No trip to China is complete without the big three; The Wall, the Forbidden City and the Terracotta Army. We had two under our belts so far, it was time to clean up.

As we'd done throughout China we already had a place booked to pick us up from the bus, take us to our rooms, pamper and preen our tourist needs. This time it was the Shuyuan hostel, right in the shadow of Xi-an's enormously massive City Walls. After a few minutes sorting the rooms out we got down to the serious business of buying the beers and finding out what the DVD collection was like (I really like Chinese youth hostels). This was bar-b-que night too, what utter joy.

According to the crazy Chinese lady who was our guide the next day the Terracotta warriors are without a doubt the single most important archaeological find of all time, bar none. At least I think that's what she said, her accent was so unbelievably strong we had to club together after each stop to compare notes. At one point I thought she said they were made of cheese, but she was probably just pointing out the toilets.

Basically, in 246BC, at the not so tender age of 13 Qin Shi Huang ascended the throne of what would later be the whole of China (Qin is pronounced Chin, his name is where the word China actually comes from). He was unusual amongst normal 13 year olds in that he immediately began making preparations for his death. It took many years and a whole lot of clay but eventually thousands upon thousands of lifesized figures in military attire were buried in huge pits to await his death. They were supposed to be an army to accompany him into the afterlife, presumably so he could continue to conquer stuff there. According to some their faces, each of which is unique were modelled on those of his real army at the time. Either way it's an incredible undertaking and seeing it completely boggles the mind. I'm always amazed at the things rich people will do because they can't handle the fact that they're going to die.

We started off in the smallest of the three open pits (so we would be impressed each time we went to the next, bigger one). They really are pretty fantastic. Archers flanking spearmen, swordsmen, generals, chariots and even equipment and supplies. Our first pit contained only 68 warriors, four horses and one chariot, and these were impressive. Some of the pits had been broken into (after Qin's death by his enemies) and wrecked, but even these are incredible in their own way, piles of disembodies limbs, the odd head and foot sticking out of the clay. Our guide mumbled information at us inaudably and we moved on to pit two. This one is much bigger, 1000 warriors, 500 horses and 89 chariots, kneeling crossbowmen and armoured archers, an army in battle formation. You don't see the chariots of course, they were made of wood and rotted away years before, but the effect is the same. Imagine our reaction then when we walked into the third pit. There are over 6000 warriors and horses arranged in a battle line formation with a vanguard, crossbow armed rearguard, flanking troops, officers and command group. It really does look amazing. We walked all the way round the whole pit seeing something new every time we got to a new squad (seventy strong units in file). Our guide told us of a German tourist who became convinced he actually was a terracotta warrior. Someone spotted him in amongst the ranks in pit 1, dressed in clay armour with made up skin and a plastic sword. He was trying very hard to be still, but his eyes apparantly gave him away. Security guards had to carry him out, kicking and screaming. I'd have admired him more if he stayed stiff at attention like all the other warriors would if they were carried outbut great all the same.

As impressive as these big clay soldiers undoubtably are, there is only so much anyone can take in one day. We wandered round the touristy souvenirs, followed closely by our guide/leech who talked the prices up so she could get commission from whatever we might be buying. We tried elaborate schemes to shake her but she was tenatious and just kept appearing as soon as we looked like we might buy something. We got rid of her for a while in the museum, then she just materialised as soon as Amanda stepped into a shop, it was uncanny.

In the end we just legged it for the entrance and hoped for the best, we weren't too subtle so I suppose she got the message because we didn't see her again and I was able to buy a little terracotta figure in peace (price with guide 55 Yuan, price without 5 Yuan...)

The tomb of Liu Qi, the minicota warriors

Most people get out of Xi-an once the terracotta warriors are 'done', we had another place Amanda wanted to see which turned out be be awesome. The Emperor Liu Qi, of the Western Han Dynasty ruled till 153 AD. He was buried according to his wishes in the same was the great Emperor Qin was buried, with thousands of terracotta figures to acompany him to the afterlife. His followers obviously got the wrong idea though, or were just tight fisted maybe, the figures at his tomb are like little minicotta warriors, only coming up to my knees. The museum is great and very cleverly designed, it's built directly over the separate pits still full of little clay soldiers and mini horses. You can wander on clear glass walkways and peer down into history. The figures include civilians, dancers, female soldiers, and servants and come with a dazzling array of tiny accessories like mini belt buckles, mini swords, mini pots and pans and all sorts of stuff. It's like a larger than life dolls house. There are even clay animals, moulded along into the afterlife, chickens, ducks, dogs, pigs and piglets, cows, sheep and horses; pets, food (if you like clay) and nice to look at. I especially like the mini pigs.

We toyed with the idea of spending the second half of our day at a nearby bronze age village archaeological site, but the heavens opened as we stepped from the hotel and we decided to get back to the DVD room instead.

Before we went to the terracotta army I'd gone to the train station and stood in an enormous hall with three thousand other people (none of whom know how to queue, all of whom were pushing and shoving to be served) to buy train tickets. After half an hour I got to the window to be told that foreigners got served at a different window! I took me almost two hours to get our tickets out... Anyway, we were getting the train on evening afternoon of our last day, the bags were stored for a while and we'd seen what DVD's we wanted so we decided to go and have a look at the Xi-an Great Mosque, maybe even find some felafel for lunch in the Muslim quarter.

The mosque is everything you'd expect from China, but completely nothing at all like any Muslim building I've ever seen. It had a tower of sorts that they called to prayer from, a hall at one end where people prayed and thats where the similarities stop. There were pavilions, pagodas, funny rocks and all sorts of oriental gubbins Mohammed would never have imagined back in Mecca. I really quite liked it. The Muslim quarter (really one very large tourist market) was also funky, more vibrant somehow than the rest of the city, if thats possible. We walked back to the hostel for lunch though, no felafel, just ducks feet soup.