see Xi'an's Terracotta Army

I’ve always wanted to see the Terracotta Warriors since I saw them in a National Geographic mag when I was super young. I just got back a couple of weeks ago visiting a friend in Beijing. Since he was working during the day I took a quick side trip by train to Pingyao and Xi’an. Pingyao is a quaint town which has has all of the originating wall around the old center, super cool. Xi’an is a city of 10 million or so with not much to speak up. The warriors are located on the outskirts of town. Absolutely worth a trip and relatively easy to get to via train. Airport also very tourist friendly with everything in English along with English speakers to assist you.

I saw them in Dublin when I was very young and would love to see them again. I hear they may be coming to London on a loan soon.

Went during tourist season which is not recommended, too many people, not enough warriors on display.

yes! I’ve done this the warriors were fantastic, the museum is huge and pit 1 is enormous! I had no idea that all the warriors were destroyed and that they are being put back together from pieces or the story of the emperor ordering the warriors to be built. It was a great piece of history with some great stories around it – well worth seeing!

I’m going to go on a 21 day grass roots tour of China with The Imaginative Traveller, the tour starts in Hong Kong and ends in Beijing, after it finishes I’m going to go to Dotang to see the Hanging Monastary and then to Shaolin to see the kung fu monks and then onto Shanghai for 3 or 4 night in a luxury hotel (after roughing it on the tour) before heading home. Hopefully by the end of this week I’ll have it all finalised and booked for April / May 2006. Yipee! I’m really looking forward to it now and can’t wait to go.

I’m starting to plan my trip to China. I think I’ll go at the end of April next year and go on a 15 day tour with GAP adventures, after the tour finishes in Beijing I was thinking of making my way to the 3 gorges and touring the yanksee (however you spell that) river and then travelling further south to Hong Kong. Just need to do some more research, I’ll go to a couple of travel agents for more advice I think.

I saw them in the amazing race and have read of them earlier, what a fantastic sight to see hundreds of these warriors in that giant warehouse.