Day 104: Xi'an - Terracotta Warriors

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After another joyous night in our hotel we head out early into the bitterly cold morning to find a bus to the Terracotta Warriors, our goal to get there before the rest of the crowds. Tired and grumpy we again fall for the ‘its only a couple of block on the map’ and take 40 minutes not 10 to get to the bus – damn it! – but still find it pretty quiet when we do eventually make it there.

The warriors themselves are pretty impressive, spread across the 3 partially excavated pits. I, like most of you I’m guessing, knew the general gist of the attraction – lots and lots of statues to guard the emperor into the next world; but I wasn’t aware of how much of the sites was left to dig, let alone the other suspected sites which may even include a scale replica of the ancient city. Only negative was the pretty poor museum at the site, which has as much stuff about the building of the museum and hangers over the pits as it did about the buried treasure.

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To fill in our remaining few hours we head off in search of the Great Mosque, which our guidebook states may take a few attempts to find being buried in a mass of alleyways. Given our luck with directions so far this doesn’t bode well, but against all odds we find it first time. Unfortunately we got sidetracked bartering for stuff at the stalls on the way (‘North Fake’ bags and more watches), so only have time to peek through the gate and head off to the airport.