After leaving Shanghai, we spent a few days in Xi'an. It was not quite the dusty array of bazaars and lamb kebabs we had created in our imagination but we enjoyed this bustling metropolis of 8 million nevertheless. To be fair, it did have a lovely muslim quarter where we spent a lot of time revelling in our favourite past-time : eating. The food there was quite different to other areas of China and we had a great selection of breads, lamb and ramadan type sweets. In the gaps between meals, we did manage to visit a few sights with the obvious highlight being the Terracota army.
They are a reccurent theme all over the city but it didn't quite compare with seeing the real thing. Convinced that he would pursue his conquests into the After-life, the emperor got himself a whole army to guard his imperial tomb which, to this day, is considered too dangerous to excavate due to the complex traps built into it. In 3 main pits, still being excavated, stand entire battalions of soldiers of various ranks, horses and chariots. Most figures were badly damaged over time either by being pillaged or because of the rammed earth tunnels in which they stood collapsing and crushing them. What stands in front of us is the dedicated work of archaelogists over the last 30 years and there is a lot more to come if you can wait. The sheer number of them is striking but not as much as the fact that every single one is different. Their faces, hair-dos, postures, attire, weapons all differ in one way or another and the intricacy of the detailing is fascinating. Our army of tourists, loaded and ready to shoot dozens of photos didn't look like much in front of the Emperor's.
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