Music: Traditional Tong Dynasty music performed live
Today I woke up (several times) on the train but we pulled in just after 8am. One notable thing about the trip was that I ran into another couple of Audley customers as I boarded the train last night and had a quick chat to them this morning as we got off and searched for our respective guides.
I met Amy, my guide for the next couple of days and was whisked to my hotel to shower and have some breakfast before setting out.
The first stop on the tour was a cycle tour of the city walls. These are a good 20m tall and apparently stretch for total of 14.6km in a rectangle around the centre of the city. I have to say, it seems a lot further on an old chinese single gear bike with a saddle set nowhere near high enough for a tall man!
From here we set out away from the city, towards the museum of the Teracotta Warriors (and horses). These lay buried for a couple of thousand years until, in 1974, a local farmer dug into one of the trenches while trying to sink a well, and pulled out a pile of clay parts.
The museum on the site now has 3 main buildings, each holding an excavation site. The first I went to was P2 or pit 2, the second to be dug. This contains a flexible flighting force consisting of archers, (both kneling and standing) some infantry, and a number of charioteers. P3 seems to be the excavation of a control area, as the soldiers are more senior and are facing another rather than being in a batlle formation, as in the other areas. P1 is the main attraction and we visited that last. They are still excavating this area and the building covering the site is over 200m long and almost 70m wide. The room contains 6000 warriors, mostly still buried in the ground, some of which are being pieced back together in the rear section of the hanger like structure.
As we had entered the building from a side entrance, the sheer scale of the rebuild soldiers only became apparent as we approached the front. Hundreds and hundreds of completed figures stand lined up in the trenches that have held them for centuries.
On coming back to the city, we had a little bit of time to kill and I was asked if I would like a foot massage. I thought I may as well and this took up most of the rest of the time before this evening's entertainment. I was booked into a theatre show in town and the performance of Tong Dynasty music and dance, was preceeded by a large amount of dim sum dumplings, for which the area is known. After eating almost two person's worth of these I sat back to watch the show.
The performances were great and mixed music and dance with some comedic music. Each piece telling a story or adopting a strong theme.
I took quite a number of photos here and have published a few of them, trying to show quite how much movement and colour was on display.
Now I'm back in my hotel trying to sort through and post photos and post the blogs :)
Time for bed now I'm finished!
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