Must see sight 2 of 4

Counting the bund, terracotta warriors, forbidden palace and the wall I have now seen the first two!

Woke up earlyish feeling a bit odd still but much better and headed out adventuring, got a bus to the station and wandered around until I saw a big queue of people waiting for a bus, guessing it was for the warriors I got on and it drove off before I could ask where it was going.
Luckily I was right and I slept for the hour to get there,got off the bus into 35oC heat and bought my ticket. Many english guides asking a tenner for a guided 1 on 1 tour, I think I can find it myself and choose not to!
Its a 1km walk from the carpark in the crazy heat upto the actual site and all the way are shops selling random crap! I avoid these and make it into the site and head straight for the romantically named 'Pit 1'.

Pit 1 holds two thousand warriors and I must admit in the hanger sized enclosure they make an amazing sight!
The hanger has 11 columns each with 4 soldiers and each one is life size. The carried bronze weapons (some of which they claim were actually chrome plated!) and they then had a roof built over them before fine dirt was poured over the top, sealing them in.
The warriors were then completely forgotten about by everyone until some farmers tried to dig a well in the 70s and stumbled upon them.

There are two other pits (pit 2 and pit 3) but they are both smaller and contain less things, 2 has more varietys of positions and 3 was a generals camp.
The estimates on each board state a different total for the number of warriors including those still buried, but they think between 6 and 10,000 handmade warriors are there, plus a hundred chariots and loads of other statues.

I was both overwelmed and underwelmed by the warriors, pit 1 was amazing but I feel its become to detatched from it looking down and would love to walk between them, obviously impossible!

I headed back down to the buses and was suckered onto the wrong bus in my heat induced daze and got the local bus instead. It costs the same, and takes the same time, but was a lot more exciting! Between towns it drives on the wrong side of the road, over takes, undertakes, blares the horn continuously and knows no speed limits, very speedy! in town it kerb crawls with the door open shouting for people to jump on! then more crazy speed!!

I then went to the history museum in Xian which was great, then walked to big goose pagoda which is a touristy temple but some great photos! and then found the computer market! nearly bought the chinese iphone again, and bargained hard for a knock off n900, but refused to go over 50 and he wanted 55, so i walked away, a close thing for my wallet!!

Back in the hostel to watch the game and have a deserved beer with a french girl!

see you soon!