The Terracotta Warriors in Xi'an are truly an amazing thing to witness. The first emperor of China had them built to protect his mausoleum in the afterlife. Ironically, at that time the nobility in China thought that mercury would give them immortality however it was the consumption of mercury that eventually killed the emperor. The most amazing thing about the statues are the details. Every single soldier is different. The face, the height, the armor...all different. It turns out that of all the statues at the site, only one of them was fully intact. The rest were painstakingly rebuilt from shards. The kneeling archer was saved because all of the standing statues around him collapsed and created a roof around him.To get to the Terracotta Warriors by public transport you have to first get to the rail station. There are loads of buses in the old city that go straight there. From the rail station you can catch a public bus straight to the site. Once here it's worthwhile to hire a tour guide. The official rate is 100 CNY through the office however you can barter and get one for less. I got my own personal one for 60CNY for about 2 hours. Alternatively you can pay over 100USD for a fully guided tour including transport from Xi'an, which equates to over 600CNY. But seriously, why would you pay over eight times more for the same product?
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