Worthwhile Warriors?

Tuesday 9th January 2007

Is it worth travelling to Xi’an (11.5 hours from Beijing and 14 hours from Shanghai by train) just to see the Terracotta Warriors. Yes, Yes, Yes. Though at 4am, I was wondering. Don’t understand why I couldn’t sleep on the train – it was quiet, warm, comfortable bed etc etc. But somehow, I just couldn’t get to sleep. Did in the end though and woke up for a wash just before we approached the city.

I’d taken some directions off Tripadvisor.com on how to go to see the Warriors on the No. 306 bus from Xi’an, so as to avoid the tour buses or private tours which take you to the ubiquitous silk factories, jade factories, carpet factories and tea houses along the way. We left our luggage at the left luggage, found the bus stop and bus all with no problem (Sid turned the tables on the numerous students who profess to ‘want to practice their English’ and got them to tell the porter that we wanted the left luggage room). It was about a 50 minute bus ride to the site of the Terracotta Warriors, a huge park-like area. The bus cost us a whole 7 Yuan (40p) and we hired the audio guide to listen to as we went around. And wow, wow, wow. No matter how good you think it’s going to be, no matter how good the posters, pictures and TV, it’s even better. Takes your breath away as you go into the first ‘pit’ and see them standing there. I’ll post a picture with this, but can’t imagine it will look anything like as impressive as the real thing.
So, as I write this sitting on the train to Shanghai, not sure whether or not we’ll get much sleep tonight, all I can say is we KNOW it was worth it.