Sleeper Train...DONE!

I slept pretty well on the night train, but Therese didn't. Everyone got up shortly after 7am because the lights are turned on and the conductor opens the curtains in all the rooms!

The toilet was a squat hole, but fortunately we were next to a carriage which was the next class up and had a normal toilet, so we all used that.

The views from the train of the countryside were great so that's an advantage of using the trains to get around.

All in all, it wasn't a bad experience at all. Would be better if they started doing a full English breakfast rather than a pot of noodles though.

We arrived in The Walled City of Xi'An at about 8.45am. Unfortunately, it's raining again. We had a 10 minute walk to our transfer bus, and then 15 minutes on to our hotel, Guanzhong Tavern. We had about an hour to freshen up before meeting at 10.30am to take a 1 hour private bus to the Terracotta Warrior site - everybody took the opportunity to grab a bit more sleep on the way.

Our Tour Leader arranged for us to have free lunch with a family before visiting the Terracotta Warriors. It was good homemade food, not as good as the one we had at the Hutong though. Not a fan of the Chinese Tea, but some of the food dishes were nice.

We then went on to see the Terracotta Warriors. I didn't realize how huge the site was. It was first found by 5 farmers in 1974, and then excavation began, which is still not complete. There are said to be 7000 warriors in total, and it is actually a Mausoleum for one of the Emperors. Not so long after he died, there was a peasant uprising and they burnt the Mausoleum down and smashed many of the warriors. The excavators have to cement the warriors back together - not sure if they have a discovered any completely intact ones.

We first went to visit Pit 1 - this is where most of the warriors are. It's a huge pit and it's amazing how the many there are (and still not all found) and how much detail is in each one.

We then went on to Pit 3 - I think this one is the main entrance to the Mausoleum and is quite small.

Then to Pit 2 - this is the supposed to be the biggest, which I think is actually in terms of how many warriors are in there, and not many have been excavated yet.

It was very interesting to see, and like I said, it's a huge area.

Another 1 hour bus journey back to the hotel, and again most people went to sleep. Tonight the tour leader organized a meal and show - special emperors 13 course meal with speciality dumplings, then the option of watching a traditional music an dance show. We decided to skip on this one, and went back for a rest in our rooms.

Later we headed out with a couple of others from the group to do a little exploring and get some food. We had a look at the Bell and Drum Towers and then took a walk down the Muslim Quarter - lots of little food stalls selling kebabs, hotpots and all sorts of other things. Xi'an is another huge city, very busy and the traffic is again mental! I expected a much smaller city and a little more traditional. We decided to head to a shopping mall (loads of them) and eat there. We had a chicken fried rice type thing which was only 10 Yuan (£1) each! It was pretty nice but a little too greasy so couldn't each to much.

Early start in the morning so back to our rooms to sort our bags and get ready for our 5am wake-up call...