Where China Began

Friday 9 July 1999 – Saturday 10 July 1999

We flew to Xian from Beijing, leaving on the earliest flight we could in order to get there with time to spare in the day to wander round and see the sights.  As it transpired, we did almost nothing the first day but on the next morning, together with a car and driver, started out on a sightseeing tour that covered nearly every monument and monastery there was to see.

Xian is famous for its terracotta army:  an archeological find on a monumental scale.  It is literally an earthen army, comprised of over 8,000 life-sized terracotta figures with individual features apparently modeled on real people.  They were unearthed by local residents attempting to dig a well in 1974.  The army was made to order for China’s first emperor, Qin Shihuangdi, to guard his tomb.  So far so good, as archaeologists are so busy assembling the warriors that the emperor's tomb has yet to be excavated. To date only 2,000 of the soldiers have been unearthed, and many more discoveries are expected to be found.

The main exhibit is housed within a huge hangar and covers a total area of 12,600 square metres (lots of square feet).  The area is patrolled by police in order to prevent people from taking photographs, thereby ensuring you will have no choice but to buy one of the many 10-postcard packs on sale outside.  It is a spectacular sight (the soldiers, not the postcards) although excavations are notoriously slow and will continue for many, many years to come, so what we saw was probably only a very small percentage of what actually lies below ground.

From there, we headed back towards the centre of town via the Huanqing Hot Springs.  Neither Eric nor Pippa’s mum were particularly inspired by this one, but Pippa was adamant for reasons that remain a mystery.  It was sadly not as scenic as it had presumably been during the Tang Dynasty and we didn’t stay long enough to take a dip.

Among the other landmarks we covered that day was the Banpo Museum, the remains of a Late Stone Age Village.  It is remarkably well preserved and has an impressive collection of implements and utensils on display.  We then visited a Taoist Temple (the Temple of the Eight Immortals) on the outskirts of town, followed by the Big Goose Pagoda, one of Xian’s most distinctive landmarks.  It is a five story tower, built of brick and boasting an inexplicable  name.  Our last stop of the day was the Shaanxi History Museum, a world-class display of Chinese applied arts through the ages (Shang bronzes, Ming porcelain, that sort of thing).

That evening, exhausted and hungry, we were served up the worst meal we had suffered during our entire trip and sought refuge in a pizza and beer while watching Xian’s only all-female band, the Red Hot Chilies.