Xi'an Terra Cotta Warriors: May 2004

One of the many great things about living in China is that they take three week-long holidays throughout the year. Over the May holiday, a coworker and I ventured out to see the Terracotta Warriors at Xi'an.

It was my first time to take long distance trip by train and my first experience with fighting the holiday crowd. You can only buy train tickets in China three days in advance--officially. In addition, you can only buy tickets in the city of departure, so there's no way to buy a round trip ticket. During the holiday periods, travel is crazy, and train tickets go fast. So fast, in fact, that if you are the second person in line at 6:00 o'clock in the morning, you still cannot get a sleeper car.

I finally felt like my Chinese was good enough to brave the ticket buying experience without booking us to Russia or something else bizarre (the salespeople don't speak a word of English and all of the itineraries and rates are written in Chinese characters), so I made it to the ticket booth at 5:00 a.m. to beat the crowd. The first time I showed up, I was a day early. The next day at 5:00 a.m. I was there, again, and I was the second person in line. However, all of the sleeper cars to Xi'an were apparently sold in the first 5 minutes of business because my travel buddy and I had to buy regular seats for the 13-hour overnight train ride. It was at this point that I wished I were privy to the racket that sold all of the sleeper cars ahead of the official sale date.

The actual train experience wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but we were still pretty tired when we arrived. We left Xi'an really, really early the next day (the site is about an hour outside of the city) and got there before the gates opened so there weren't any crowds to battle. Because of this, we had time and space to really get a good look at the warriors.

Wow. I only give this distinction to the Great Wall and to the Xi'an warriors so far. It is believed that the terracotta warriors and their horses were buried near the tomb of China's first Emporer to protect him in the afterlife. It is known that they are associated with the Qin dynasty which existed between 211-206 BC. The warriors are not some factory-made carbon copies; they are life-size versions of real warriors that have unique facial features and distinct and elaborate armor. Here, and at the Great Wall, you will simply stand in awe. Archaeologists have uncovered over 7000 of these warriors and horses, and what's even more amazing is that the site isn't even halfway excavated. The museum exhibitors have set up the museum so that you see the excavated sections as well as the ones that are underway. You also get to see the process of piecing the warriors back together. They are broken into hundreds, if not thousands, of small pieces, and archaeologists have to put them back together. Talk about the world's biggest jigsaw puzzle.

To historians, this place is huge. The warriors are arranged in battle formation and have clear ranks and positions, showing how advanced the Qin dynasty was militarily, which makes sense considering that Qin was the first person to unify China and end what was called the Warring States Period. The individual style of each of the warriors is also a testament to the Chinese people's technological and artistic advancement during this time. To put it into perspective, Qin's empire was alive, kicking and building the Great Wall 200 years before Caesar Augustus came to power in the west.

After the warriors, everything else in Xi'an takes second place even though it was an ancient capitol and there are a ton of historical sights to see. However, there is a large Muslim population in Xi'an, and the Muslim district is a very cool place to visit for good food and interesting markets.

I accidentally exposed the film with the Xi'an pictures to the light, so none of them came out well enough to include.  Check out the website below for pictures of the warriors themselves and imagine me standing in front of them.

Link to Xi'an:
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/shaanxi/xian/terra_cotta_army/index.htm