Saturday, May 3, 2014
Another long drive on fast and free roads. First we had to back-track to Baoji along the same road as the previous day and then continued along the expressway to Xī’ān. In fact we actually stayed in Lintong which is located on the outskirts of Xī’ān as it is very near the site of The Terracotta Warriors (the activity for the next morning). And just like the previous day, the scenery along the expressway did not disappoint. We passed several large cities with populations in the several millions with very high density housing, many of which are under-construction. The scale and compactness of these cities far exceeds what we are used to in the west.Stephen was recovering quickly from his tummy bug and even braved an evening Chinese meal and beer. We fell asleep to the sound of fireworks celebrating the end of the holiday period.
Sunday, May 4, 2014
The Terracotta Army Site and Museum opened at 8:30am and that was just about when we rocked up at the entrance for this highly anticipated visit. We followed the Lonely Planet’s advice on visiting the Terracotta Warriors and did our visit in reverse, (ie.: pit 3, pit 2, pit 1) to save the most impressive pit for last.
Pit 1 contains 72 warriors and horses and seems to be all high ranking officers. Pit 2 contains about 1600 statues, most of them had yet to be unearthed and restored (at the time of our visit). Pit 3, with its 2000 warriors and horses on display (of a total of 6000) was truly an amazing sight to behold. The Army did not disappoint and our visit was really awe inspiring.
With having coffees, ice creams and Subway lunch, we spent about 4 hours on site. A morning very well spent!
We then headed to the Hilton Xi’an where we’d booked 2 nights for some well deserved and ‘needed’ luxury 🙂 In the evening we headed to the local Belgian Bar (owned by an Australian) for a few drinks to end the day.
Monday, May 5, 2014
A working day. Stephen spent the entire day trying to get Sterlin fixed. The parts from Australia finally arrived in Xī’ān after a mini tour of South East Asia and China. As soon as the parts were in our hot little hands, Stephen and Lun jumped into Sterlin and headed West and out of the city to the Land Rover garage. Turned out the garage was under construction and not yet operational. The good news: there was another Land Rover garage 38kms away on the opposite side of town. Stephen and Lun set off to find it on somewhat vague directions. Turned out it was very easy to find.
The Land Rover garage was amazing and more impressive than any garage we have seen in America. There was basically no English spoken, so Lun provided very excellent translation services. The garage thought it would take about 2 hours to replace the dodgy parts still in the front prop shaft with the new and improved replacements. However, after sitting around for 5 hours, it was clear this job was not going to finish before the end of the day. We headed back into the city, leaving Sterlin in the garage overnight.
Caroline looked for supplies for Mongolia and wandered around the city. Everything in Xī’ān is very expensive. We stayed ‘in’ and enjoyed the night in the Hilton Executive Lounge.
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
Sterlin is fixed. The temporary fix put in place in Luang Prabang Laos 3 weeks and 4,000 kms ago was finally replaced with new parts. Once the old parts were removed it was possible to have a good look at them and see the wear and tear that they had suffered. This also confirmed our decision to replace them pro-actively. No more prop shaft issues please Sterlin.
Stephen had a McDate with Kim and Vaughan. Could be the last McD’s for a long while. The rest of the day we just relaxed.
