Visit to the Terracotta Warriors, Xi'an, China
This visit to see the Terracotta Warriors was one of the highlights of the tour of China which I undertook in May/June 2005 with my daughter Catriona, who had been working in Chongqing, and son Owen. It didn't involve much walking, but the photos are worth showing, and the information may be useful to others planning to visit.
The main reason we had visited Xi'an was to see the world-famous Army of Terracotta Warriors, but we also wanted to see around the city itself - this will be covered separately. We had booked into the Jiefang Hotel, which looked out towards the main train station and the bus station as well, on the line of the City Wall. This meant we had no difficulty finding the no 306 bus which would take us out of the city to the location of the Terracotta Warriors (apparently the 307 also goes there and both return via a Neolithic Village).
We didn't have much idea how long the journey would take, or if we would have to be ready to hop off the bus at an ordinary bus stop. It took us some time to get through the traffic to leave Xi'an itself, but the rest of the journey was mainly through other built-up areas. Along the way we saw shops and restaurants with their own versions of the Terracotta Warriors on display outside to attract customers, and as this became more frequent we sensed we must be getting close!
After more than an hour the bus suddenly swept into a massive car and coach park, around which a new Terracotta Warriors Plaza was being built - presumably to house lots of up-market shops to capture the tourist dollars. In the meantime however our route took us through the usual (large) collection of tourist stalls, where some women were particularly keen to sell us umbrellas because of the rain which was falling from a grey sky - one of the few occasions we had rain during our stay in China.
There was a Noddy Train, but we decided to walk so that I could put a story on the website (not really, we just wanted to stretch our legs after the bus journey). There was no information how far we had to walk, as we followed new paths winding through newly landscaped parkland planted with trees and a few benches. It should have settled in by the time visitor numbers increase further either side of the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
In fact it was 10 minutes' walk - probably about half a mile, less than a kilometre - to the ticket gate, where we paid up 90 yuan each (one of the more expensive entry fees, around £6) and once inside we decided we should pay another 50 yuan (£3.50) for a guide. There was some discussion between several guides to decide who would accompany us, and we ended up with a short, smiling young woman called Jade.
She took us straight into the biggest hall covering the first main pit - it had a vast span of roof all the way across the trenches filled with warriors, and areas of bare clay earth that were not yet excavated. Apparently they want to try and find ways to preserve the colours that fade as soon as the warriors are exposed to the air. It really was an awesome sight: lines of these life-size warriors stretching out away from us, with their fixed stares.
Apparently about 7000 warriors have been uncovered now, including archers, infantryment, charioteers, horses, clerks and musicians, and they were all individually designed. Probably they were replicas of individual soldiers of the time, more than 2000 years ago, when China's first Emperor Qin Shihuang ordered the creation of the warriors. His own tomb lies nearby, but has never been excavated out of respect for the Emperor. It is believed by archaeologists that there could be a replica of ancient China hidden below, but it may never be seen.
The site itself was found by local peasants in 1974 when they were digging a well and uncovered some of the clay figures. Now it is regarded by many as the most important archeological discovery of the 20th century.
Some of the pits contained horses, and other figures of horses and warriors were standing above ground at the far end of the hall, where a single (western-looking) archaeologist was examining some of them closely with the help of a light. We walked slowly around the hall, fascinated by the figures.
Then we were led into the third hall, which had two small pits connected by a space where the one surviving chariot was found. One pit was thought to be a meeting room to plan for battle, the other an area to sacrifice animals. The final (second) hall had several trenches of unrestored remains, and a part where the roof had burnt.
We were then taken to a sales hall, where (we were told) the farmer who discovered the remains in 1974 just happened to be available to sign copies of a new book, which we bought for 170 yuan (including postcards). We decided against spending 400-600 Y for scaled down versions of the soldiers in the original clay, as presented to Bill Clinton!
One last place to visit - the World Heritage Site hall, with several warriors in display cases with explanations of their ranks and function, plus scale model chariots from another site.
The tour took just under 2 hours with plenty of time to take photos and ask questions, but it seemed quite quick. We had one more look at the first hall, then left. It was still grey, but the rain had stopped.
We still had to run the gauntlet of the market stalls on the way back and we were swamped by people keen to sell us little warriors at low prices. Eventually I bought a set of 8 small ones for 15 Y, although Catriona said I shouldn't have paid more than 1 yuan each.
It was lunchtime, and we found a small restaurant beside the car park. We were surprised by the prices on the English menu, and when the owner realised we were going to leave and Catriona spoke to him in Chinese, he produced a cheaper version for locals. The beer went down from 30 Y to 10 Y! It was strange green melon-flavoured beer from Tsingtao, but it tasted good. We had fried noodles and chicken chow mein, adding up to 85 Y for lunch (£6), which was quite a lot for China but not bad for Xi'an!
We found the bus to go back, and dozed off on the way. There wasn't much enthusiasm for stopping off at the Neolithic village or other attractions on the way, and we were back at Xi'an Railway Station about 3.30. This left us time for a walk along the City Wall - to be covered in the separate story on Xi'an itself.
Contributed by Andrew Llanwarne
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