Warriors of Xi'an

Travel day yesterday brought me to Xi'an, home of the Terracotta Warriors. My travel again went as planned except for rain that was pouring down. Wasn't sure how much of the lack of visibility was due to rain or smog. It was a bad smog day with rain, so we will call it Smaig! Arrived at the hostel around 2:30 pm but couldn't do much. Hung around the hostel until dinner time and had a fabulous pizza with a couple of beer. All good until I returned to my room to find my 5 Chinese roommates. No attempt at communication, just all business. Not a lot of fun! To make it worse, one of the roomies likes to leave the room without closing the door to the outside world. No problem usually except for the hordes of mosquitoes looking for a

home. Only slept about 3 hours between the heat and swatting mosquitoes. Finally at 5:50 am I got up and decided to get to the Terracotta Warriors when they opened. No shower, no breakfast, just head down the road to try to catch a bus out there. I was told to catch a 306 bus, but after trying a couple of times I couldn't find it at the train station. Had talked to a Spanish guy on the train and he told me you could take a 915 as well. I just happened to run into a 915 bus so I hopped on and hoped for the best. I really think I was groggy and beyond caring. After an hour I was told to get off, so I did. A little Chinese lady who works there lead me to the ticket office and voila! It worked so well that I was third in line waiting for the ticket office to open. Had to wait about a half hour. Consequently, there weren't that many people there when I visited the 3 pits. They estimate that based on what they have dug up, what was ruined, and what is still to be dug up, there are about 6000 life size warriors buried in formation in this place. As neat and wonderful as it is, you gotta

wonder what kind of crazy emperor would have such a thing done. They made them, buried them, and protected them so they would last. Amazing, but definitely a little loonie! Only can marvel at the undertaking of the project. Unreal! Returned back to the room to find all were gone for the day, so I went on a mosquito killing spree. Got about 15 full of mine and others blood. The remnants are still on the walls and ceiling. Think I got them all, next is to squash that little Chinese guy who caused the problem. I know, be nice! Had a quick shower and headed out to the Muslim quarter of the city. What a lively vibrant place. Noisy, very busy, smelly, exotic! Only a few words

to describe this place. Found another Christmas present there as well as some tasty food. After spending 2 1/2 hours there I returned back to the hostel to relax. Will do a bit of touring on the town wall tomorrow before taking a late night train to Chengdu. Could almost write a song about that! Home of the Pandas, can't wait. Could almost write a song about that as well!