Xi'an - city of the Terracota Warriors

After Shanghai we took our second overnight train to Xián - home of the famous terracota warriors. They are truly amazing to see, although i was slightly disappointed in that they are not fully excavated yet. i know it must take ages restoring the 2000 year old statues (mostly of warriors but also chariots, horses and weapons) but after 30 years i was expecting to see it all restored. However really unbelievable to think the emperor requested the people to build these warriors to protect him when he was dead, and there are approximately 8,000 warriors there. All life size warriors and fully prepared as if going to battle. A lot of it is still "underground" including the tomb of the emperor which they havent even tried to excavate as they believe they dont have the technology to do it and the tomb is protected by mercury (how they know that i dont know)

While in Xi'an we cycled around the city wall (its the oldest preserved city wall in China) which was good fun for 14 km around the city. good to be back on the bike again, although was done at quite a leisurely pace!