My Spring Festival Extravaganza - Part 2

After our week in Běijīng, we boarded a 19-hour sleeper train to Xī’ān! I was incredibly curious about a Chinese train, especially one I would be on for so long, but it turned out to be not that bad at all! Now we went for ‘soft sleeper’ tickets for that little bit of luxury as the ‘hard sleeper’ areas sort of looked like hell. Luckily, due to a mix-up with tickets and a man not wanting to be near the token foreigners, we ended up getting a cabin to ourselves! Sort of felt like we were going to Hogwarts (I wish). 

Left: our cute little cabin.
Right: the toilet... Actually better than I was expecting.

So we arrived in Xī’ān around 8am, made our way to the hostel then headed out to explore – we only had a couple of days after all. I personally thought Xī’ān was such a beautiful city! At least inside the old city wall area – and we didn’t really explore much outside of it to be honest. We did visit the Muslim Quarter which was heaving! Full of souvenir shops and food stalls, it was a very interesting area for sure. Great meat kebab thingys too. 

Upper left: Bell Tower. Upper Right: Drum Tower
Lower two: parts of a fresco we saw

Muslim Quarter

The obvious highlight of this portion of our trip – the sole reason we went to Xī’ān really – was the Terracotta Warriors. There was a bit of a hiccup in that the first day we tried to find the Warriors we got lost (and ever so frustrated) so didn’t actually end up seeing them. But Take 2 worked out perfectly and we found our way fine! Only problem being tickets. For some crazy, only-in-China reason the ticket office was nowhere near the entrance so we were forced to buy two tickets off of scalpers. Initially sceptical, but following the lead of other stupid foreigners who didn’t get tickets beforehand, it all worked out fine in the end as they were legitimate tickets and we got in without any trouble. Now I don’t know how much y’all know about the Terracotta Warriors, but they depict the warriors (and horses!) of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, in order to protect him in the afterlife. The site is divided into three pits (still being excavated). My Lonely Planet guidebook recommended starting with the third one, and finishing with the first as this is the most impressive one. Having not led us a bum steer thus far, we followed its advice – and it did not disappoint!

Pit 3 contains 72 warriors and horses and is thought to be the command headquarters considering the amount of high-ranking officers unearthed there (Thanks Lonely Planet!). I enjoyed the horses, the broken warriors did make me sad though. Poor guys.

Pit 3

Pit 2 was the least impressive – bit boring really. It was significantly larger than Pit 3 though, and apparently contains around 1300 warriors! Within this pit, they had a few of them on display in glass cases, allowing an up-close and personal look at some of the warriors. The close-up guy in the photo below is a cavalryman with his horse. Beautiful craftsmanship! The horse looks so amazing, don’t ya think?

Pit 2

Now for the pièce de résistance: Pit 1! In a building the size of an aircraft hanger (it really was huuuuuuge), this pit contains around 6000 warriors and horses! Only 2000 of these are on display though. It certainly was an impressive and intimidating sight with the 2000 stone figures all facing the entrance ready and poised for battle. The first three rows of soldiers featured archers, and these were followed by the main force of the infantry. Just incredible. I think the fact that gets most people about this site is that no two faces are alike. How this feat was accomplished I have no idea. I am hella impressed though.

Pushed our way to the front and got this bad boy

Pit 1

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the Terracotta Warriors and would recommend them to anyone who was to visit China wanting to see the best bits. Xī’ān is more of a passing-through city I felt though, not an awful lot to do beyond visiting the Warriors.

One more part: Shànghăi!

xoxo