Xi'an. One of the oldest cities in China and home of the incredible discovery of the Terracotta Warriors. These statue warriors were discovered in 1974 by a Chinese farmer and date back to 3rd century B.C. That's before Jesus! And for that simple mind-blowing fact, a visit to Xi'an was on the top of my list. I went last weekend with my Mexican roommate, Pamela, and her 4 Mexican friends. I think I stressed Pamela a little out because I told her "everyone better be speaking English or else you better give me some Tequila so I can start speaking Spanish" but in the end, everyone did speak English and we had a really good time together. We flew by plane and had exactly 48 hours to see the city and visit the Terracotta Army, which is 40 km outside the city. On our first day we did our sight-seeing all over the city. We first saw the Bell and Drum tower. They are exactly what they sound like.
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| Bell Tower |
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| Drum Tower |
Afterwards, we went for a stroll through the Muslim district. Yes! There is such a thing as Chinese Muslims. I really liked the area: there were tons of colorful things to buy, tasty new foods to try, and lots of people-watching. Eventually, we ended up at the city Mosque. It really looked liked a mix of a Chinese temple and Mosque...but actually more like a temple than a Mosque. We got to witness the call to prayer and I also managed to make some new Muslim friends. Okay, so actually they just wanted a picture with the Blond girl. But that's find, because I wanted a picture of my own with them too!
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| My new girlfriends |
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| The group! |
We ended our day by going to the ancient wall surrounding the city. This was my favorite part of the day. You know those travel moments that happen spontaneously and treat you to something you weren't expect? Well I love those moments. So here we are on this ancient city wall and the sun is setting. We see people riding tandem bikes and spontaneously decided that the six of us just have to rent some bikes as well! We split into 3 groups of 2. I pair up with Pamela and although the bike is a bit wobbly and we are slightly fearing for our lives, we put the pedal to the metal and even the challenge the others to a race....until the back gear fell off. As the sky got darker and darker the wall started to light up. It was just beautiful.
On Saturday, we took a 1 hour long bus ride east of the city to the location where the Terracotta Warriors were buried. We hired a guide for about 2.5€ a person. She was a professional guide, a nice Chinese lady by the name of Sally. While her English was sometimes difficult to understand, I managed to learn a lot. One interesting fact was that the warriors were made according to the height and features of a typical Chinese soldier. The tallest statue stands at 1.9 meters and the shortest at 1.7. That's considerably taller than today's Chinese society. I asked Sally, "What happened!?" She just laughed and said "maybe it's genes." Inside the Terracotta Army museum there are three pits. Pit 1 is the largest with 2,000 warriors unearthed. Sally said they think there's about another 4,000 warriors still buried. All these warriors are standing in a typical battle formation. Pit two has actual war chariots as well as cavalry and infantry units. It is thought to represent a military guard. In pit three, the warriors are standing facing each other and thus believe to have been the headquarters/command
post. Although it's just a bunch of statues in a pit, it was really cool to be present at an archeological site which is also a UNESCO World Heritage site as well. And who knows, maybe I will return some day when better technology allows archeologists to excavate more warriors. Would I recommend a trip to Xi'an and the Terracotta Army? YES.
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