Terracota warriors...

Ok we had only one day to explore what Xi'an had to offter, of course the highlight were the Terracota Warriors however there were other things to see like the Bell & drum tower, City wall, Pagodas etc etc. For this reason I booked a half a day tour to the Terracota Warrios at the hotel for 260 Yuan per person, including transportation, entrance fee and lunch no bad considering that the entrance fee alone is 150 Yuan and lunch probably 40 - 50 Yuan so in reality I was charged 60 Yuan for the transport (around 10 Aussie dollars).

Our guide, James, picked us up at the hotel at 9am sharp and after stopping in another 2 hotels we took off. We were 8 people in the tour: an English couple, a Kiwi couple, a Canadian girl and the 3 of us, we all share the same passion for travelling and exchanged some knowledge of places we had visited.

The first stop was the Terracota Warriors factory. This sort of workshop is supported by the government having as main goal investigation of the way the warriors were built. After being presented with the process the terracota were built we were taken to the souvenir shop where we purchased souvenirs at reasonable prices (or so we thought) a 12 piece set of mini terracota warriors cost me 120 Yuan.

Back in the Van it took us another 40 minutes to reach the Museum, from the car park to the main entrance we walked close to 500 metres on a path full of souvenir stands on the side, the offers were incredibly cheap, the 12 piece of mini terracota warriors was on display at 20 Yuan, I felt really disappointed with myself because I realised I had been ripped off at the factory.

Anyway back to the museum we first accessed Pit 1, by far the largest pit of them all and also the most impressive. It was also the most crowded. The warriors were really well preserved and at the back of the huge pit a series of statues had been placed on display for a closer view.

After Pit 1 we visited Pit 2, no much to see in the pit however some figures were on display on one side, this was as close as we could get to the warriors.

Pit 3 didn't offer much, the warriors were headless and in a small number. Apparently this pit was allocated to the army superiors.

I suggest visiting pits 3,first then 2 and finally 1.

After buying some souvenirs we had our lunch at a local restaurant, the food was typical of the area but not too attractive to our eyes, anyway enough to keep us going.

Back at the hotel we had some rest and then we walked to the Bell & Drum towers (less than 10 minutes walk from our hotel), we didn't pay the entrance to the towers so after taking photos from the outside wet went to the adjacent Muslim Quarter to see the night market. Mostly food and souvenirs were sold and some other items, we ended up buying a back pack for 50 Yuan and some local delicatesses.

It started to rain a bit so we headed back to the hotel, we missed the City wall this time and I wished we had stayed here for another day...........maybe next time.

After visiting Historic China tomorrow we were flying to Shanghai to visit the ultramodern future of China........Read more