Day 244 (China): Xian - km marker 1046 on G310 (Terracotta Army marches on)

daily distance: 112km
total distance: 14,352km
riding time: 6h 

I did some more shopping and then set out into the madness that is Chinese large city traffic. Not that the craziness is much less in smaller places. And eventually found my way to the Terracotta Army over bumpy and muddy and unsigned roads. Orientation points were a river, a couple of highways, train tracks and the sun. Good enough. But before you get there, you head back to Egypt … don’t ask me why.

As I was standing outside the mausoleum (which I didn’t really want to visit), I noticed that someone took my picture. Wondering why I looked quizzically at that person and it turned out to be Ping / Sara. The former being her Chinese name, the latter her English name. We spent the next few hours together and had a great time visiting the Terracotta Army. I was uncertain as to whether I had wanted to go really, but figured I should not pass this opportunity up. And the place is pretty amazing.

Here is a small pit … pretty huge if you ask me.

And here is the amazingly large Pit 1, with a great number of soldiers standing guard for the afterlife of the ruler. Pretty amazing … the number only being rivaled by the number of visitors, though this was a slow day. Here now is the large pit …

And here are some more detailed pictures …

I am grateful for having met Ping. She put a number of things that happened / didn’t happen over the last days in perspective, confirmed some of my hunches and thought that some of my observations and experiences may have been aberations. I would hope that they were. And she has a great personality on top of all that. Thanks for taking the picture to start with.   

Needless to say there was an issue with the bike. Where to put it? When we located the luggage storage a self-righteous policeman tried to tell us that it was for luggage only and not for bikes. Well, I left it there and locked it figuring that since he didn’t give me an alternative there was no other place.

The rest of the day was riding in the rather bleak (sky is dull and grey) area here. I found G310, which I will remain on for the rest of the trip.

I was looking for a place when darkness decended and it was getting a bit iffy to ride any further. The fog contributed to this of course. Things turned out well, a small village had a little hotel and some good food to come along with it. All was well.