Arrived in Xi’an this afternoon and headed straight to the hotel from the airport. Great system this small group travel – boarding passes all ready for us on arrival at airports, all grab our bags and there’s always a tour guide waiting for us at baggage claim whom we follow straight to our waiting bus. There’s always a commentary from the tour group about welcoming us to their ‘wonderful city’ and what they have there plus an outline of our itinerary which is always good as we tend to just ‘go with the flow’.
The highlight of our tour begins the next morning as we head off towards the Terracotta Warriors. We stop for an early lunch at the same place as umpteen other tour groups! Have to say there’s no shortage of food on this trip. Every meal has about 10 courses and the Chinese custom is to bring them basically all at once. Chinese like to use meals as a time to eat only and get going – our culture uses a meal time to socialise and generally take our time so having a whole bunch of dishes brought to the table at once seems to make us eat more!
My jeans are still fitting nicely though so have been trying to eat reasonably well. Sorry though Kris no exercise! The TS arms are coming back!
Okay, on to the exhibition . . . .lots of walking and a ‘golf cart’ ride up to the ‘pit’ area first of all then we are taken into Pit 1 and wow, what a sight – it’s the image we most often see of the Terracotta Warriors in photos and TV but just so much more of a wow factor actually being here.
The Terracotta Warriors were first discovered in 1974 when 2 farmers were digging a well and pulled up terracotta pieces in the process. An eventual report to the government of what they had discovered took a while to make things happen however now after 30 years, archaelogists are still working painstakingly to unearth even more discoveries as they go. Technological improvements have meant that some of the colours of armour are beginning to be preserved but there’s still room for improvement so much of the still covered tombs will remain that way until better preservation methods are found.
The pit area is about 700m x 500m so we managed to get a good look at the whole area. The now 80 year old man who discovered the tombs on his land is now ’employed’ by the government and signs souvenir books on site most days – wasn’t there for us though. That was Pit 1, Pits 2 and 3 were just as amazing but not as big, Pit 4 is being worked in and not open to the public and one other pit housed the chariot and horses exhibition. A huge and amazing display all round.
Kemm is now happy – that was the ‘must-do’ for his China travels!
Back to the hotel (Sofitel with beautiful big rooms) about 5pm and meet group again later to be taken out to a ‘dumpling dinner’ and Tang Dynasty show. Dinner experience a bit bland but the show was very colourful – the Chinese ladies really are beautiful.
