus to the Train station.

We knew we were looking for the Green Terracotta minibus or the 306 bus that would take us there. Wondering around for a few minutes a local saw the three of us looking a little lost

"Bus?" she asked

"Terracotta warriors"

how realistic?
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"Ah, bus.." she continued in Chinese but with the hand signals pointed us back toward the train station and as we walked through the arches of the wall of the city (Xian, is one of the only cities in china to retain its city wall) we saw a hut with pics of the warriors on and we walked up to it. She pointed us to a line of buses and we found the one we needed, after been initially turned away from the first bus.. We don’t know why? We got on the second.

The journey would take one hour and the monotonous drive was broke by the girl to my right practicing her English on us- she was actually very helpful and told us about some foods and stuff we should try.

loads of them
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she got off and a few minutes later the bus pulled up to a place that def looked like it could be the Terracotta warriors place, as there were guys standing outside in the old style uniforms. The bus Driver looked at us and kept repeating something in Chinese, we took this as our hint to get of the bus and it carried on. The first sign we saw in English, told us that this was not infact the Terracotta warrior museum/site it was in fact a Mausoleum of the First Emperor (the guy whom the warriors were made for) and a quick look at the guide book later told us we were 1.5kms west from where we wanted to be.

hundreds of them!
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As we set out to walk we were accosted by numerous taxi drivers and finally succumbed so the three of us got in...

We got to the museum paid the 90 Yuan entrance fee each and got our credit card type tickets that would allow us entrance to all the exhibits.

We had read in the book you can hire a guide at the museum for about 100yuan outside the museum and haggle them down to maybe 50 Yuan once you were inside. Fully prepared to be rushed around by a cheap guide and have a longer look after wards we were surprised to see and Audio tour availiable..At 20 Yuan a headset it was worth it, Caz and I went halves on one and Yuvan got one for himself.

thousands of them!
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As the lonely planet book suggested and to be honest it sounder more appealing，we would visit the pits in reverse order. Starting with the smallest and finishing with the biggest pits. There are currently three sites or pits unearthed that contain the soldiers. Pit 3 being the most recently discovered.

We walked in with our audio guide rattling on about how they are made, how they were painted, weapons etc etc etc, more info than you would ever need to know.

Pit 3 is the Smallest pit, and, due to the number of officers therein, it is thought to be the command pit of the soldiers in Pit 1 and pit 2, it was impressive to say they least to see man sized statues perfect in every detail to still be standing after two millennia under ground. There are several fairly well known facts about the Terracotta warriors, like no two face are alike, or no common mold was used for the head etc etc, but to see it up close was very impressive even tread on the shoes and chinks in the armor are different. The horses though were even more impressive prefect in every detail down to seeing the Teeth and the Bridle being exactly correct - you can see the 'Bit' in the mouth. After several photos, we walked too pit 2 a few meters away.

archers, officers, horses...
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All the pits are undercover and the size of pit 2's building left us wondering how there could be an even larger pit to come

The pit was huge and remained mostly uncovered. The soldiers were buried in several long tunnels underground and the majority of tunnels have either not been yet opened or have collapsed and been left alone. Though in the building you do have the opportunity to get up close and personal with a few of the warriors.

Some of the best examples of the warriors have been put in Glass cases, there is an officer with horse, an infantry man, a standing archer and a kneeling archer, you can walk 360' around them and providing now big fat tourist is in the way, get really good up-close photos. It also has a display of the weaponry that was found with the soldiers, bronze swords, arrow heads etc, which I found interesting as although these guys were clay; they were buried armed to the teeth with the finest weapons available at the time.

bronze horse and cart!
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The third pit or actually first pit is by far the biggest pit containing 6000 warriors and horses standing in battle formations standing east. The first three rows are of archers and those that stand behind are infantry armed (or would have been had all the weapons not been removed for storage) with spears and swords. An incredibly impressive sight to see.

The North West corner has a selection of warriors rebuilt from misc pieces as well as four or five horses done in the same way.

Once again the majority of this hall still remains uncovered. And it’s estimated that the number could possibly double once/if it is.

As well as the pits there is an exhibition hall which we flew through as the crowds in there were unbearable, and we headed back to the Car park to get the bus back.

We returned back to Xian train station on a smaller minibus rather than the main bus, which cost the same (7Yuan each) and took the same time, but with a little more comfort., disembarking at the train station, we hopped on the 611 back to the hostel, where after checking our finance again, we bought a big Pizza and two plate of chips to share.

The rest of the evening was taken up with doing the blog, playing pool, drinking and getting the beers in we headed to bed early and by about 2230 we were both sound asleep.