Half size bronze chariot, Terracotta Warriors

Today was Tour day, our first organised tourist exercise in China. We were dragged from our hotel room 20 minutes before the appointed hour, bundled into the minibus to meet our three fellow tourists, and headed off.
The FTs were a mother & daughter from Dunedin, NZ South Island, and a lone Mexican guy of around 50. The NZ mother, Lynn, emigrated from Paisley when only 10 months old. Her 12 YO daughter, Deja, is just short of 6' tall and appears 20 YO. They were both shattered from a 10 hour train journey on hard seats, arriving here at 5 am today. These are NOT the choice seats, and should only be taken by westerners as a last resort. Sergio had been elsewhere at a trade fair, buying plastic cutlery for his catering business and was having a 10 day sabbatical.

First call was to be an excavated village, 6000 Y.O., but inevitably we found ourselves in a factory outlet. Getting really pixxed off at these tactics, as everywhere we went today we had to run the gauntlet of shopkeepers & stall holders. This first was a silk outlet and was interesting until the hard sell emerged. The stuff was superb quality, however, in common with much Chinese art, is just not to our taste. I explained this repeatedly to our guide who simply ignored this explanation and kept on and on. We got out unscathed, but only just.

Then we did go to the Museum of Bampo people's village. Very interesting but not a subject for this epistle. Next was the underground Palace / tomb of Great Emperor Qin. No it wasn't. It was a model only. Again quite interesting but a disappointment none the less. The actual tomb is several miles from this site, and has not been excavated because it is 400 mtrs below ground, almost at sea level, and because the existing written records tell of traps similar to those in the pyramids.

Next was an unscheduled visit to a Terracotta warrior souvenir factory. Another buying spree: One 5" tall replica warrior, @ £8. The showroom was piled high with all sorts of potential souvenirs , all at inflated prices. We later bought a set of 5 warrior pieces for £4 and even later, about 5 minutes we collectively bought another 3 sets @ £2/set. Not the best quality reproduction.
Lunch loomed, and was a pretty boring affair. Nothing to report. Then off to the TCW museum. This is something massive & spectacular even though the first stop was yet another souvenir shop.

The warriors were discovered in 1974 and went on show under cover in 1976. The 3 sites or pits are huge, and stuffed full of these 2 mtr high statues. They were originally installed in paved trenches with 2 mtr walls between each trench, These walls supported wooden beam roofs which were then covered in earth. Time and natural processes took their toll and at some stage the timbers gave way and the accumulated soil largely crushed the figures. There are over 8000 pieces, soldiers, archers, generals, horses, and so on. Not one piece was intact, so the renovators have done a fantastic job in putting many back together. About 30% of the site remains to be excavated and this is being done very slowly, if at all. The problem is that as soon as the warriors are exposed to air, the colours painted on them just fade very quickly, as they were unfired paints, not glazes. There is much more to say about this, but you can Google it, I'm sure.

At the end of this visit another 15 minute walk through a shopping village brought us back to our minibus and a 1 hour return journey. During this time a plot was hatched involving all 5 tourists meeting up for dinner / beers.

Sue & I were at the appointed spot on time, but no sigh of Lynn, Deja or Sergio. We gave them half an hour then reckoned the ladies had fallen foul of Nod, and Sergio wasn't going to turn up anyway. Just as we were leaving, up pops our fav Mexican, but still no NZs, so we dined with Sergio and after a pleasant meal of god-knows-what, returned to our respective hotels.

We now await inspiration for tomorrow, which threatens 28 deg C and 40% probability of heavy thunderstorms. Bummer. eh?

Goodnight Blippers everywhere.