On my last visit to China in early 2020, I finally managed to see the Terracotta Army. The scale of the site is hard to fathom. When you are standing in front of the main host, it really feels like you are facing an army, a ghost army from the past. And then you go around and there are so many unique details to explore on each statue. Each of the 8.000 statues on its own would feature prominently in a Western museum. It's weird to think about it that a ruler would spend this much time and effort on a fake army. But the result is incredible.

Why not five stars, you may wonder? I think the site is not large enough to warrant five stars. It's an afternoon visit, nothing to dive into for multiple days.

Getting There

There are plenty of busses to take from Xian. You can find direction at chinatravelguide. However, the two connections I took aren't listed it seems. Coming from Xian airport I connected by bus to east Xi'an and took a local bus. Quite fun. On my return, I used a tourist bus shuttle going to Xi'an train station. Be aware, that the mausoleum is a mass tourism site, organized very efficiently and very Chinese.

While You Are There

I am a glowing fan of Xian. The city contains several silk road sites and several well deserving tentative sites (the walls, the mosque). Being an imperial city, the area is also dotted with many other temples, palaces etc.

With Chinese bullet trains several other cities and sites are well within reach. Most notable to me is Luoyang with 4 WHS (Grand Canal, Silk Road, Longmen, Shaolin), another former imperial city. As a day trip, I managed to see the buddhas and the monks, but felt Luoyang deserved more time than I had planned for it.

The other day trip I did was Pingyao, yet another great Chinese city and a perfect stopping point when transferring between Beijing and Xian.