Jac’s Journey

Leaving Dunhuang, I smiled as I realised I had the best berth on the sleeper bus; the bottom bunk at the front, which has more room to waggle your feet about as opposed to them being squashed into a tiny metal slot behind the person in front’s head. Except this bus was a night bus across the desert and I was also beside the door. Every time we stopped – brrrr.

Rolling into Golmud, described by some as the armpit of China, I was delighted to find there was a train to Lhasa just an hour later. Having secured my hard-sleeper ticket I looked forward to travelling on one of China’s most modern trains.

This train journey is an epic. Only a few years ago, engineers from across the world told the Chinese that building a track from Qinghai to Tibet was impossible. Almost half of the track would need to be laid across ice, with the highest point of the journey being over 5000 metres above sea level at the Tangula pass. Undeterred, the Chinese developed a way to build it. Don’t ask me the engineering details, but I do know something about liquid nitrogen to stop the ice melting and numerous bridges over permafrost and tunnels through mountains. It’s a highly controversial railway. It’s helped facilitate even greater Chinese migration to Tibet, which has high cultural costs for Tibetans. The damage to the fragile eco-system on the Tibetan plateau has yet to be established. It’s there to stay though, and may even be extended to Shigatse.

The train journey takes you across the northern plains of Tibet, the domain of Tibetan nomads for millenia. I saw herds of yak mingling with Chinese government buildings. Endless plains, meeting mountains far into the distance, snow-capped ranges providing a stunning backdrop. Blue, blue lakes dotting the plains and sparkling rivers attempting to run their course despite half of the surface water being frozen solid. The lowlight of the journey was the Chinese man in the bunk below me who coughed up his lungs and spat into the bin once every ten minutes. Bleugh! I contemplated gagging him with the onboard oxygen outlet above his bed, but you only get a mask in soft-sleeper. Luckily he got off the train and I had a whole six-bed berth to myself for the last 4 hours.

Altitude sickness is a real concern on the journey, and I had to complete a health questionnaire before boarding the train. Diamox from home (thanks Doc!) helped smooth the ascent for me, although my iPod gave out at the highest point on the journey (and is being nursed carefully back to health as I write…). I don’t want to speak too soon, but so far I’ve been absolutely fine handling the altitude…

I have read so much about Tibet and the level of Chinese influence here that I knew not to have my hopes too high for Lhasa. I’m expecting the best Tibetan gems to be outside the city. Nonetheless, as the taxi pulled away from the train station and drove through the city, I felt my heart break. Wide asphalt roads, neon lights, newly planted trees along the sides of the wide boulevards, lamposts that could be spares from Tiananmen Square, karaoke bars, yet more neon, loads of brand-new government and military buildings. I grew more sad with each passing minute. This is light years away from the Tibet we all imagine.

Then, catching a glimpse of the incredible Potala Palace, a sliver of joy, then towards the Barkhor (Tibetan) area, with the Jokhang Temple – and my hotel. A brief wander around the Barkhor this evening has restored my broken heart, and I can’t wait to see this place in daylight.

So, that was my journey to the rooftop of the world. Tibet has been one of the destinations that has caused the greatest number of dreamy smiles while I was in the trip-planning stages at home. And now I’m here. In Tibet.

Dunhuang is a lovely modern Chinese town. That’s almost a contradiction in terms as the Chinese propensity for cladding the exterior of new buildings in bathroom tiles is worryingly high. But there’s something about Dunhuang that’s just lovely…

Two things attracted me here; the sand dunes and the Mogao Caves.

Arriving yesterday, we discovered that they charge a Chinese fortune to get onto the sand dunes. I wouldn’t mind, but the money can’t be for maintenance/upkeep (it’s a flippin’ desert!) and is probably used to buy cars and junkets for local officials. You then have to pay further premiums to dune-surf, go on dune-buggies and paraglide. So, the rascals that we are, we decided to sneak in. You can’t fence off a whole desert, right?

Wrong. You can only fence off a little bit, that’s true. But what you can do is employ eagle-eyed people on dune buggies who can chase scoundrels out of the desert when they haven’t paid. We managed an hour on the dunes, so not bad, but in a true rock-and-roll fashion, were subsequently thrown out of the Gobi Desert…

I don’t mind entrance fees when they’re for the benefit of the place I am going to see, and next day paid twice as much to go and see the Mogao Caves.

Wow. Choose your superlative; stunning, amazing, breathtaking, bewildering. We were led by our tour guide round 10 of the c750 caves at Mogao, just outside of Dunhuang. The earliest cave dates from the fourth century. Yes, fourth. And you can still see the incredible detail and colour of the Buddhist art. They used stone to create blue, red and green, so these colours haven’t oxidised and are still really vibrant. We weren’t allowed cameras in (which I completely agree with) to protect the art, so here’s a link to some photos on google…

And here’s wikipedia, which I can’t see from China…

Ten caves is about as much as you can take in and appreciate in one morning, so it was just perfect. Our guide really knew her stuff and was passionate about what she was showing us, so she made something already incredible even more interesting. The 30-metre high buddhas, tiny detailed pieces of art, larger paintings, statues and reliefs were incredible to see.

These caves were created over a period of about 1000 years, by people passing along the Silk Road. They were created and worshipped at to aid the safe and successful passage of merchants and traders along the Silk Road. I couldn’t believe that what I was looking at dated from the 4th to 11th centuries, and was both humbled and blown away by what I was looking at.

After trade declined along the Silk Road, the caves were forgotten and then rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century by western scholars and archeologists. A lot of the caves’ content was stolen or bought for a pittance by scholars from 11 different countries around the world. By far the greatest proportion of artefacts taken from the Mogao caves are now in the British Library. I felt very embarrassed… Luckily, some were also in America, so Bill did not get the chance to give me too much grief as Harvard has got a statue from one of the caves we were in.

The argument that China was not in a position to look after these things during the 20th century is true, but I left with a strong feeling of ‘time to give it all back…’.

A truly fantastic end to my trip through North West China. It’s now a sad parting with travel-buddy Bill as he heads east and I head for Tibet; on a ten hour bus and then a fifteen hour train journey. Wish me luck…

From Kashgar to Turpan, tonight onto Dunhuang on my first Chinese overnight sleeper bus – let’s hope the driver hasn’t got an unnatural attachment to the horn as most Chinese drivers seem to have…

So, I left you on the Karkoram Highway – a real highlight of my trip to Xinjiang.

Bill and I then took a day trip to Yarkand, a major stop on the Silk Road in its heyday. Now Yarkand is a Chinese bathroom-tiled modern monstrosity of a two-horse town that merits half a column in the Lonely Planet. Four hours there and back on the bus so wasn’t worth it! I went there mainly to make an attempt to get into the Taklaman Desert, but it wasn’t to be.

We’d hung around to catch the famous Sunday Market at Kashgar. Early in the morning, standing south of the city, we watched herds of animals being shepherded into the livestock market. The camels, horses and donkeys were cool as a cucumber – knowing their own value as work animals. The sheep, goats and cattle were a little more nervous, I think knowing they were about to meet the dinner plate. It was a real blast from the past and I had to keep my ears open for cries of ‘Boish, Boish’ to avoid getting run down by a donkey cart or something similar. Business deals were taking place in front of our eyes and I caught the final handshake for a deal on a horse after a Uighur man had checked the teeth, back and hooves, much the same as we would kick the tyres and look under the bonnet of a second hand car.

Moving onto the Sunday Bazaar in another part of town, we wandered around this massive market, where you could buy a huge variety of things. The stall that made me chuckle the most was the one full of ghetto blasters…yes, some only had one tape deck! This is where your childhood ghetto blaster came to die…

Both the markets were a feast for the eyes, and a really great experience. Bill and I then caught the overnight train to Turpan, where we’ve been for the last few days. Turpan is famous for two things; at around 150 metres below sea level, it’s the second lowest point in the world after the Dead Sea, and with the dry desert heat here the people here grow delicious grapes.

The highlights of Turpan were actually outside of the city. We went to see a Karez (a very clever central asian means of irrigation, used for about 2000 years, where water channels are dug underground and a series of wells sunk to run mountain water and snow melt down from the mountains to the plains), the Bezelik caves of Buddhist artwork, Tuyok, a holy pilgrimage city for muslims and the Flaming Mountains. The highlights for me were Jiaohe Ruins and the Desert.

Jiaohe was a city from 2nd century BC to 14th century AD, when it was destroyed. It lay hidden under the desert sands and was only recently re-discovered. There is literally no water here to erode anything and it is incredible to walk through. The pics don’t do it justice but I hope you can get some idea of how special it was to be there. And that desert, after all my efforts trying to get to the Taklaman Desert near Kashgar, I was delighted to get to the desert near Turpan. If only I’d brought a piece of cardboard to dune-surf…

Having been in Xinjiang for around three weeks, I’ve seen quite a few different aspects of it. It’s a beautiful place – the scenery is breathtaking. The people are lovely and welcoming. However, there’s a noticeable tension between the Chinese people who’ve settled here and the Uighur Muslims who’ve been here for centuries. I’ve been standing in queues for shops where Chinese people have been incredibly nice to me one minute and downright rude to the Uighur person behind me. Bill, as a Chinese-American, gets a completely different reaction when he speaks English than when he speaks Chinese. It’s understandable. The Chinese government are busy pulling all the oil out from under the desert and trying to keep a lid on separatist dissent. Meanwhile, the Muslim Uighur culture and the modern Chinese culture are not mixing well. People outside China get really wound up about Tibet, but the same thing is happening here. My conclusion at the moment is that China is doing, in Xinjiang and Tibet, what Britain did at the height of the British Empire, but I don’t think China would ever recognise that.

I’m ready to move on now. I’m a bit fed-up of making sure my legs and arms are covered every time I go out, and always having a headscarf at the ready. Never thought I’d say it, but I’m also craving food other than meat kebabs and nan bread. (And the bizarre thing is that I’m craving Chinese food – not western…)

I’m expecting Dunhuang to be a real highlight – it’s a major repository of Silk Road Buddhist art, and just can’t wait to get to Tibet…

Xinjiang various

From Kashgar, along the Karkoram Highway, past Karakul Lake, the Pamir Plateau, Mustagh Ata’s glaciers, to Tashkurgan, the last outpost of China before the Khunjerab Pass to Pakistan. Just typing those place names makes my spine tingle. Our car shared the Karkoram Highway with trucks, Toyota Landcruisers, tractors, bicycles, mopeds, donkeys, carts and camels.

In the early stages of the trip, the romance of simply travelling along the Karkoram Highway was quite overwhelming. Each turn in the road brought an exclamation from my lips. The rocks were brilliant colours; ochre, cream, grey, green, blue all forming rich stripes of colour that dazzled me. As we travelled higher, the glacier topped mountains came into view, reflecting the sunlight and dazzling me even more.

Reaching Karakul Lake was a real highlight. The pictures say it all. Blue, blue water that one minute was as smooth and reflective as a mirror, the next covered in ripples that made it look even more blue. Surrounded by Mustagh Ata and the Pamir Plateau, the mountains and the lake were as stunning as each other. Lunch of yak meat and yak butter tea was taken in a yurt by the lakeside. (The meat is nice, but let’s just say that yak butter tea is an acquired taste…)

Bizarrely, we finished lunch and met another group that were travelling along the Highway. The high-tech professional-standard camera equipment they carried led to a brief conversation. They were headed from Almaty in Kazakhstan to Islamabad in Pakistan, along the Karkoram Highway, and were making a programme about the trip. They asked if they could interview Bill and I. Thinking we might be on Kazakh TV (where no-one would see us), we happily stood in front of the camera and rambled answers to their questions. Imagine my horror when they told me afterwards that they were from the BBC! When my face fell and Bill laughed and pointed saying ‘Haha, I’m alright, but that’s where you’re from’ they reassured me that it would probably be BBC World. Phew! So you won’t get to see me on TV after all…

So, as Jiao our driver joked about wanting our autographs, Bill and Jackie, TV stars, headed further along the Karkoram Highway towards Tashkurgan. More incredible scenery unfolded along the way – had I stopped the car everywhere I wanted to we’d have taken a month to get to Tashkurgan.

For a border town, Tashkurgan is a nice town. Good people, good food and a better hotel than we’d had in Kashgar. The stone city was a lovely sight, and in a great position backing onto some more stunning mountain ranges. The highest point of the trip was 4100 metres and Tashkurgan was 3200 metres. The altitude was affecting my coordination a little so it was a fairly quiet evening then up early for the return trip to Kashgar – to see all those wonderful Karkoram Highway sights all over again…

Karkoram Highway

Kashgar is just about as far as you can get from Beijing without leaving China. And not just in terms of distance. I feel a bit like Dorothy in Wizard of Oz… ‘Toto, I don’t think we’re in China anymore…’

To put it in perspective, Urumqi is the furthest city in the world from an ocean, and Kashgar was a 23 hour train journey further west – my longest train journey yet. Arriving is like stepping into another world. As the ancient crossroads for the famous Silk Road between China and Central Asia/Europe, this has been a city of international merchants and traders for about 2000 years. It’s Uigher heartland and everything is different from China – the food, the culture, the people, the dress, the music, the architecture…

Walking down the alleyways was more reminiscent of the souks in Marrakesh than China. People hammering and shaping copper pots, grilling kebabs over open coals, cooking mutton in every way imaginable, selling carpets, stoves and cooking utensils, bartering noisily with each other over clothes, shoes and spare parts for mobile phones. A lot of the women wear brown gauze veils, some covering their face completely. The Uigher children are stunningly beautiful and full of mischief. Some of them run up and talk to you, happily posing for photos. Others shout and point their toys guns at you. One little cretin hit me on the back of my leg with an air pellet!

My favourite place has been the traditional Uigher teahouse. Bill, a great guy from San Francisco, and I went there for a cup of local tea (delicious). Hanging over the second floor balcony we had a great view of the street and were in a perfect place for sneaky candid photos of these incredibly interesting people. Then it got really busy. Prayers had just ended in the Id Kah Mosque and the teahouse filled up. Just as we were leaving I noticed that I was the only woman in the place. And same again today when we went back. Yet, for all that a woman had invaded a male-only teahouse I was treated very well, made to feel welcome and smiled at/talked to people at tables close by.

One of the main highlights of Kashgar is the Sunday Market and I’m hoping to be back here for Sunday after a two-day excursion along the Karkoram Highway, stopping off at Karakul Lake and Tashkurgan, the last stop in China before Pakistan. Bill and I have hired a taxi so that we can stop off whenever we want to see all the amazing sights on what I hope will be an incredible road trip.

Enjoy the photos…

Kashgar

Barely time to catch some zzz’s in Urumqi and it was off to Tian Chi. Also known as Heavenly Lake, it was a must-see for me.

Xinjiang province is more like central Asia than China. It borders Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and a little bit of India. The famous silk road runs through here and the Uighur people speak a language more like Kazakh than Chinese.

When we got to Tian Chi, we were intending to look up Rashit, who, as expected, found us before we found him. We booked a night’s accommodation in his lakeside yurt, and had a Uighur experience right by the lake.

It was so beautiful. It’s the end of the season – and pretty cold – so not too many tourists. Such a welcome change from Beijing in National Week. Dominique and I had a whole yurt to ourselves, with the stove blazing all night to keep us warm in the freezing temperatures and stoked up again in the morning.

The scenery was so beautiful. Words fail me in trying to describe it. At one point, I was so moved I sat down at the top of a hill and just gazed, and then wrote about what I could see. It was quite spiritual.

It’s been really difficult to choose the photos to share with you – I took so many! Hope you enjoy this selection from various vantage points around the lake.

Tian Chi, Xinjiang

I was also intending to visit Kanas Lake up in the north of Xinjiang province, but hear that it’s knee-deep in snow, so the plans have changed. I’m now really excited about heading to Kashgar – the ancient Silk Road crossroads…stay tuned!

The Great Wall of China. One of the things I’d been most looking forward to. So much romance associated with it. Except when you go to Badaling, where you can’t see the wall for tour groups. So, we decided to go on a ‘Secret Wall’ tour with the Leo Hostel, to an unrestored section of the wall where no-one else goes. Excited by this, we’d tried to get a booking the previous day, but were told there were already 9 people going and only 1 space left. So the next day it was. With a tour group size of 44! One space left the day before, my backside!

The Great Wall was fantastic. On the restored sections, you can take a cable car up to the wall, but at the Secret Wall, you’re on your own. It was quite a tough climb. Even the annoying Duracell-powered Canadian stopped talking for a while. Eithne had been dared the previous night to get a photo with a feather boa on the wall, so we all did – fantastic prop! We trekked along the top of the wall, up and down steep hills, every now and then struggling up to one of the watchtowers to get a fantastic view of the wall snaking off into the distance – just like I’d imagined. Amazing to think that sections of this wall have stood for nearly 2000 years, although the section we were on was more recent – Ming Dynasty I think. I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story…

Beijing – Great Wall

The Summer Palace. Another playground for Emperors, this is basically a huge park that the Emperors and their entourages would go to when it was too hot in the Forbidden City – a holiday home! Like everything else in Beijing, it’s huge. Kunming Lake was really beautiful, and so many historic buildings and corridors and forests and paths to wander around. The view from the Temple of Buddhist Incence towards Beijing and the western mountains was fabulous – I was lucky, again, with more beautiful weather.

The Temple of Heaven. You’ll probably have seen a picture of this somewhere before. Amazing buildings. I would have loved it but for the hordes, and I mean hordes, of people there to see it at the same time as me.

Beijing – part3

There have been some fantastic times in Beijing; amazing sights, brilliant nights out with Eithne (particularly Mojitos at Suzie Wong’s – thanks for the recommendation Kim), so much history and so much to do. It’s been unmissable. There have been some low points too. I felt a bit stuck waiting for my visa extension over the holiday – 12 days was just toooo loooong. Also, with it being National Week, apparently 143 million Chinese travelled somewhere on holiday. It felt like they were all in Beijing. It took the shine off Beijing for me for a while, and reclining in my luxury hotel, I took it very easy for a few days.

My last day in Beijing restored the shine. With a delighted grin I picked up my passport and headed over to Factory 798. A disused electronics factory that has been taken over by loads of artists, it’s an amazing place. With a real buzz about it, I found some of the things I’d lost in the loooong wait. Browsing galleries, watching artists paint, shopping for handmade jewellery, handmade clothes, bookshops. A brilliant afternoon. (Again, thanks to Kim!) Followed by a trip to Beijing Opera, it brought back the sense of wonder and appreciation that I’d lost for a few days.

So, a great end to a long stay in Beijing. It was time to head west…

At last, I’ve found a decent internet connection where I can upload photos…so hard to find in Beijing!

So, taking you back to Xi’an, here are the photos from the Muslim Quarter, Cycling on the Ming Dynasty City Walls and the hike into the mountains.

Xi'an 2

And then Pingyao, here are some of the photos from the 1930s China-town.

Pingyao

And then, the first few days in Beijing…

Beijing 1

Later added…some more Beijing…

Beijing on National Day 07

And finally, a video of the moment I wrestled the Chinese lady and won…

Hope you enjoy.
Jacsx

Hostelling has it’s highs and lows. The highs have been great; I’ve travelled really cheaply, met loads of brilliant people like Caroline and Eithne, found new friends to join me for meals, nights out, days out and simple things like watching movies. I’ve really enjoyed the highs – they’ve been brilliant and helped make some of the best moments of my trip so far.

Sometimes there are lows. I’ve had my fill of the lows at the moment…excuse me while I rant…

In the Far East Hostel in Beijing there are some right eejits. There’s a group of people who drink beer for breakfast in the courtyard and continue throughout the day, progressing to straight spirits as the hours tick past. It seems to be a sport to reel in new arrivals, get them permanently pissed and make them miss going to things like the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Summer Palace and so on. They’re very cliquey and superior and, to me, they’re just lager louts in disguise and might as well be in Magaluf. Needless to say, I’ve avoided them like the plague. So this is one of the lows, but you take them as they come.

This morning, Eithne left and headed for Kunming (it was a sad farewell to my travelling buddy of the last two weeks – she’s been brilliant company). So, alone in my 4-bed dorm, sleeping off the effects of a late night at Bar Blu with Eithne, new arrivals checked in about 10am. Putting the lights on and banging about is kind of allowed cos I was sleeping late. No probs. Then, an hour later, they come back, jump into bed and start getting it on!!! Well, I didn’t pay for ringside seats for their moment of passion and certainly wasn’t hanging around to watch. So, I get up, put the light on (they freeze) and bang about just as much as they had an hour before.

Seriously! Who thinks that’s ok? So, surrounded by assholes in the courtyard and lovebirds in my room, I’ve decided it’s time to treat myself. I’ve travelled for the last month in accommodation that costs between 2 and 5 pounds a night. I’m now moving to some luxury for a few nights…aaaahhhhhh, bliss!

Okay, rant over…

Old and new. All mixed up together with a big dollop of Olympic fever. Beijing is really quite something.

It took me an hour and a half to read the Beijing section of my guidebook and after that my brain was scrambled. So, so much to do and see. And everything on a grand scale.

The usual first day of strolling around and getting oriented didn’t help. Usually I settle in less than 24 hours and begin to know my way around; jumping on and off public transport, walking familiar streets, feeling a sense of knowing my way a little. Not in Beijing. It seems that all roads lead to Tiananmen Square and I just kept on ending up there. Now, 5 days in, it all seems a bit more familiar and I feel as if I have put down some very small roots.

Where to start to try and describe it all?

Where else than Tiananmen Square… Before the start of National Week, we saw Tiananmen in some semblance of normality. On 1st October, National Day, it was heaving with people. We pushed through the crowd and went up onto the Gate of Heavenly Peace to look down on the crowds. Just people. Crammed in as far as the eye could see. Towards the picture of Sun Yatsen erected for National Week, past Chairman Mao’s Mausoleum, down to the Front Gate. I was excited about what celebrations might be on in Tiananmen Square for National Day. Surprisingly, there was nothing on. Just people, gathered to be there, watch the sunset flag ceremony, and pay homage to their revolutionary fathers. I did make a mental comparison to the parties Glasgow and Edinburgh throw for Hogmanay and smiled to myself that while they might get a bit over-excited about glass bottles in pubs, Glasgow City Council certainly do know how to throw a party!

I spent a large chunk of National Day in the Forbidden City. I knew it was huge. I just had no comprehension of how huge. Eithne had been in twice already and told me. I was in there for 3 and a half hours and didn’t see half the things that she had seen, and I saw loads of things that she hadn’t. It’s an amazing place. A playground for Emperors, it was forbidden for ordinary people to enter under Imperial rule. And the Emperors only left the Forbidden City when they really had to. All Imperial business was conducted here. There were so many different halls, courtyards, residences for different people, gardens, sports grounds and temples. It blew my mind. And so beautiful. The buildings were all built during the Ming and Qing Dynasties and are almost perfectly preserved. As soon as I can get a decent internet connection with a USB port, I’ll upload the photos for you.

I’ve spent a lot of time in Beijing’s Hutongs. Weaving across the city, these traditional alleyways are a hotchpotch of beautiful old courtyard buildings and ugly modern shacks. Many of the homes don’t have their own bathrooms so there are a lot of public loos in the Hutongs; occasional wafts leave you in no doubt that you’re passing one. The street food in the Hutongs is fabulous. Snacks whenever you want them. For a few pence. And so tasty. The sad thing is that a lot of the Hutongs are for the wrecking ball. One that I’ve passed through a few times, at the end of Hutong I’m staying in, near Tiananmen Square, is being eaten as we speak. The traders selling their wares there have only 7 days to get out. There are some artists’ impressions displayed proudly on huge boards showing what this area will look like when the construction’s finished. I have to say I prefer the Hutongs as they are…they buzz with life and character.

Today I took a taxi across the city to ‘Silk Street’ shopping area. I brought along my bartering muscles and as much cash as I was prepared to spend and yes, I spent the lot. So many beautiful things. And an invasion of Western fast-food; I managed to resist O’Brien’s sandwich shop and KFC and found a street vendor with tasty bread snacks for 1RMB. Although I didn’t resist the coffee shop…

So much more to see and do in Beijing; the Great Wall, the Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace, Beijing Opera……

Til next time, Jacsxxx

Beijing 1

Beijing on National Day 07