Terra Cotta Warriors: Come Out to Play

A placard says that real bone fragments were found at the site as well

The first step in seeing the Terra Cotta Warriors from Xi'an is to get to the railway station.  From there you can catch any one of the many 306 buses that run directly to the site when they fill up.  The voyage is 7RMB ($$1.03) and about an hour each way.  Once you get there you get to talk fairly far from the parking lot to the ticket booth, to the pits.  A fun jaunt that is included in the 90RMB ($13.27) entrance fee.  There are a ton of guides, hawkers, and shops that are also eager to get ahold of you money while you try to find the warriors.

I think the site is interesting, but I don't know how much of it is really ancient.  The army was found in 1974 by a farmer and it seems like the transition of tourist trap was a little too quick.  I won't say that the whole thing is fake, but it seems a little too convenient to find something like this without any written or oral history passed down.  Whatever, it was something to see and the craftsmanship was very good.  I overheard a guide tell someone that each statue has more than 200 parts in it, but that could be exaggerated.  There are signs saying that excavation continues and they have even put some of the better preserved pieces in glass so everyone can see how detailed they are.  Renee and I saw this on the day we were going to catch a train, so we only spent an hour at the site so we could catch the bus back in time.  I'd say and hour is all you really need unless pottery is your thing or you want to splurge for a guide that will fill you in on all the details.