Xian - The Terracotta Warriors

We arrived in X’ian. ANOTHER huge city with a massive population.  As a city – I really didn’t like X’ian. I think by this point I was just fed up with the amount of people, the dirt, smog, pushing and shoving etc.  I was shattered. The only plus points about X’ian itself was the muslim quarter which had cool little market streets to walk around and China’s largest mosque which was a really beautiful place.

        

The next day we headed to the Terracotta Warriors.  A great thing to see but again, not what I was expecting I think in terms of a “wow” factor.  It really is enormous but it didn’t give me the wow I thought it would.  The statues are amazing though as every single one is different and so detailed. So far they have uncovered about 1000 but they estimate there are still another 8000 to be uncovered.  Its amazing to think that they discovered it by accident only 35 years ago.  Unfortunately most of the warriors have been broken as the tombs were raided thousands of years ago and attacked and attempted to be destroyed.  A  lot of the warriors we saw had actually been put back together again by the Chinese government. 

Seeing the warriors only took up the morning so in the afternoon we decided to go to the City walls and bike around it.  Oh my god.  Its 14km.  I cycled it in about an hour and 5 minutes.  Are you impressed? I couldn’t walk afterwards of course though and everything hurt!!     

That evening we headed to another part of the city to see the Golden Goose Pagoda (I think!) and see the fountain and light show which is to music – quite cool.   

Another early night was had and off we went to bed to ready ourselves for a big highlight - Chengdu and the Pandas!!