Terracotta Warriors(pic)

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Another day in China, another roll of film. It seems that every time I turn around in China I am seeing yet another amazing world renowned sight. The Great Wall, The Forbidden City, and now The Terracotta Warriors.

Chris and I decided that we would travel together until one of us had to head in another direction. For the most part he and I had the same itinerary/objectives in China and we enjoyed each other's company.

Chris, from Richmond, England(just outside of London), is a tremendous guy. He had been travelling for 7 weeks in India and Nepal(Annapurna Circuit) before flying into Beijing. He plans on being out in the World travelling and intermittently working for the next 4 years(possibly longer). A really great guy with a tremendous ability to meet people and make anyone laugh. While we were in Tiananmen Square we had him doing handstands and posing with Chinese tourists(for their photos) which they absolutely loved. He is about 6'3", which makes him quite a length to behold for the Chinese. At times we couldn't pull him away from their picture taking brigades....

So, our first stop, the Terracotta Warriors was in Xi'an. We bargained and got ourselves an English speaking guide for about 3 dollars a piece. He showed us around the grounds and we saw it all. In all there are 3 different excavation areas where TW's have been found. Only one statue has been found intact and the others were found in pieces and put back together. It was all very interesting and as Xi'an was the original capital of China it holds much history. The TW's were made to protect the very first emperor of China in the afterlife, and thus were broken to bits by the rebellion army, soon after his death.

Chris and I had taken a night train to Xi'an and had hoped to then head directly to Chengdu, but we were thwarted by the red army and had to detour to Lanzhou, the dirtiest city in all of China...