Xian June 1, Terra Cotta Warriors

Well today was an early rise to get breakfast and then head out on the Bus to the location of the Terra Cotta Warriors, Xian 8th Wonder of the World.

The bus trip was about 1.5 hours, so chance to nap more on the bus. 

The Terra Cotta Warriors complex is a big site, set out over several square kilometres. The first visit was to the tomb of the local bigwig that put all this together. He is buried about 60 mtrs down under a modest man made hill , which is nothing to look at and hence reason no photo bothered with. The thing is though, this tomb has never been excavated nor is it likely to be in the near future. This guy had a moat, yes that was the word, a moat, of mercury surrounding his tomb. It is still highly toxic today and no one is game to go digging there yet. So they have no idea what might be buried with him. Check this space in 20 years.

Next we visited the pits of the Terra Cotta army that were going protect him or whatever in the afterlife.

There are three separate areas or pits.

Pit #3 is where the first pics are from, most of the warriors are still buried and covered up. Initially they were lined up in corridors with a earthen roof overhead. Over the centuries with earthquakes and other things these roves have collapsed and turned the warriors into broken pottery. Pit #3 shows this and also had some completed (i.e. Put back together) models behind glass cabinets.

Pit #2 is the smallest and is considered HQ, there is a pic showing some horses and if you look closely, you can see one of the horses is smaller, thought to be a Mongolian horse.

Pit #1 is the main show, here there are hundreds of completed warriors standing in rows or trenches. All up, there is estimated to be 8000 warriors at the whole site. There are four types of warrior, Generals, Officers, Archers and Infantrymen. I think I heard that all PIT#1 are infantrymen. (see rest of pics)

Overall, fairly impressive, considering this place was only discovered in 1974 by a farmer pulling a head out of a well.

Lunch and then another nap on the bus home.

Tomorrow, I was planning on a Panda tour, but that seems to have gone belly up. First there was enough people (based on bookings with another hostel) but now it seems they either haven’t turned up or changed their minds. Straight answers here are rare.

At least tonight there is no band playing in the basement disco of the hostel, the last 2 nights there has been some crap cover band playing woeful songs really loud until about 1 am. And last night some of our German cousins were partying very loudly till about 3 am. I think there gone now, those crazy funny Germans.

We will see what happens in the morning for the Panda tour, the bus will probably turn up and wonder where everyone is. 

Auf Wiedersehen