Xi"an and the Terracotta warriors

We arrived in Xi'an after an exhausting 20 hr journey from Sydney. We had to change planes in Shanghai and had a very tight time frame of 45 mins to get off one plane, go through customs and find the domestic gate for the next flight.  When you see to gate 208 you realise how flipping big Shanghai airport is.  If it weren't for the China airline hostess guiding us through & a very fast walk I doubt we would have made it.

We finally got to bed at 4am Ozzie time after leaving at 9am the day before.  Lucky we didn't have to meet too early the next morning for our first day.  We had a leisurely breakfast before meeting up with the tour in the lobby at 10 am. It's a small group of only 18, all from Australia and around late 50s early 60s.  Our first stop was to the big Wild Goose Pagoda the main Buddhist temple here. It was built around 1300 years ago and looks very impressive, our first taste of Chinese culture.  Excerpt below with brief outline of this pagoda.

First built to a height of 60 meters (197 feet) with five stories, it is now 64.5 meters (211.6 feet) high with an additional two stories. It was said that after that addition came the saying-'Saving a life exceeds building a seven-storied pagoda'. Externally it looks like a square cone, simple but grand and it is a masterpiece of Buddhist construction. Built of brick, its structure is very firm. Inside the pagoda, stairs twist up so that visitors can climb and overlook the panorama of the city from the arch-shaped doors on four sides of each storey. On the walls are engraved fine statues of Buddha by the renowned artist Yan Liben of the Tang Dynasty. Steles by noted calligraphers also grace the pagoda.

As for the reason why it is called Big Wild Goose Pagoda, there is a legend. According to ancient stories of Buddhists, there were two branches, for one of which eating meat was not a taboo. One day, they couldn't find meat to buy. Upon seeing a group of big wild geese flying by, a monk said to himself: 'Today we have no meat. I hope the merciful Bodhisattva will give us some.' At that very moment, the leading wild goose broke its wings and fell to the ground. All the monks were startled and believed that Bodhisattva showed his spirit to order them to be more pious. They established a pagoda where the wild goose fell and stopped eating meat. Hence its name.

After that we went for a noodle lunch then to see a museum with 20 million other Chinese since today is a public holiday.  It would have been great if we could see much of the exhibits but there was so much jostling that we gave up.  We did get to see the terracotta warriors up close as they had a small exhibition there. To see the main one are either behind glass or away from the people but these you could get really close so that was worth it.  Next visit was to the city walls also first built around 1300 hundred years ago in the Tang Dynasty then improved upon in the Ming dynasty around  1368. They enclose the old city. The wall has a 14 km rectangular perimeter, is 12 metres tall and 12-14 meters wide at the top. It is one of the most complete city walls that has survived in China and one of the largest ancient military defence systems in the world.  You can hire a bicycle for $10 for a 2 hr ride right around the top.  If we had time we would have done that.

I had one of these once, but the wheels fell off

Xi'an is the beginning of the Silk Road which I think was one of the reasons to build the city wall. It was also the ancient capital of China before they changed it to Beijing. That night we had a special dumpling banquet followed by a traditional Tang Dynasty singing and dancing show. Jon was not looking forward to the show as he hates culture shows but this one was very good.  Costumes were very colourful and dancing was great especially my favourite the dance of a thousand hands when they have these long golden tips on their fingers and stand behind each other in a line but their arms are waving around.  Even Jon had to begrudgingly admit that he enjoyed it although the dumplings left a lot to be desired.

The next morning was the highlight of the trip, going to see the terracotta warriors. It dawned a lovely day and off we trotted along with approx 30,000 other visitors. It was unfortunately a public holiday so lots of people although I believe the average visitor count each and every day of the year is about the 30,000 mark.

There are 3 pits to see. Pit one contains most of the Warriors that are intact and shows them all lined up in the corridors made for them. It also contains the "hospital" where they are painstakingly put together. 

Pit 2 shows mostly the broken pieces how they were found with bits of bodies and horses that are yet to be put together. They looked as tho they had all been killed.

Pit 3 has some more complete warriors with some lined up behind horses. It also has glass cases with some warriors in them so you can see them close up. This was the smallest of the pits.  

When you walk in any of the pits you are above the excavation with a waist high wall all around it and a huge suspended roof up above. It takes awhile to work your way to the front but luckily most of them are short so I could hold my camera high and take a couple of shots.

A brief story about these guys. Emperor Ch'in (or Qin) was the first emperor of China and became emperor when he was 13 years old.  Back then China was divided into several kingdoms and by the time he died at 49 he had fought wars with them all, won and so unified all of China. It was from his name, Ch'in, that China got its name. He wanted to have a long life so asked his alchemist to make up a brew for him which he had every day. Unfortunately for him, it contained Mercury so ironically enough, the very thing that was meant to preserve him eventually killed him as he was slowly poisoned.

He started preparing for his tomb when he was 13 and at one point there were 700,000 people working on it.  It covers an area of 56 sq kms and they believe there is a lot more underground than what has already been recovered.  The warriors were put in long corridors, had wooden beams put above them then a roof over the top with soil on top of them and were sealed in.  From what I could understand, several years after he died the enemy found them and torched the place, burning the wooden beams causing the roof to collapse and so destroying the army inside.  I don't think there were many left intact, the kneeling archer was one of them tho.

Fast forward to 1974, a couple of farmers were digging for a well and instead found the warriors. They reported it to the government and the rest is history. So far they have dug up around 4,000 of them and believe there are at least another 4,000 still buried. As there is no record of this tomb or what lies underneath (as he had killed anyone who had anything to do with it, especially the poor folk who built the warriors) it had remained a secret for over 2,000 years. An amazing story.

After this we went to the first of a long line of factories. This one was a ceramics one and showed us how the terracotta warriors were made.  It was then time to fly to Beijing to meet up with the rest of the group.