Ian Rambles
The warriors didn't disappoint. We had visited the First Emperor exhibition at the British Museum with our Home Educators group ( Thank you Karen ) so we had some background information but, in context, they are amazing.

The First Emperor is buried in a 30m hgh rectangular mound on a flat landscape. His tomb has never been lost. The terracotta warriors were buried in long narrow pits, 10 m deep, which were roofed just above the standing warriors head height with massive wooden beams and fabric then filled in to reurn the ground above to level and to hide their existence.

The point where the farmer, digging a well, discovered the warriors is at the extreme end of one of these underground corridors. If he had started just a metre further over the warriors might have lain undisturbed for another 2000 years.

Fiona's Journal
The Terracotta Warriors Tour, August 31st
Our tour bus and guide arrived half an hour early and we had only just started breakfast so we bundled most of it into plastic bags, gulped down our coffee and jumped into the minibus. We have only two fellow tourists, a young German couple, plus our Chinese guide and driver.

The traffic is not actually very heavy in Xi'an but it is truly demented. No one gives way to anyone else under any circumstances ever – it seems to be a matter of honour not to! They just pile up into big tangled masses in the middle of the huge junctions hooting their horns continuously. They ignore road, markings, traffic lights, and even the poor benighted traffic cops, risking life and limb in the middle of the melee. Pedestrians simply take their lives in their hands and walk out into the road as the traffic swerves around them with milimetres to spare, even on the striped crossings. Bicycles, motorbikes and tut tuts consider themselves exempt from all rules and will routinely drive up the wrong side of the road, half in the gutter or on the pavement or use pedestrian crossings to negotiate a big junction.

Anyway, we fought our way out of the Xi'an rush hour and onto the highway without actually killing anyone and then we relaxed enough to eat our bagged-breakfast and gaze out the windows. As we passed yet another group of apartment blocks painted in bright blue and yellow Timm, the German guy, said “Ikea Houses” which made us all laugh.

Our first stop on the tour was the site of a 6,000 year old village which had been beautifully excavated and displayed, with lovely clay models to show how life in the village might have been lived, and many well-preserved skeletons, still in their graves, with their feet pointing West towards the afterlife.

Next stop was a factory producing reproduction terracotta army figures by, near enough, the original method used 2,000 years ago. The full sized ones take five months to make, one month to cast and trim and to carve in all the intricate detail that makes each an individual, three months to air dry, three weeks in the kiln at 900 degrees Celsius and one week to cool. We could have had one, delivered to England, for £870.00 but we bought a box of 4 small ones instead for £2..50

The tomb of the First Emperor is really just a huge grass covered mound which blends into the landscape but we climbed the 280 steps to the top of it and read some of the gruesome history attached to his reign and to the creation of the terracotta warriors. It seems that he wanted his entire army buried alive with him when he died but was persuaded that this was too cruel. The real soldiers must have been very grateful to whoever came up with the alternative plan. Many people including children, were not so lucky and were, indeed, entombed alive when the emperor died in order that they could serve him in the afterlife. This tomb is believed to be full of great treasures but the Chinese government has declared that it will never be opened.

We had a magnificent feast of Chinese dishes for lunch, laid on at a restaurant nearby and, bizarrely, next door to a replica of an Egyptian pyramid and Sphynx. Then we finally got to meet the warriors.

The sight of the 800 warriors in the main pit, standing in their serried ranks as they have for 2,000 years, is magnificent and moving, despite the appalling egotism and cruelty that was behind the enterprise. The single figures in the museum were also moving on a more human scale because their faces are so noble and yet human. It made you wonder what the lif of such a warrior was really like.

Our last stop was at a hot springs, where an emperor of the Ming dynasty had created a beautiful garden and baths for his family and his concubines. Then the long drive home to Xi'an after what had been a great day. Our guide, Tracey, was excellent and we felt lucky to have been in such a small group with her. We saw other parties of 30 or 40 being marched around by martinets holding flags above their heads, and hardly given time to look at anything properly.

Arthur's Log:
It turned out that our tour bus was earlier that we thought and it arrived just after we ordered some food. So we bagged the food and ate it in the minibus.

The first place we went was a 6000 year old village (or whats left of it) which I enjoyed. Lots of the querks they had then like all buried dead bodies were buried facing west. The way they built their houses was amazing also.

Next stop was a high quality terracotta warrior factory that made very accurate reproductions. Terracotta is the material wich is a sort of coarse clay but when fired properly is very very strong. He dropped a quarter size version from a meter and a bit and you could see the chip taken out of the ground but not a scratch on the warrior.

To make one full size takes about 3 months. First is just getting all the clay in the mould and letting it air dry enough to take the mould off (about one month) seccond is letting it sit out in the sun for 3 months for it to sun dry as much as possible and, if you can believe it, one month in the oven at 900c then another ten days just to cool down. They cost 860 pounds shipped anywere in the EU or US which I thought was amazingly cheap.

They were also making the classic low chinese coffee tables. They use a certain sap from a tree that when it drys is virtually unstainable. He burnt the top of the table with a lighter - which just created a slight white mist on the solid black which he then wiped off.

Finally a room making rugs. The ones you find in your average shop are generally coarsely made but the woman here was doing one which wouud take 4 years to finish, and sell for 14,000 pounds each.

Next the first First Emperors tomb (who ordered the creation of the 12,000 terracotta warriors) They haven't opened it up. It was 280 steps to the top were we had a amazing view over the land. The whole tomb has been over grown with pomegranite bushes for some reason...

Finally we actually went to see the warriors - which was amazing, and was even better because I have already see 6 of them up close in the British Museum. The warriors were buried in underground corridors under heavy wooden roofs. The remander of the roofs have all been removed but the walls and corridors are still there and you can see them placed in ranks and squads and so on. The most amasing thing is only 30% has been dug up so there is soo much more to find! In the last pit was the vastest one of all, you could fit 3 rugby pitchs in this huge hanger of a room.

By now I was getting quite tired and didn't pay much attention to the last stop but from what I gathered it was a hot spring where an emporer and his court came in the winter so they could be clean and warm.