Week 6 - Terracotta Army (17 July)

Today was the "Terracotta Army" day. Luckily, nobody else had booked onto our tour, so we had an air-conditioned car, an English speaking guide and a driver all to ourselves. Our guide, Mary, was extremely enthusiastic, and fully of interesting information. The site of the warriors includes the tomb of the first Qing Emperor 1.5km away, and has not been fully uncovered. Apparently, the technology doesn't exist yet - there are stories of rivers of mercury and boobie-traps - all sounds very Indiana Jones! But the truth is, nobody knows what REALLY lies inside the mausoleum.

All we know is what has been uncovered so far. We were lucky enough to shake hands with the last remaining survivor of the group of farmers who discovered the teracotta warriors while trying to dig a well (we had to buy a book to have a photo of him though!)


 The first stop for us was a cursory visit to a teracotta factory where we got to pose as warriors, see process for hand-making artefacts, and (yes you guessed it), buy souveniers!



After this, we went to see the main event... photos don't do justice to the aeroplane-hanger style building containing over 6000 teracotta warriors - each one entirely unique in its features. There were also crushed remains containing limbs and horses heads that reminded me of Picasso's 'Guernica'.

Also uncovered were large bronze chariots. We only found these after I had to do an impression of a horse to one of the staff.

New experience while at the site: Corn flavoured icecream.

After all this, we spent the afternoon doing not much, and went back to our local family run restaurant another meal.

Good news: Tibet may be back on track. I have given up on the last company, and have got a response from a new company that already have some Germans booked onto a trip