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27 August: Xi'an

Today was one of our fullest and most exhausting days, up at 06h15 we showered and prepared for the day. First on our list was the Xi'an museum, famed for its collections and exhibitions about Chinese history, the next stop would be the 8th wonder of the ancient world, the Terracotta warriors. We had been told that the museum gives 3 000 free ticket away each day, however it was on a first come first serve basis. We had been told the museum open at 08h30 and planned to be there just after 07h30 to be first in line. We headed for the bus stopping at a small street stall for dumplings, these were great filled with mince and another spicy mushrooms which caused your mouth to become numb. Taking the bus to the museum was easy enough although we had to ask a few times where we had to get off, traffic was however more than we had expected.

We were dropped off on the side of the road not far from the big goose pagoda, from which we walked the last 2km to the museum. We were later than we wanted to be, it was now 07h45 but not by to much. There was however already a long line of people at least a hundred or two, next came the wait which lasted the better part of an hour. I had been standing behind a young Chinese girl for most of the time and watched how she read a magazine from one cover to another, it was filled with everything from vacations in Africa, watches, car specifications, movies, clothing, actors and anything else one could think of. Rather than page through that she wasn't interested in she insisted on reading everything, quite amazing, although I can't say that it was the most writing I have ever seen in a magazine. She had been to the museum before she later explained and at that instance had been required to wait 3 hours before getting a free ticket, we hoped our odds would be better.

Leanne and I had split into two lines to see which one moved the fastest, naturally they moved at the same speed when at last they started to move. We were told once more we needed an ID to gain access, but we had none, luckily they didn't ask for it and all I needed to do was sign in before being given our free passes. We could however not enter the museum with our bags and had to leave it in the cloak room. The museum filled with various artifacts from China's prehistoric age to the Bronze age, mostly about the Zhou, Qin and Han dynasties. Mostly there were pottery, porcelain, clay and bronze artifacts, some swords and a lot of small statues of the people and their servants. All exhibitions had a short video in Chinese with some English captions, but it wasn't that informative. The most interesting to us was the tile endings we had seen on roofs in Lijiang and all the artifacts with dragons portrayed on them some older than 3 000 years!

From there we caught the bus directly to the train station, the journey took us the better part of 40 minutes. We almost missed the bus there and had to put in some physical exercise running after it just before the doors closed. Arriving at the station it didn't take long to find the bus heading for the Terracotta Warriors and only for Y7 each! On the bus I witnessed how a child had to go to the bathroom and how one mother lifted him up while another held a plastic bag under him. Arriving at the TW we were greeted by a huge parking lot, next came a city that the government had built around the site. They really wanted to milk this one for all it was worth! Buses were available to take those to lazy up to the dig site, while others walked the 1.5km to the entrance. Along the way were a multitude of shops with souvenirs and animal furs, mostly foxes and wolves! We reached the entrance and gave them our tickets before being allowed in. Then came the exercise of looking for the cinema where a short explanatory moving was being shown every 25 minutes. Almost no one knew where this was, but in the end we found it, although we may just as well have skipped it. The movie looked like it had been made in the 80's which is quite possible due to the discovery only being made in 1976! All of it was in Chinese with no English subtitles, we watched and in the end regretted wasting our time there.

The terracotta warriors were commissioned to be built by emperor Qin Shi Huang. Its believed that he either was terrified of the vanquished spirits awaiting him in the afterlife, or, as most believe, he expected his rule to continue in the afterlife. The army was first discovered in 1976 by peasants drilling for water. Much of the army had been destroyed by a successive emperor in order to obtain all the original weapons held by the clay warriors, all of these had to be painstakingly pieced together again!

We walked further through the huge complex in search of dig site 3, the smallest one. We had been advised to go from smallest to largest else the third one seems less interesting after the first two. It was interesting enough to us, filled with descriptive posters, showing how they looked when first excavated and displaying an example of the infantry soldiers, archers and a general in glass cabinets. When they had first been discovered they still contained the paint after 2 millennia. In total the pit contained 72 warriors and horses which were believed to be the army headquarters due to the number of high ranking officers unearthed here.

Pit two contained 1 300 warriors and horses, the detail they portrayed was astonishing, each with their own facial expression, some fat others thin, hairstyle, armor and even tread on the footwear of the different soldiers was unique! The majority of the soldiers there had not been excavated due to the Chinese deciding to wait until they had better preserving technique, before completing the dig. Pit number 1 was the largest pit with an estimated 6 000 warriors and horses all standing in perfect rows, of which 2 000 have already been excavated. Archers standing ready with their longbows and crossbows, followed by the main force of soldiers, who originally held spears, swords, dagger - axes and other long shaft weapons. The infantry were accompanied by 35 chariots, made of wood which have long since disintegrated.

After finishing the terracotta exhibits we moved to another display hall where the terracotta puppet model standing 4m tall holding a small girl puppets hand was on show. It had been used in the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics and of course it was the largest in the world. There was also a replica of the bronze chariot on display although only half the size of the original, according to what we heard from one of the guides it was to expensive to reconstruct it in its original size.

We left the dig site and found a bus heading back to Xi'an although it first made a turn or two through the town to pick up other passengers also heading there. We arrived in Xi'an just after 19h00, it had been a heavy day, on our feet all the time and this would continue till our heads lay on our pillows! We decided to make the best of what time we had left and spent the evening walking through the Muslim district. Our last meal had been 06h00 the morning and wasn't all that fulfilling, now we needed more and quickly. We headed first to the post office which we found was closed, from here we walked back past the Drum tower and stopped for desert of peanut cookies one of the other specialties. After this it was a type of hard bread with 5 small mutton kebabs, two deep fried dumplings one with meat the other with vegetables. Noodles with pieces of meat and celery and a Chinese hamburger to top it all off.

Walking back to our guest house we stopped along the way for another sweet desert, a KFC ice cream, the only soft serve we had been able to get in China! Just before reaching home we watched how one of the vendors made ginger sweets and found another selling "koeksisters" we had to try, nice but the Chinese really know nothing of sweet. We walked back the rest of the way on autopilot and were hardly awake when our heads hit the cushions.