This morning we managed to wake up nice and early after an excellent nights sleep in the cooler air, despite Sarahs wiggling in her cocoon. The alarm sounded at 6.30 but we were already up and awake, slipping on our new recently acquired Chinese walking shoes. We had planned the previous night on an early morning walk to blow away the cobwebs, start our acclimatisation to the altitude and take in some of the amazing scenery!
By 6.40 we were walking over the rocky river banks to head over a dodgy suspension bridge spanning the Indus. From here we passed through a small awakening village, passed some lovely irrigated high land and up a steep but not too high local hill. The views from the top were stunning, at the bottom of the cliffs below us were two wild rivers crashing into each other and dominating either end of the valley were huge snow covered mountains projecting into the sky. At about 8.30 the sun rose over the valley wall, suddenly warming us up and bathing our surroundings with bright colours. All this before breakfast!
After sitting and enjoying the peacefulness we headed down back towards the bridge and village to grab brekkie. We chose the government run motel to eat omelets and parathas - a kind of fried flaky chapati, all washed down with big mugs of milky tea! Mmmm. At breakfast we met two nice people who had ridden motor bikes from Switzerland, speaking to them made us quite jealous! We sat about swapping stories for a while before heading off and attempting to find transport towards a town with a tailor. There were a few transport options to take us away from this ramshackle collection of huts but trying to figure them out was chaotic and complicated. In the end we left the hecticness behind and walked a little further down the road and put our bags down. We did not have to wait long before a car heading our way turned up. It was a tiny suzuki car about to fall apart at any minute, but cheap and leaving straight away so we were happy to take it. Our bags rather worryingly were tossed loosely onto a roof rack, when Sarah and I tried to tie them on, the driver said "no, no, no worries - lets go!" Rather reluctantly we jumped in and set off on the two hour roller coaster ride.
The driver and passenger were both young Pakistani men heading home to Gilgit, our stop was on the way so we were probably covering their petrol for the journey. Seat belts must have been an optional extra not taken up by the original owner, so the only thing holding us into our seats were the g-forces of acceleration and tight turns. With the obligatory latest bollywood style beats blaring out of the crackling home installed sound system we flew through the valleys at the speed of the water rushing below us.
The driver was actually a strange one, instead of consistently scaring the crap out of us with his driving he would slow down to a snails pace whenever he lost his concentration or he was thinking of something else. As soon as he realised the foot would be back on the accelerator, pedal to the floor no matter how sharp the bends in front whilst trying to avoid the rock fall debris at all costs! This constant change from fast to slow really made us feel as if we were on a roller coaster.
There is no way we could possibly summerise the scenery in words or pictures, we could write every relevant adjective in the most positive way and it would still come no way near describing how amazing, epic and huge our surroundings are. The road is precariously cut into the mountain edges, consistently at risk of being reclaimed by the mountains. The huge monstrous giants to our sides are continuously shedding their skins sending huge house sized chunks of rock crashing down, or tones of loose shingle. We have been warned by so many people that no matter what we do, do not travel on the KKH during or just after rain. The slopes become even more unstable making landslides and rockfalls a real danger. The locals of course have different views on danger as their lives are in the hands of God, 'Insha'Allah' - God willing they say, or so be it. To make the journey even more heart thumpingly scary is the added danger from the partial culprit responsible for the dramatic scenery, the Indus. This wild, frothy savage river is always there, nipping at your heals seemingly begging to swallow you up and spit you out thousands of miles away.
Its a constant battle for the engineers and road builders fighting the powers of ice and water here. The road is important not so much for the trade with China (which is surprisingly light) , but as it is the only access road for the population in the area. Come spring the gushing snow melt water washes away whole sections of tarmac, cutting new gashes to be filled in or bridged. What the water does not damage the constant rock falls and landslides finish off making the whole process a never ending story. You really feel Geology has stepped up a gear and is racing instead of moving at its usual slow crusty pace.
As we have said the views from the car were stunning, unreal and unbelievably epic. My insides were kicking and screaming, I just wanted to stick my head out the open window and yell at the mountains, yell at everything we were passing, just shout how amazing I thought it was - the scale and awesomeness was just too much for my brain to take in. The people we had met so far, the culture, the huge 7000m+ mountains wanting to collapse on us, the history, everything makes this the most incredible place I think I have ever been. Is it possible to have visited the best place on Earth? I was certainly thinking that in the car. The feeling was quickly followed by panic! Will this mean going back home and finding a job as everything will be a disappointment from now?? I doubt it. We will just have to try and blag a flight to space with Willows soon to be ex-boss before its too late! Anyway, we feel like little people in a giants world, dwarfed by everything including the generosity and hospitality of the people we meet. I have never shaken so many hands in such a short space of time.
The driver dropped us off in a small hamlet called Ganish, a junction on the KKH where the road turning off soars up to our destination, the village of Karimabad. After sitting on the side of the road for only a minute or two we hitched a ride in the gravel filled trailer of a passing builders tractor. Sitting on the pile of gravel surrounded by smiling men whist chugging noisily up the hill we couldn't help stealing a quick smile as we finally felt the long lost spirit of adventure after its long Chinese absence. The tractor struggled with its load up the steep slope so it took a while to cover the 6 or 7km to our village. After our arrival we quickly found some where to crash and hit the local eatery for a tasty bowl of daal and chapattis.
Karimabad is the ancient capital of the Hunza valley. Its a very small village with an amazing fort, all perched high up with stupendous views of the valleys below. Behind us towers the mighty Ultar mountain standing tall at 7388m, which until '96 was the lowest unclimbed attempted mountain, claiming quite a few peoples lives. The climbers who made the summit died on the way down and no-one has made it since. You can see why when you look at it! Opposite on the other side of the valley we are watched by Rakaposhi, weighing in at 7010m. In every other direction we are circled by anonymous peaks that would dwarf anything in Europe.
Our accommodation was nice, with great views of the valley. In the afternoon we checked out some local info on trekking routes then hit a local hotel for drinks (cokes) with the Swiss motorcyclists. We spent the evening watching the pointless, over the top, goose stepping extravaganza that was the Olympic opening ceremony, whooping with joy that we were no longer in that awful place called China.
Sunday, 10 August 2008
Day Two - KKH - Tashkurgan to Sost
Hello all. We have missed off Day One because we haven't got it with us. It will be going on here soon but are sticking this on now for you to read.
After gobbling some noodles and buying some water Sam and I headed to the customs, quarantine and immigration building in Tashkurgan. We had been told to be there for 10am (Beijing time) so on our arrival we were slightly surprised to only see the two Koreans (who were also on our bus) and our loaded bus. The place didn't open to begin border formalities until 10:30 and with no sign of other passengers or the driver we sat and waited. At about 10:20 people started to arrive for work - boarder guards, police, the army, they all started rolling up in their 4x4's smoking their 10th cigarette of the morning. While we had been waiting, pick up trucks loaded with melons, Royal Korea bedspreads, pots and pans and other such paraphernalia were creating piles of baggage outside the entrance. Our hopes of a swift process were getting quickly dashed. Finally our driver and the rest of the passengers (mainly Pakistani business men) appeared and we started to get the bus unloaded.
The China exit procedure has three control points. First is quarantine, where you have to sign a form saying you aren't ill and stand in front of a tall, slender machine which can instantly, using thermal imaging, detect whether or not you have a fever. Second is the x-ray/whats in our bag routine and finally the exit stamp. The whole process however was marred by three 'hazard' factors which meant, although it wasn't that bad it had the potential to be alot slicker. Firstly, all the baggage. There was on average, between 5 - 10 boxes/bags to each person so there was ALOT of two-ing and fro-ing between each of the controls as business men hurried around quite a cramped and narrow hall trying to keep everything together. Secondly, just for the Olympics, they had rearranged all the control points. All the controls and desks were arranged in a neat stright and logical line with Chinese and English signs. The only problem with this re-arranging was that some MUPPET had put the x-ray machine backwards. So (bearing in mind our first problem) you had to walk past the machine, pur our bags on, shuffle back to the 'front', clamber over the queue of people waiting to put their boxes and bags on, grab our bags and squeeze back past everyone. The third factor just to add to this circus was that it was all being filmed for one of Chinas many patriotic TV channels to show what a good job everyone is doing in the face of the Olympics. In this already chaotic process of boxes and backwards x-ray machines the authorities managed to trap the foreigners; two English (us), two Koreans, two Japanese and one Pakistan medical school graduate. We were then made to watch an English language video about transporting counterfiet and pirated goods. Our saving grace was that the videos' customs officer was non-other than arm and leg wielding, Rush Hour, Rumble in the Bronx, Kung Fu king Jackie Chan! So rather than stand there and take an otherwise awful video serously we were all laughing and joking about it. The film crew, filming us watching the film even started to film the film; everyone loves a bit of Jackie! We were then filmed being handed customs booklets, which was pointless as it was all in Chinese, which non of us could read, much to the surprise of the customs officals. Finally we made it through, got our all important exit stamp and went to get loaded onto the bus again. Loading was a bit more tricky this time round as we had picked up an extra couple of busniess men and all their luggage. We finally set off with a member of the army on board (to make sure we didn't run off into the wilderness between here and the boarder) for the final 125km stretch to the Khunjerab Pass and Pakistan!
The Khunjerab pass is an end both politically and geographically to China. At 4,934m we were just below the snow line, on the highest paved international border post in the world and on the edge of our seats. After a quick final check of the passports by the Chinese we crossed into Pakistan. The atmosphere on the bus went from expectation to relaxationa and happiness, the road from smooth tarmac to bumpy gravel and the scenery from rolling and clean to rugged and dramatic. The change was almost instant and amazing. On arrival we were soon met by four Pakistan border guards all sporting berets with cap badges and thick bushy moustaches - excellent! One guard got on our bus, shook a bag, poked a suitcase, enquired about the melons and sent us on our way - easy. Our actual immigration and customs was in Sost another 85km away. We headed down off the pass, descending into a scenery of steep valleys, morain (old glacier deposits), churning blue/grey glacial rivers and towering cliffs. The Paksitan men were very happy to be leaving China and were keen to get us aquainted with their country as soon as possible. They proudly explained that we were now driving through Khunjerab National Park and would jump up and point out herds of Yak, Ibex and sunbathing marmots as we passed. After half an hour in Pakistan we had seen more wildlife than a whole three and something months in China. The business men were really friendly offering us food and advice as we bumped along. They could all speak some English and one was particualry fluent. When discussing the safety of Pakistan he told Sam, once he had brought his Shalwar Kameez would have no prblem with safety because, with his beard, we would look like Taliban! This joke was met with roars of laughter from the rest of the Pakistan contingency. The guy had abviously hit the spot about what they were all thinking.
We continued to follow the road along the valley, hugging the side of cliffs or skirting the bottom of rockfalls we saw the river below us become larger and more forceful as other rivers joined in a swirl of rapids and mixes of browns and greys. These mineral rich, silt filled, rushing waters will eventually become part of the mighty Indus river. We had to cross one of the small tributatries which involved most of the men piling out and energetically discussing the best way to cross as we couldn't see how deep the river was and the road was no longer there. Luckily it wasn't that deep and we made it safely across and rejoined the road. To add to the already dramatic scenery are the ever present white, snow capped mountains pearing down narrow, deep gauges and peaking over the top of scree covered slopes. These peeping toms however are really soaring monsters. Looking like diamonds in the rough they project a feeling of immense power and beauty, both magical and deadly. After a couple of hours we arrived in Sost. Here the border controls, at least on entry, seemed extremely lax. Immingration involved the filling out of two forms and two guards writing your details, by hand, into a giant log book, enquiring about your occupation and giving you a big, hurrah! stamp in your passport. We then drove down to the customs yard where everything was unloaded onto the ground. A customs offical, dressed in a black woolen Shalwar Kameez would then have a wander round, chat to various familiar faces and just wave his hand dismissively at the likes of Sam and I, so we picked up our bags and left without further ado.
We had obviously become accustomed to China without realising it as Sost was a definate, but not unwelcome shock to the system. We had been used to arriving, even in a small town, to white tiled multi-storey buildings with neons signs and wide streets. Sost was a cluster of one-storey concrete squares, a gravel main road and dusty side streets, it was tiny and ramshackled and we loved it. Our hotel, the Asia Star was a bargain at 300 PKR (Pakistan Rupees) a night (2 pounds!) and included extras were two wicker chairs, candle and matches and a padlock for your door. We dumped our stuff and headed out for a walk. We decided to stroll along to the old part of town, about 2km down the road. We soon came across a roadside cricket match, the customs officals still in their black woolen uniforms, were playing joint wicket keeper and the local head of police was overseeing the teams performance. The constable happily shook Sam and my hands and welcomed us to Sost and Pakistan. Further down the road was a front yard knockabout which Sam was invited to bat in. After a disappointing first miss he then managed to knock the ball for six, or at least whacked it towards the cow tied up in the garden. We then got chatting to one of the guys and saw he ran a hostel/restaurant so we headed indoors for some milk tea and dinner. Our first Pakistan meal, half a chicken in a spicy tomato curry sauce and chipatis, DELICIOUS! No more Chinese food, Whay! After dinner we walked back along the road and were frequently passed by the outrageously elaborate, over-the-top decorated trucks heading the other way. As they passed by in a blur of colour and jing-iling horns were hooted and smiling waving drivers kept asking us if we wanted a lift - we wished! We continued our walk round the back of our hotel down to the river where we sat and reflected on our arrival as the murky torrent of a river rushed past. We have immediately clicked with Pakistan and can't wait to see more of it, so much so I even jumped at the idea of an early morning walk up one of the hills opposite us! This place must be good!
After gobbling some noodles and buying some water Sam and I headed to the customs, quarantine and immigration building in Tashkurgan. We had been told to be there for 10am (Beijing time) so on our arrival we were slightly surprised to only see the two Koreans (who were also on our bus) and our loaded bus. The place didn't open to begin border formalities until 10:30 and with no sign of other passengers or the driver we sat and waited. At about 10:20 people started to arrive for work - boarder guards, police, the army, they all started rolling up in their 4x4's smoking their 10th cigarette of the morning. While we had been waiting, pick up trucks loaded with melons, Royal Korea bedspreads, pots and pans and other such paraphernalia were creating piles of baggage outside the entrance. Our hopes of a swift process were getting quickly dashed. Finally our driver and the rest of the passengers (mainly Pakistani business men) appeared and we started to get the bus unloaded.
The China exit procedure has three control points. First is quarantine, where you have to sign a form saying you aren't ill and stand in front of a tall, slender machine which can instantly, using thermal imaging, detect whether or not you have a fever. Second is the x-ray/whats in our bag routine and finally the exit stamp. The whole process however was marred by three 'hazard' factors which meant, although it wasn't that bad it had the potential to be alot slicker. Firstly, all the baggage. There was on average, between 5 - 10 boxes/bags to each person so there was ALOT of two-ing and fro-ing between each of the controls as business men hurried around quite a cramped and narrow hall trying to keep everything together. Secondly, just for the Olympics, they had rearranged all the control points. All the controls and desks were arranged in a neat stright and logical line with Chinese and English signs. The only problem with this re-arranging was that some MUPPET had put the x-ray machine backwards. So (bearing in mind our first problem) you had to walk past the machine, pur our bags on, shuffle back to the 'front', clamber over the queue of people waiting to put their boxes and bags on, grab our bags and squeeze back past everyone. The third factor just to add to this circus was that it was all being filmed for one of Chinas many patriotic TV channels to show what a good job everyone is doing in the face of the Olympics. In this already chaotic process of boxes and backwards x-ray machines the authorities managed to trap the foreigners; two English (us), two Koreans, two Japanese and one Pakistan medical school graduate. We were then made to watch an English language video about transporting counterfiet and pirated goods. Our saving grace was that the videos' customs officer was non-other than arm and leg wielding, Rush Hour, Rumble in the Bronx, Kung Fu king Jackie Chan! So rather than stand there and take an otherwise awful video serously we were all laughing and joking about it. The film crew, filming us watching the film even started to film the film; everyone loves a bit of Jackie! We were then filmed being handed customs booklets, which was pointless as it was all in Chinese, which non of us could read, much to the surprise of the customs officals. Finally we made it through, got our all important exit stamp and went to get loaded onto the bus again. Loading was a bit more tricky this time round as we had picked up an extra couple of busniess men and all their luggage. We finally set off with a member of the army on board (to make sure we didn't run off into the wilderness between here and the boarder) for the final 125km stretch to the Khunjerab Pass and Pakistan!
The Khunjerab pass is an end both politically and geographically to China. At 4,934m we were just below the snow line, on the highest paved international border post in the world and on the edge of our seats. After a quick final check of the passports by the Chinese we crossed into Pakistan. The atmosphere on the bus went from expectation to relaxationa and happiness, the road from smooth tarmac to bumpy gravel and the scenery from rolling and clean to rugged and dramatic. The change was almost instant and amazing. On arrival we were soon met by four Pakistan border guards all sporting berets with cap badges and thick bushy moustaches - excellent! One guard got on our bus, shook a bag, poked a suitcase, enquired about the melons and sent us on our way - easy. Our actual immigration and customs was in Sost another 85km away. We headed down off the pass, descending into a scenery of steep valleys, morain (old glacier deposits), churning blue/grey glacial rivers and towering cliffs. The Paksitan men were very happy to be leaving China and were keen to get us aquainted with their country as soon as possible. They proudly explained that we were now driving through Khunjerab National Park and would jump up and point out herds of Yak, Ibex and sunbathing marmots as we passed. After half an hour in Pakistan we had seen more wildlife than a whole three and something months in China. The business men were really friendly offering us food and advice as we bumped along. They could all speak some English and one was particualry fluent. When discussing the safety of Pakistan he told Sam, once he had brought his Shalwar Kameez would have no prblem with safety because, with his beard, we would look like Taliban! This joke was met with roars of laughter from the rest of the Pakistan contingency. The guy had abviously hit the spot about what they were all thinking.
We continued to follow the road along the valley, hugging the side of cliffs or skirting the bottom of rockfalls we saw the river below us become larger and more forceful as other rivers joined in a swirl of rapids and mixes of browns and greys. These mineral rich, silt filled, rushing waters will eventually become part of the mighty Indus river. We had to cross one of the small tributatries which involved most of the men piling out and energetically discussing the best way to cross as we couldn't see how deep the river was and the road was no longer there. Luckily it wasn't that deep and we made it safely across and rejoined the road. To add to the already dramatic scenery are the ever present white, snow capped mountains pearing down narrow, deep gauges and peaking over the top of scree covered slopes. These peeping toms however are really soaring monsters. Looking like diamonds in the rough they project a feeling of immense power and beauty, both magical and deadly. After a couple of hours we arrived in Sost. Here the border controls, at least on entry, seemed extremely lax. Immingration involved the filling out of two forms and two guards writing your details, by hand, into a giant log book, enquiring about your occupation and giving you a big, hurrah! stamp in your passport. We then drove down to the customs yard where everything was unloaded onto the ground. A customs offical, dressed in a black woolen Shalwar Kameez would then have a wander round, chat to various familiar faces and just wave his hand dismissively at the likes of Sam and I, so we picked up our bags and left without further ado.
We had obviously become accustomed to China without realising it as Sost was a definate, but not unwelcome shock to the system. We had been used to arriving, even in a small town, to white tiled multi-storey buildings with neons signs and wide streets. Sost was a cluster of one-storey concrete squares, a gravel main road and dusty side streets, it was tiny and ramshackled and we loved it. Our hotel, the Asia Star was a bargain at 300 PKR (Pakistan Rupees) a night (2 pounds!) and included extras were two wicker chairs, candle and matches and a padlock for your door. We dumped our stuff and headed out for a walk. We decided to stroll along to the old part of town, about 2km down the road. We soon came across a roadside cricket match, the customs officals still in their black woolen uniforms, were playing joint wicket keeper and the local head of police was overseeing the teams performance. The constable happily shook Sam and my hands and welcomed us to Sost and Pakistan. Further down the road was a front yard knockabout which Sam was invited to bat in. After a disappointing first miss he then managed to knock the ball for six, or at least whacked it towards the cow tied up in the garden. We then got chatting to one of the guys and saw he ran a hostel/restaurant so we headed indoors for some milk tea and dinner. Our first Pakistan meal, half a chicken in a spicy tomato curry sauce and chipatis, DELICIOUS! No more Chinese food, Whay! After dinner we walked back along the road and were frequently passed by the outrageously elaborate, over-the-top decorated trucks heading the other way. As they passed by in a blur of colour and jing-iling horns were hooted and smiling waving drivers kept asking us if we wanted a lift - we wished! We continued our walk round the back of our hotel down to the river where we sat and reflected on our arrival as the murky torrent of a river rushed past. We have immediately clicked with Pakistan and can't wait to see more of it, so much so I even jumped at the idea of an early morning walk up one of the hills opposite us! This place must be good!
Monday, 4 August 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/05/china.terrorism
Its amazing how quickly these people turn up after something like this has happened. As soon as they heard they were on the first flight over here and were wondering around without much idea to what had happened. Sarah and I filled them in with some of the details we knew which turned into an interview on a tv camera, slightly sketchy with the Chinese police around. When we walked down to the militry police station some of the guards caming running out shouting to grab the cameras and the camera man pulling him shouting into the police station, Sarah and I side stepped unseen into a dark side street and the reporter, the big girl legged it so fast into a taxi leaving us there at the mercy of the chinese police.... we hope you are entering the 100m olympic dash Mr Johnathan Watts! We managed to slip away without being caught and the camera man managed to get away soon after us. All in all it was quite an exciting walk home after dinner.
Its amazing how quickly these people turn up after something like this has happened. As soon as they heard they were on the first flight over here and were wondering around without much idea to what had happened. Sarah and I filled them in with some of the details we knew which turned into an interview on a tv camera, slightly sketchy with the Chinese police around. When we walked down to the militry police station some of the guards caming running out shouting to grab the cameras and the camera man pulling him shouting into the police station, Sarah and I side stepped unseen into a dark side street and the reporter, the big girl legged it so fast into a taxi leaving us there at the mercy of the chinese police.... we hope you are entering the 100m olympic dash Mr Johnathan Watts! We managed to slip away without being caught and the camera man managed to get away soon after us. All in all it was quite an exciting walk home after dinner.
Back to work and Police man Ping Pong....
Today was one of the strangest days we have had in China so far- it started with a day at work and ended with being detained by the Police! Mmmm…. Where to begin?
Last night we were invited to visit Reyhans place of work to meet her friends and see what she does. We planned to meet at 7am Urigur time. Perhaps because we knew we were going back to work, maybe because of our previous late night we had great difficulty in waking up and snoozed the alarm over ten times before finally dragging our lazy butts out of bed. We dressed quickly, best trousers on for Sam and Sarahs only set of clean clothes then splashed cold water on our faces in preparation for the heat blast we would receive after opening the door. After surviving the heat blast we sat on the curb outside and watched the world go by whilst waiting for Reyhan to arrive. During this time we watched a policeman crash into a motorcyclist knocking him and the old woman off, the accident was caused by a pedestrian who ran into the road – the policeman then had his hands full trying to organize the accident whilst trying to stop the pedestrian from legging it! Luckily people were not too injured and once again everyone seemed to stand up and walk off without too much of a problem.
Reyhan arrived with one minute to spare before needing to be at work. Once again we were going to be late for work, this was becoming more and more like going to work at home! It was a ten minute walk to the office or a two minute journey by bus so we decided to take the bus, or try to. The bus had a red arm band wearing communist party official (Chinese person) searching all passengers bags before they boarded and for some strange reason only known to the backwards xenophobic official who created the rule, I was not allowed aboard because my bag contained a camera – a lethal weapon in the hands of an photographer, perhaps a party official misunderstood the meaning of photo shoot. Sarah stopped me before I was able to point it at them and make machine gun sounds. Our Urigur friend was very apologetic and blamed the increased security on Chinese paranoia concerning the Olympics’ – whilst Sarah and I understood the reasons behind a search (guns, bombs, free Tibet banners, Mao stinks posters etc) we are really vexed as to what reasons could be given for no cameras on the bus.
Neither Sarah or I had any idea what to expect when we arrived, what we would be doing there or what sort of work place it was (our friend did not know the English name of her job or company type) but it turned out to be the Turpan branch for Ping An China, a Chinese life insurance and savings company. After quickly apologizing to the boss for our lateness we were hurried rather reluctantly into the Urigur morning team brief meeting room with the 40 or so employees applauding our arrival! We then sat and listened to their morning talk from their managers, lots of Hu Rahh sort of shouting’s and clapping at certain points, everyone stood up to belt out the company policy followed by various people talking at the front – probably giving a run down of yesterdays performance and what jobs need to be done today, same crap different language. In amongst this Sarah and I were asked to stand up and introduce ourselves, we managed to say hello my name is Sam in Urigur which they loved, followed by where we were from and how long we have been here for etc resulting in lots of clapping, lots of telling us how welcome we are here and how glad we were here etc. After various jokes and laughter – all of which we had no idea what was going on we sat back down and they resumed their morning brief! All very surreal and very much like something from a Michael Palin travel program.
When the meeting was over we were then taken into the Chinese employees meeting room to be introduced where we were not given such a warm reception and were generally met with the same open mouth blank face expression all over china. We are not sure why but the teams in the office were divided by nationality, Urgirs and Chinese had separate offices, workspaces and team meetings. The reason was not language as all Urgirs can speak Chinese and learn it in school at the same time as Urgir.
After this we felt very much like a puppy bought into work with people wanting to come and check us our, feel our hair and say ahhh how cute etc. We spent some time being shown about whilst being followed by a man with a camera. In very broken English we were shown posters and rooms, introduced to people and sat down with cups of warm water. All in all it was a strange experience but interesting to see how a Chinese company functions and a good opportunity to help Reyhan practice her English.
This slightly traumatic trip was rewarded by a hearty lunch in a great Urgir restaurant that although has an expensive look is amazingly cheap for a great big portion of food. I enjoyed ‘Polo’ which is similar to Plov or byrianni, chunks of meat in rice with rasens, bits of veg and spices – amazingly tasty. Sarah feasted on ‘Soman’ a really good dish of fat noodles chopped into 1cm square chunks mixed up with spicy tomato sauce, big chunks of garlic, onions and beans…Mmmm. All this with an endless free supply of Urigur chai, green tea with nutmeg and rose petals – we must have drunk a gallon each its such good tea. The meal price for the three of us was less than two pounds.
Turpan is situated in a desert and a deep depression so the daytime temperature is very high, today was no exception with highs of 44 degrees. By two o’clock we were both struggling so decided to sleep off the worst of the daytime heat and have a siesta. We arranged to meet reyhan again in a few hours.
We had met Reyhan two days before in the market, she lived in Turpan and had spent some time learning English in a local school so was quite keen to practice with us. We had no objection to this and enjoyed being shown around town by someone local who could also teach us some Urigur. During one conversation (about the olympics or sports) we had expressed an interest in playing some table tennis and it turned out that Reyhan had been some kind of instructor at school so was keen to play with us. Yesterday we had tried to play at a local school but because the schools are on holiday at the moment the guard would not let us all onto the grounds, Reyhan being a bit disappointed spoke to the caretaker of another school near where she lived, about a five minutes walk from the towns Bazaar who said no problem we could come and play tomorrow. So today in the evening when the temperature lowered a little we went to Reyhans house and had some melon and tea before heading off to the school. The people responsible for looking after the school were a family of five living in a small house by the back entrance who as they lived opposite Reyhan must have known her well (everyone knows everyone in this part of the world ‘yes this is my fathers brothers cousin’ ‘oh that was my mothers brothers son’ etc etc). So we said hello to the family who opened the gates then walked across the running track to the ping pong tables about 100 meters from the gate – we were in full view of the family, clearly playing table tennis and not near the school buildings.
Some background info - Life in China is dominated by ‘officials’ (read complete jobs-worths) wearing red arm bands who exist to tell Chinese people (who we are convinced have problems thinking for themselves) what to do. No escalator could possibly function without a red armband wearing official. People would get themselves killed on the roads unless a red armband official tells them when to cross (the green and red men are not sufficient, nor are five lanes of buses heading straight for you). Supermarkets would collapse into chaos without an army of red armband robots dictating which direction you have to walk. If it wasn’t for the red arm band wearing officials then the crowds trying to get off the bus would hit the crowds trying to get on the bus resulting in some kind of fusion reaction. We could list examples all day but we are sure you get the point, in short life in china is dominated by little people with high and mighty attitudes protected by the infamous red armband, last sported in history we might add by the Nazi party.
So, with Sarah and I loosing badly to someone who could somehow spin a ping pong ball almost 90 degrees (she didn’t really get the point of a knock about so it was quite boring having to pick the ball up every time it was hit in our direction) we spotted in the corner of our eye two red armed busy-bodies heading our way. As we had permission to be there and we were clearly playing ping pong we thought nothing was wrong as they approached. Upon arrival, without acknowledging our existence they told Reyhan that we had to leave and why were foreigners here, talking directly to her and being quite rude to us. Thinking nothing more of this we walked back to the gate and spent some playing football with the children while Reyhan filled in the family about the pointlessness of the Chinese officials, many faces were pulled and saying how stupid they were. Back on the other side of the field we could see the two officials with a third higher member of the communist party walking back over, this man was some kind of big wig and had a real attitude problem. He was here to rebuke the family for letting us through, have a go at Reyhan for hanging about with foreigners and generally be very rude to us – now he was talking about fining the family and was calling the police to take us to the police station for questioning. We had said nothing to this man to justify a trip to the police station, Reyhan had tried to convince him that ping pong was our game but for some reason he was really pissed off and was yelling to various people on the phone and having a right go at the family.
After 10 minutes of waiting four policemen turned up to take us to the station, at first they would not let Reyhan come with us but eventually after her protests they did. We were put into the back of a clapped out police van and driven (no sirens unfortunately) all of about 600 m to the nearest police station. With no doughnut or coffee offered, no one phone call allowed we had to sit in a room for ages whilst policemen of various ranks turned up. It seemed the higher the policeman the wider the waistband, so each time the next level was called a cop with a bigger belly and more pips turned up. After what felt like ages the biggest cop and presumably the highest ranking started to ask us questions – what were you doing in the school grounds- it seemed like a stupid thing to ask when we were sat there with nothing but ping pong bats in our hand. After finding out where we were staying they dispatched two people to check our hotel, have a look at our passports, check our details and presumably look in our room. After being asked various questions we were then given a short speech about not entering school grounds again, if we want to we have to apply in advance from either the headmaster or the police. As we had not asked someone official (read; Chinese) for permission we could be accused of stealing things (despite the fact we were clearly caught playing table tennis in full view of the caretakers).
All in all it was a complete waste of our time and made us feel even more unwelcome in China. Reyhan was very apologetic and blamed everything on increased security because of the Olympics – this was the third time in two days she had to apologize for red arm band wearing people actions (not allowed to use internet café as we were foreign, not allowed on the bus due to camera and finally ping pong policing). All over china we have come across people who are complete robots, absolute jobsworths who are fully unable to think outside the box. They have been brainwashed into thinking that as a foreigner we are going to unravel a free Tibet banner at every possible opportunity, that we are thieves and not to trust what we say. The reason given for not being able to stay in cheap guest houses in Tibet was that westerners will set up arms deals with the locals (that was really what we were told). It has been interesting to see the recent report from Amnesty international on how the Olympics are being used as an excuse for cracking down on peoples rights, china has of course denied this. We see evidence of this all around from much tighter visa and travel restrictions to the silent and swift removal of homeless people from tourist cities. The BBC is frequently blocked depending on what they are saying that day. We have learnt that in this western Muslim province china has killed a number of people its accused of being terrorists and arrested and forcibly moved hundred more all in the name of Olympic security. We have seen this first hand when our bus pulled over for a stop on the journey between Turpan and Urumqi. Taking up a large part of the small car park were two police buses ringed by heavily armed soldiers. One bus contained Urigur women the other smaller bus containing many Urigur men crammed in. Whilst we cannot judge a book by its cover the military guarding the buses seemed heavily out of proportion to the threat, these soldiers were not laughing or joking whilst their officer yelled at our bus driver to stay away and yelled at anyone who came near the soldiers (difficult when they were right in front of the toilets), the soldiers did not look relaxed at all and the situation was a tense and sketchy one with the weapons pointed less to the ground and more at us people walking past. It seemed intimidation and threats were the name of the game. As all eyes from inside the prisoner buses were on us I took great pleasure in making them all laugh and smile by pointing at the Chinese soldiers and giving the thumbs down sign. After beginning to attract some unwanted attention from the guards we quickly re-alighted our bus where we were waved to lots and as we drove off gave/we given lots of thumbs up signs (from the men only – the women looked quite distraught). Who knows what they had done or where they off to but we both hoped it was not one of the ‘re-education through labour’ camps the country has (which you can be put in for up to four years without a trial). We cannot imagine that these people were dangerous enough to warrant the level of military personnel and weaponry present.
Last night we were invited to visit Reyhans place of work to meet her friends and see what she does. We planned to meet at 7am Urigur time. Perhaps because we knew we were going back to work, maybe because of our previous late night we had great difficulty in waking up and snoozed the alarm over ten times before finally dragging our lazy butts out of bed. We dressed quickly, best trousers on for Sam and Sarahs only set of clean clothes then splashed cold water on our faces in preparation for the heat blast we would receive after opening the door. After surviving the heat blast we sat on the curb outside and watched the world go by whilst waiting for Reyhan to arrive. During this time we watched a policeman crash into a motorcyclist knocking him and the old woman off, the accident was caused by a pedestrian who ran into the road – the policeman then had his hands full trying to organize the accident whilst trying to stop the pedestrian from legging it! Luckily people were not too injured and once again everyone seemed to stand up and walk off without too much of a problem.
Reyhan arrived with one minute to spare before needing to be at work. Once again we were going to be late for work, this was becoming more and more like going to work at home! It was a ten minute walk to the office or a two minute journey by bus so we decided to take the bus, or try to. The bus had a red arm band wearing communist party official (Chinese person) searching all passengers bags before they boarded and for some strange reason only known to the backwards xenophobic official who created the rule, I was not allowed aboard because my bag contained a camera – a lethal weapon in the hands of an photographer, perhaps a party official misunderstood the meaning of photo shoot. Sarah stopped me before I was able to point it at them and make machine gun sounds. Our Urigur friend was very apologetic and blamed the increased security on Chinese paranoia concerning the Olympics’ – whilst Sarah and I understood the reasons behind a search (guns, bombs, free Tibet banners, Mao stinks posters etc) we are really vexed as to what reasons could be given for no cameras on the bus.
Neither Sarah or I had any idea what to expect when we arrived, what we would be doing there or what sort of work place it was (our friend did not know the English name of her job or company type) but it turned out to be the Turpan branch for Ping An China, a Chinese life insurance and savings company. After quickly apologizing to the boss for our lateness we were hurried rather reluctantly into the Urigur morning team brief meeting room with the 40 or so employees applauding our arrival! We then sat and listened to their morning talk from their managers, lots of Hu Rahh sort of shouting’s and clapping at certain points, everyone stood up to belt out the company policy followed by various people talking at the front – probably giving a run down of yesterdays performance and what jobs need to be done today, same crap different language. In amongst this Sarah and I were asked to stand up and introduce ourselves, we managed to say hello my name is Sam in Urigur which they loved, followed by where we were from and how long we have been here for etc resulting in lots of clapping, lots of telling us how welcome we are here and how glad we were here etc. After various jokes and laughter – all of which we had no idea what was going on we sat back down and they resumed their morning brief! All very surreal and very much like something from a Michael Palin travel program.
When the meeting was over we were then taken into the Chinese employees meeting room to be introduced where we were not given such a warm reception and were generally met with the same open mouth blank face expression all over china. We are not sure why but the teams in the office were divided by nationality, Urgirs and Chinese had separate offices, workspaces and team meetings. The reason was not language as all Urgirs can speak Chinese and learn it in school at the same time as Urgir.
After this we felt very much like a puppy bought into work with people wanting to come and check us our, feel our hair and say ahhh how cute etc. We spent some time being shown about whilst being followed by a man with a camera. In very broken English we were shown posters and rooms, introduced to people and sat down with cups of warm water. All in all it was a strange experience but interesting to see how a Chinese company functions and a good opportunity to help Reyhan practice her English.
This slightly traumatic trip was rewarded by a hearty lunch in a great Urgir restaurant that although has an expensive look is amazingly cheap for a great big portion of food. I enjoyed ‘Polo’ which is similar to Plov or byrianni, chunks of meat in rice with rasens, bits of veg and spices – amazingly tasty. Sarah feasted on ‘Soman’ a really good dish of fat noodles chopped into 1cm square chunks mixed up with spicy tomato sauce, big chunks of garlic, onions and beans…Mmmm. All this with an endless free supply of Urigur chai, green tea with nutmeg and rose petals – we must have drunk a gallon each its such good tea. The meal price for the three of us was less than two pounds.
Turpan is situated in a desert and a deep depression so the daytime temperature is very high, today was no exception with highs of 44 degrees. By two o’clock we were both struggling so decided to sleep off the worst of the daytime heat and have a siesta. We arranged to meet reyhan again in a few hours.
We had met Reyhan two days before in the market, she lived in Turpan and had spent some time learning English in a local school so was quite keen to practice with us. We had no objection to this and enjoyed being shown around town by someone local who could also teach us some Urigur. During one conversation (about the olympics or sports) we had expressed an interest in playing some table tennis and it turned out that Reyhan had been some kind of instructor at school so was keen to play with us. Yesterday we had tried to play at a local school but because the schools are on holiday at the moment the guard would not let us all onto the grounds, Reyhan being a bit disappointed spoke to the caretaker of another school near where she lived, about a five minutes walk from the towns Bazaar who said no problem we could come and play tomorrow. So today in the evening when the temperature lowered a little we went to Reyhans house and had some melon and tea before heading off to the school. The people responsible for looking after the school were a family of five living in a small house by the back entrance who as they lived opposite Reyhan must have known her well (everyone knows everyone in this part of the world ‘yes this is my fathers brothers cousin’ ‘oh that was my mothers brothers son’ etc etc). So we said hello to the family who opened the gates then walked across the running track to the ping pong tables about 100 meters from the gate – we were in full view of the family, clearly playing table tennis and not near the school buildings.
Some background info - Life in China is dominated by ‘officials’ (read complete jobs-worths) wearing red arm bands who exist to tell Chinese people (who we are convinced have problems thinking for themselves) what to do. No escalator could possibly function without a red armband wearing official. People would get themselves killed on the roads unless a red armband official tells them when to cross (the green and red men are not sufficient, nor are five lanes of buses heading straight for you). Supermarkets would collapse into chaos without an army of red armband robots dictating which direction you have to walk. If it wasn’t for the red arm band wearing officials then the crowds trying to get off the bus would hit the crowds trying to get on the bus resulting in some kind of fusion reaction. We could list examples all day but we are sure you get the point, in short life in china is dominated by little people with high and mighty attitudes protected by the infamous red armband, last sported in history we might add by the Nazi party.
So, with Sarah and I loosing badly to someone who could somehow spin a ping pong ball almost 90 degrees (she didn’t really get the point of a knock about so it was quite boring having to pick the ball up every time it was hit in our direction) we spotted in the corner of our eye two red armed busy-bodies heading our way. As we had permission to be there and we were clearly playing ping pong we thought nothing was wrong as they approached. Upon arrival, without acknowledging our existence they told Reyhan that we had to leave and why were foreigners here, talking directly to her and being quite rude to us. Thinking nothing more of this we walked back to the gate and spent some playing football with the children while Reyhan filled in the family about the pointlessness of the Chinese officials, many faces were pulled and saying how stupid they were. Back on the other side of the field we could see the two officials with a third higher member of the communist party walking back over, this man was some kind of big wig and had a real attitude problem. He was here to rebuke the family for letting us through, have a go at Reyhan for hanging about with foreigners and generally be very rude to us – now he was talking about fining the family and was calling the police to take us to the police station for questioning. We had said nothing to this man to justify a trip to the police station, Reyhan had tried to convince him that ping pong was our game but for some reason he was really pissed off and was yelling to various people on the phone and having a right go at the family.
After 10 minutes of waiting four policemen turned up to take us to the station, at first they would not let Reyhan come with us but eventually after her protests they did. We were put into the back of a clapped out police van and driven (no sirens unfortunately) all of about 600 m to the nearest police station. With no doughnut or coffee offered, no one phone call allowed we had to sit in a room for ages whilst policemen of various ranks turned up. It seemed the higher the policeman the wider the waistband, so each time the next level was called a cop with a bigger belly and more pips turned up. After what felt like ages the biggest cop and presumably the highest ranking started to ask us questions – what were you doing in the school grounds- it seemed like a stupid thing to ask when we were sat there with nothing but ping pong bats in our hand. After finding out where we were staying they dispatched two people to check our hotel, have a look at our passports, check our details and presumably look in our room. After being asked various questions we were then given a short speech about not entering school grounds again, if we want to we have to apply in advance from either the headmaster or the police. As we had not asked someone official (read; Chinese) for permission we could be accused of stealing things (despite the fact we were clearly caught playing table tennis in full view of the caretakers).
All in all it was a complete waste of our time and made us feel even more unwelcome in China. Reyhan was very apologetic and blamed everything on increased security because of the Olympics – this was the third time in two days she had to apologize for red arm band wearing people actions (not allowed to use internet café as we were foreign, not allowed on the bus due to camera and finally ping pong policing). All over china we have come across people who are complete robots, absolute jobsworths who are fully unable to think outside the box. They have been brainwashed into thinking that as a foreigner we are going to unravel a free Tibet banner at every possible opportunity, that we are thieves and not to trust what we say. The reason given for not being able to stay in cheap guest houses in Tibet was that westerners will set up arms deals with the locals (that was really what we were told). It has been interesting to see the recent report from Amnesty international on how the Olympics are being used as an excuse for cracking down on peoples rights, china has of course denied this. We see evidence of this all around from much tighter visa and travel restrictions to the silent and swift removal of homeless people from tourist cities. The BBC is frequently blocked depending on what they are saying that day. We have learnt that in this western Muslim province china has killed a number of people its accused of being terrorists and arrested and forcibly moved hundred more all in the name of Olympic security. We have seen this first hand when our bus pulled over for a stop on the journey between Turpan and Urumqi. Taking up a large part of the small car park were two police buses ringed by heavily armed soldiers. One bus contained Urigur women the other smaller bus containing many Urigur men crammed in. Whilst we cannot judge a book by its cover the military guarding the buses seemed heavily out of proportion to the threat, these soldiers were not laughing or joking whilst their officer yelled at our bus driver to stay away and yelled at anyone who came near the soldiers (difficult when they were right in front of the toilets), the soldiers did not look relaxed at all and the situation was a tense and sketchy one with the weapons pointed less to the ground and more at us people walking past. It seemed intimidation and threats were the name of the game. As all eyes from inside the prisoner buses were on us I took great pleasure in making them all laugh and smile by pointing at the Chinese soldiers and giving the thumbs down sign. After beginning to attract some unwanted attention from the guards we quickly re-alighted our bus where we were waved to lots and as we drove off gave/we given lots of thumbs up signs (from the men only – the women looked quite distraught). Who knows what they had done or where they off to but we both hoped it was not one of the ‘re-education through labour’ camps the country has (which you can be put in for up to four years without a trial). We cannot imagine that these people were dangerous enough to warrant the level of military personnel and weaponry present.
Turpan
Having arrived in Turpan, Xianjing province. We started our second day heading out to see some of the surrounding sights. We had met two bubbly Israeli girls the day before and had had arranged to take a car and driver. Despite the seemingly barren and hot wilderness here there are lots of sights to suggest this area has been through many ups and downs; from caves to graves, villages to city ruins and flaming mountains to grape filled valleys. Due to it being an oasis it has historically being a welcome rest bite for weary Silk Road travelers. Nowadays however it is a big tourist destination with coach loads of umbrella fanatic Chinese pushing and snapping their way into a different kind of china. We chose three sights to visit: Tuyoq village, the Flaming Mountains and the Jiahoe Ruins.
Though officially on Beijing time, being so far west the locals run on Xianjing time – 2 hrs behind Beijing. This made me feel particularly good, as our wake up at 7am was actually 5am local time. It was still relatively cool, though with lows of 27 Cel. and highs and 40 Cel. relative is definitely the word! Soon we were on our way. First destination Tuyoq village, some 40 minutes east of Turpan. This was somewhere Sam and I had suggested we go so we were hoping it would be ok, especially as the day before a Chinese woman had said she hadn’t really enjoyed it.
The entrance fee to this working village was ¥40. Putting aside the fact we are being charged to see a village the main tourist attraction there are some caves with Buddhist art, which were closed. With no discount offered we turned away from the ticket booth and set off down the street figuring we could find a way in ourselves. After walking (responsibly) across some farmland, and Sam paying our way by helping a woman wheel some rocks, we made it into the far end of the village. Tuyoq village is a chance to see an insight into the more traditional farm village life of the Urighur people. It is also a known place for Muslim pilgrimages, as there is a famous ancient Muslim is buried here. Seven pilgrimages here equals one to Mecca. The main source of income for this village is grapes. I would like to say tourism helps, but as it happens the ¥40 you would pay to see this village goes straight to the Chinese tourist board, the village sees nothing. Turpan area had large areas devoted to the production of ‘world famous’ grapes. After strolling through the outskirts looking at brightly painted doors and TV antenna made from planks of wood and wire. We soon came across a villager who promptly dropped the pile of wood he was carrying and asked us to sit down while he disappeared and soon returned with an armful of grapes. Sam sitting with three women earned an extra bunch of grapes, having three wives has its rewards. With our grapes and a bowl of tea Sam attempted some of our newly acquired Urighur language – “hello, my name is Sam” (A salaam AlaKum, Mina Ismas Sam) we were met with blank stares. This was later explained by another villager shouting “Israeli!” at the top of his voice at our host. This man was very hard of hearing. Having finished our grapes, tea and discussed where we come from, that Sam doesn’t have three wives and amazing the locals with various tattoos and peircings we set off. Our next stop was the flaming mountains. A must see according to all Turpanians, with their midday fire like appearance and an old Chinese legend behind them about monk Tripikata being unable to pass them because of the flames. Luckily the monkey Sun Wukong had a magic fan with which he extinguished the flames allowing the monk to pass. We were understandably looking forward to it and can honestly say that on arrival they were a bit of an anti climax. Not that the mountains were not impressive, if you have seen the picture on flickr then you would agree they are pretty good, only that they did not quite live up to the hype. Also the Chinese in their infinite wisdom charge people ¥40 (three pounds) to go and stand in a fenced off area to look at the mountain. The fence is about 2 foot high so without paying you can still see the mountains perfectly well.
Our final stop was the ancient ruined city of Jiahoe. Once the capital of the Anterior Cheshi Kingdom between 108BC and 450AD, it was an important post for Silk Road trade. Being situated on an island in the middle of a river it made an ideal location for the HQ of the protector general of the western regions, between 640 – 658AD. The islands cliffs made a good natural defense. The city; 1650 meters long and 300 meters wide, contained residential areas, Buddhist temples and government buildings. The city was finally abandoned in the 13th Century when the infamous Genghis Khan swept the land. Now little more than earthen walls and the odd watchtower we wandered the dusty streets and rested out of the intense heat in the shade of the great monastery. After passing many umbrella waving Chinese tourists and one who had sunstroke we made it up to the viewing platform, only to be met with a rather morbid sign announcing the location of an infant cemetery, complete with child size graves. It appears strange goings on were afoot in this city as the infant cemetery was actually located within the government main building. This somber image however was quickly juxtaposed with Chinese tourists fighting to have their picture taken on the platform. Despite a high risk of getting our eyes poked out the umbrellas added welcome splashes of colour to an otherwise dusty, mud brick scene. After all this our driver, at our request for a good but cheap restaurant in Turpan, took us to this great eat. Looking very grand and decorated Urighur style five of us ate good Urighur food and drank endless rose petal tea for ¥46, approx £3 for all five of us.
We had arranged to meet up with Rayehan later that day, and after cold showers gave her a call. We had met Rayehan the day before in the market and she had taught us some Urighur while she could practice her English with us. The idea this afternoon was to go and play table tennis (‘pingpong-shua’ in Urighur). We had to use school table tennis tables so we went to the originally names 1st Turpan school. Unfortunately, due to it being the holidays none of the tables were out so no luck, however, as Rayehan had been to this school the red-arm banded caretaker gave us five minutes for Rayehan to take us on a tour where we were shown the classrooms, dormitories, playing ground and the staff house. We (all three of us) still however wanted to play Pingpong-shua so Rayehan took us to another school. Despite the empty table tennis tables being 20 meters away the grumpy caretakers here took one look at Sam and I and point blank refused to let us play despite Rayehans pleading. Thwarted again.
We headed back to Rayehans house. Here we met Rayehans mother and grandmother, after showing off our little and badly pronounced Urighur (though they really appreciated the effort) we went to Rayehans room for tea. Rayehan lives with her mother and father in a mud brick building. You go through a gate into a covered courtyard with rooms running down one side. The kitchen and stove is at the end along with a place to wash and a place to tinker with various machines. We soon had attracted a line of visitors; cousins, aunties, neighbours, their children and cousins, in this tightly knit neighbourhood news travels fast! Rayehan then, on a last ditch attempt went across the road to another school – third time lucky. She asked if we could play Pingpong-shua there tomorrow and, to our surprise the caretaker and her family said yes, this would be ok! Finally we had somewhere to play. So, after a wander around town that evening and agreeing to accompany Rayehan to work the next morning we bid farewell. Till tomorrow!
Though officially on Beijing time, being so far west the locals run on Xianjing time – 2 hrs behind Beijing. This made me feel particularly good, as our wake up at 7am was actually 5am local time. It was still relatively cool, though with lows of 27 Cel. and highs and 40 Cel. relative is definitely the word! Soon we were on our way. First destination Tuyoq village, some 40 minutes east of Turpan. This was somewhere Sam and I had suggested we go so we were hoping it would be ok, especially as the day before a Chinese woman had said she hadn’t really enjoyed it.
The entrance fee to this working village was ¥40. Putting aside the fact we are being charged to see a village the main tourist attraction there are some caves with Buddhist art, which were closed. With no discount offered we turned away from the ticket booth and set off down the street figuring we could find a way in ourselves. After walking (responsibly) across some farmland, and Sam paying our way by helping a woman wheel some rocks, we made it into the far end of the village. Tuyoq village is a chance to see an insight into the more traditional farm village life of the Urighur people. It is also a known place for Muslim pilgrimages, as there is a famous ancient Muslim is buried here. Seven pilgrimages here equals one to Mecca. The main source of income for this village is grapes. I would like to say tourism helps, but as it happens the ¥40 you would pay to see this village goes straight to the Chinese tourist board, the village sees nothing. Turpan area had large areas devoted to the production of ‘world famous’ grapes. After strolling through the outskirts looking at brightly painted doors and TV antenna made from planks of wood and wire. We soon came across a villager who promptly dropped the pile of wood he was carrying and asked us to sit down while he disappeared and soon returned with an armful of grapes. Sam sitting with three women earned an extra bunch of grapes, having three wives has its rewards. With our grapes and a bowl of tea Sam attempted some of our newly acquired Urighur language – “hello, my name is Sam” (A salaam AlaKum, Mina Ismas Sam) we were met with blank stares. This was later explained by another villager shouting “Israeli!” at the top of his voice at our host. This man was very hard of hearing. Having finished our grapes, tea and discussed where we come from, that Sam doesn’t have three wives and amazing the locals with various tattoos and peircings we set off. Our next stop was the flaming mountains. A must see according to all Turpanians, with their midday fire like appearance and an old Chinese legend behind them about monk Tripikata being unable to pass them because of the flames. Luckily the monkey Sun Wukong had a magic fan with which he extinguished the flames allowing the monk to pass. We were understandably looking forward to it and can honestly say that on arrival they were a bit of an anti climax. Not that the mountains were not impressive, if you have seen the picture on flickr then you would agree they are pretty good, only that they did not quite live up to the hype. Also the Chinese in their infinite wisdom charge people ¥40 (three pounds) to go and stand in a fenced off area to look at the mountain. The fence is about 2 foot high so without paying you can still see the mountains perfectly well.
Our final stop was the ancient ruined city of Jiahoe. Once the capital of the Anterior Cheshi Kingdom between 108BC and 450AD, it was an important post for Silk Road trade. Being situated on an island in the middle of a river it made an ideal location for the HQ of the protector general of the western regions, between 640 – 658AD. The islands cliffs made a good natural defense. The city; 1650 meters long and 300 meters wide, contained residential areas, Buddhist temples and government buildings. The city was finally abandoned in the 13th Century when the infamous Genghis Khan swept the land. Now little more than earthen walls and the odd watchtower we wandered the dusty streets and rested out of the intense heat in the shade of the great monastery. After passing many umbrella waving Chinese tourists and one who had sunstroke we made it up to the viewing platform, only to be met with a rather morbid sign announcing the location of an infant cemetery, complete with child size graves. It appears strange goings on were afoot in this city as the infant cemetery was actually located within the government main building. This somber image however was quickly juxtaposed with Chinese tourists fighting to have their picture taken on the platform. Despite a high risk of getting our eyes poked out the umbrellas added welcome splashes of colour to an otherwise dusty, mud brick scene. After all this our driver, at our request for a good but cheap restaurant in Turpan, took us to this great eat. Looking very grand and decorated Urighur style five of us ate good Urighur food and drank endless rose petal tea for ¥46, approx £3 for all five of us.
We had arranged to meet up with Rayehan later that day, and after cold showers gave her a call. We had met Rayehan the day before in the market and she had taught us some Urighur while she could practice her English with us. The idea this afternoon was to go and play table tennis (‘pingpong-shua’ in Urighur). We had to use school table tennis tables so we went to the originally names 1st Turpan school. Unfortunately, due to it being the holidays none of the tables were out so no luck, however, as Rayehan had been to this school the red-arm banded caretaker gave us five minutes for Rayehan to take us on a tour where we were shown the classrooms, dormitories, playing ground and the staff house. We (all three of us) still however wanted to play Pingpong-shua so Rayehan took us to another school. Despite the empty table tennis tables being 20 meters away the grumpy caretakers here took one look at Sam and I and point blank refused to let us play despite Rayehans pleading. Thwarted again.
We headed back to Rayehans house. Here we met Rayehans mother and grandmother, after showing off our little and badly pronounced Urighur (though they really appreciated the effort) we went to Rayehans room for tea. Rayehan lives with her mother and father in a mud brick building. You go through a gate into a covered courtyard with rooms running down one side. The kitchen and stove is at the end along with a place to wash and a place to tinker with various machines. We soon had attracted a line of visitors; cousins, aunties, neighbours, their children and cousins, in this tightly knit neighbourhood news travels fast! Rayehan then, on a last ditch attempt went across the road to another school – third time lucky. She asked if we could play Pingpong-shua there tomorrow and, to our surprise the caretaker and her family said yes, this would be ok! Finally we had somewhere to play. So, after a wander around town that evening and agreeing to accompany Rayehan to work the next morning we bid farewell. Till tomorrow!
Lanzhou to Turpan
Our train journey form Lanzhou to Turpan was delayed by 4 hours which for us was actually a good thing as we were able to explore more of the town and take the cable car up the hills looking over the city. The city of Lanzhou was not one either of us had heard of before we had to travel there but was huge with a population of over 4 million, if this city was placed in Europe it would be the second largest. Quite crazy to think that we have never heard of it, 99% of people we know have probably never heard of it and will are more than likely to never think of hear about it again! The city is situated in a large valley cut by the Yellow river with dry barren hills either side which although look nice, help trap all the nasties emitted by the factories making in one of the worlds most polluted cities. Luckily we able to buy sleeper tickets out of this place for the next day as despite its size there was nothing to do other than take the cable car up the view and to breath some clean air above the smog.
The train journey was unlike any others we have had so far in China! For a start the train carriage was not full, so far this has been unheard of but was very welcome! The attendants were very attentive and our section was kept very clean throughout the journey, even the toilets had not been crapped all over 30 mins into the journey (although mothers were still making kids wee into the wash sinks and in the gap between the carriages….. why??) The view was for the first time in China not blocked by fog, smog, pollution or rain…. The sun was shining and the sky was blue. The route took us through the length of Gansu skirting Qunchai province, also known as ‘Chinas Siberia’ for its Gulags and nuclear testing/dumping grounds and into Xian Jiang province which has been like arriving in a new country!
Arriving in Xian Jiang has really been amazing, finally we have left behind the generic white tiled Chinese city and arrived somewhere with some real culture! Xian Jiang is located in Chinas extreme western areas and has always been a difficult area for them to control, its history is full of various uprisings and rebellions against Chinese rule, the latest being in 1997, 2000 and 2001. Of course now with the US showing the world you can do what you want with people if you label them a terrorist thousands of Uighurs have been locked up or executed post 9.11 to stop any seperatist movement and to scare the population into obedience. The original local people here are Uighurs, musleum and are more Central Asian than Chinese something which the government in Beijing has tried to counteract by flooding the region with Han Chinese settlers in a similar fasion to Tibet. In 2000 Beijing launched a ‘develop the west’ campaign offering Han Chinese from the west financial and social incentives to move the province which has apparently caused a lot of tension.
Turpan is an oasis town and was a regular stop on the ancient silk road. It is the second lowest place in the world after the dead sea and is also Chinas hottest inhabeted town, the hottest temperature on record is 49.5c! Our first day here has been stunning. The train station is in a neighbouring town about 60km away, from here we caught a bus which drove through the blistering desert further and further down into the huge depression the town is in. The town is famous throughout china for its grapes which grown everywhere here, along with other fruits. It really feels like we are no longer in china here, the people are different and the writing is in an Arabic type script. The market was filled with people listening to Kyrgiz music and watching bollywood or Pakistani films. The food is Central asian with mutton kebabs and great big naans covered in chilli powder and ground cumin, the market was a riot of new sounds and smells, a far cry from the crap tacky repetitive nature of the Chinese markets and streets. We stopped and spoke to many people on our walk about town this evening, none of them trying to con or sell us anything just people who were interested in who we are and where we were from. People stopped to check us out but instead of staring with their mouths open and laughing at us they smiled and said hello which has been great. The people we spoke to were so nice introducing us to everyone and showing us around town, helping us to buy food and teaching us some Uighur – this evening we have had none of the nationalistic bullshit we heard every time we spoke to a Chinese person which is such a relief.
Before sunset we also cycled to an old mosque with an afghan style minaret which was a great sight, made out of mud and straw in 1777 in a beautiful backdrop of grape fields and mud brick housing. The journey their took us past ancient burial sites, grape fields, mud houses and lots of donkey carts!
So far after our first day our only regrets about coming here is we that we didn’t do it a month ago! Its an amazing place with some truly amazing people!
The train journey was unlike any others we have had so far in China! For a start the train carriage was not full, so far this has been unheard of but was very welcome! The attendants were very attentive and our section was kept very clean throughout the journey, even the toilets had not been crapped all over 30 mins into the journey (although mothers were still making kids wee into the wash sinks and in the gap between the carriages….. why??) The view was for the first time in China not blocked by fog, smog, pollution or rain…. The sun was shining and the sky was blue. The route took us through the length of Gansu skirting Qunchai province, also known as ‘Chinas Siberia’ for its Gulags and nuclear testing/dumping grounds and into Xian Jiang province which has been like arriving in a new country!
Arriving in Xian Jiang has really been amazing, finally we have left behind the generic white tiled Chinese city and arrived somewhere with some real culture! Xian Jiang is located in Chinas extreme western areas and has always been a difficult area for them to control, its history is full of various uprisings and rebellions against Chinese rule, the latest being in 1997, 2000 and 2001. Of course now with the US showing the world you can do what you want with people if you label them a terrorist thousands of Uighurs have been locked up or executed post 9.11 to stop any seperatist movement and to scare the population into obedience. The original local people here are Uighurs, musleum and are more Central Asian than Chinese something which the government in Beijing has tried to counteract by flooding the region with Han Chinese settlers in a similar fasion to Tibet. In 2000 Beijing launched a ‘develop the west’ campaign offering Han Chinese from the west financial and social incentives to move the province which has apparently caused a lot of tension.
Turpan is an oasis town and was a regular stop on the ancient silk road. It is the second lowest place in the world after the dead sea and is also Chinas hottest inhabeted town, the hottest temperature on record is 49.5c! Our first day here has been stunning. The train station is in a neighbouring town about 60km away, from here we caught a bus which drove through the blistering desert further and further down into the huge depression the town is in. The town is famous throughout china for its grapes which grown everywhere here, along with other fruits. It really feels like we are no longer in china here, the people are different and the writing is in an Arabic type script. The market was filled with people listening to Kyrgiz music and watching bollywood or Pakistani films. The food is Central asian with mutton kebabs and great big naans covered in chilli powder and ground cumin, the market was a riot of new sounds and smells, a far cry from the crap tacky repetitive nature of the Chinese markets and streets. We stopped and spoke to many people on our walk about town this evening, none of them trying to con or sell us anything just people who were interested in who we are and where we were from. People stopped to check us out but instead of staring with their mouths open and laughing at us they smiled and said hello which has been great. The people we spoke to were so nice introducing us to everyone and showing us around town, helping us to buy food and teaching us some Uighur – this evening we have had none of the nationalistic bullshit we heard every time we spoke to a Chinese person which is such a relief.
Before sunset we also cycled to an old mosque with an afghan style minaret which was a great sight, made out of mud and straw in 1777 in a beautiful backdrop of grape fields and mud brick housing. The journey their took us past ancient burial sites, grape fields, mud houses and lots of donkey carts!
So far after our first day our only regrets about coming here is we that we didn’t do it a month ago! Its an amazing place with some truly amazing people!
Xian
Way back before Beijing was the ruling city of China, Xian was the boss, a thriving city of emperors, poets, monks merchants and soldiers, a place where chinas culture apparently reached an apogee of creativitiy and sophistication. The end of the silk road the city has long been an important trading post, protecting it there were once huge walls that enclosed 83 sq km of palaces, temples and grand buildings. The area was home to the capitals of several major dynasties (11 apparently) stretching back all the way to the 11C BC . Sounds impressive eh? Well don’t get your hopes up like we did as almost none of it has survived and the city is the same as other Chinese cities - big boring concrete buildings and large wide streets for the high levels of traffic. If it wasn’t for the big walls enclosing the city (which have recently been rebuilt for the tourists and are a 1/7 of their former glory), a very few buildings that might pass as old (you know, old to an American) and the large muslim population then you could be forgiven for thinking the city was a creation of the past 50 years. As many people still rely on the cheap pressed coal dust blocks for fuel, and the streets are stuffed full of traffic you can literally chew the air in Xian. Within a few hours even the most healthy person has a sore throat, runny nose and is reaching for some kind of extra oxygen canister.
Quick list of the things we did in Xian.
- Visited the Terracotta warriors – found in the countryside about 1.5 hours outside of Xian by a farmer digging a well. Didn’t realize they had all been smashed up by rebels once the emperor had died, so all the warriors you see have been glued back together.
- Cycled the old walls
- Visited chinas largest musical fountain
- Spent lots of time trying to buy train tickets
- Ate Muslim food
That’s about it I think
Quick list of the things we did in Xian.
- Visited the Terracotta warriors – found in the countryside about 1.5 hours outside of Xian by a farmer digging a well. Didn’t realize they had all been smashed up by rebels once the emperor had died, so all the warriors you see have been glued back together.
- Cycled the old walls
- Visited chinas largest musical fountain
- Spent lots of time trying to buy train tickets
- Ate Muslim food
That’s about it I think
Sichuan: Land of abundance, home of the Panda
Our trip to Chengdu capital ofSichuan province meant one thing – Pandas! Our lack of seeing any wildlife in China fuelled the want to see something other than Chinese tourists, and with our hostel describing the Panda as a Carnivorous living fossil, Kung Fu panda showing it to be rather apt at noodle making and martial arts and the panda being Chinas Olympic mascot this year, in my mind made the Panda a must see!
Us Europeans were not aware of the Giant Pandas existence until 1869 when French naturalist Piere Armand David bought back a Panda pelt to the West and documented the panda. Now its one of the worlds most easily recognized mammals and is used for logos such as the WWF. Though descended from the carnivorous bear family this bear survives mainly on… you guessed it - bamboo. It seems however that the Pandas digestive system hasn’t evolved at the same rate as the pandas love for bamboo so they have to eat huge amounts to survive, around 20kg a day (depending on the part of the plant they eat) and even then only a small percentage of the plants nutritional value is absorbed. Once living all over China, it is now restricted to five small mountainous areas in the Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. There are only thought to be about 1000 left in the wild. The decline in the population is due to two linked factors – The bamboo itself flowers and dies en-mass every 25 years; whole bamboo forests die forcing the pandas to walk for miles to find new feeding grounds. With Chinas huge population and development clearing land for living and agriculture the bamboo areas are no longer connected together, so poor old Mr Panda starves.
The giant panda breeding base on the outskirts of Chengdu lays claim to about 60 pandas and focuses unsurprisingly, on breeding pandas. On our arrival on a very wet day we were coupled together with two other westerners and a guide. We luckily soon managed to part with the guide as she was whisking us past all written information and heading straight to the main attraction, which was not our idea of learning anything.
The base has a giant panda museum and a rather graphic cinema documentary to set the scene for the panda. In the museum we got to see what dried panda poo looks like – wood chips – OUCH! A pickled panda digestive system, panda skeletons and scenes of pandas roaming the lands of China with wooly mammoths and saber tooth tigers. The cinema documentary took us through the life of a panda, nearly all of which is spent eating and sleeping. Once past their early teens this is all they can afford to do to conserve energy. We then get to see some failing attempts at panda mating – for an endangered species they aren’t half picky. With no success on the natural front we are shown the finer details of artificial insemination. Then comes birth. With a pregnancy period of only 5-7 months the baby panda is a long way from anything panda like on arrival. Looking more like a baby hamster than a bear. When the baby is due the Panda sits down and with an unceremonious, liquidy pop a tiny pink panda no bigger than the palm of your hand flies about a foot or two into the air crash landing on the floor and the mother gets up to look for it. Quite bazaar. The make sure to show you this a couple of times as it is quite easy to miss. Once even in slow motion. In the base as soon as the baby is out on the floor it is snatched away through the bars and taken away for measuring, documenting and caring for. Though this may seem harsh the documentary went on to justify it by showing a new mother, having located her newborn, swiping and hitting it around the floor, scared of it. This was however a first time mother. Second time round they often make excellent parents from the start. Though with this first time mother attitude I struggle to see how the species has made it this far. In zoos pandas can live up to around 35 years old. In the wild it can be as old as 50.
On our wet, bamboo lined walk around the base we saw two adult pandas and five sub-adult (early teen) pandas enjoying their bamboo in the rain. Luckily we had arrived at the base early enough to catch feeding time and therefore the pandas at their most active. We also paid a visit to the nursery. Unfortunately new babies are popped out in the autumn so no luck there, but we did get to see some large teddy bear size ones rolling around and playing in their area. For ¥1200 you could hold one of these young pandas. Though too expensive for us a businessman and his wife wanted to hold one. After getting dolled up in aprons and gloves they were sat on a large wooden bench in the centre of the nursery area so all other tourists could see and fight for front row views. The young panda was then carried out like a loveable fairground toy, placed on the mans lap and given some apples. All this was done to squeals of excitement and jostling from the Chinese crowd. Though the panda appeared unfazed, previous signs about keeping quiet around the young pandas made me feel sorry for it, but it seemed happy enough munching on its apples.
Throughout the base there is lots of information on conservation, habits and habitat along with famous animal related quotes: ‘Wildlife is not food’ and ‘You can judge a nation by the way they treat their animals’. Well, with hardly any animals left in the wild, monkeys performing on the street to the sound of a whip, Beijing Zoo and everything from dogs to crickets kept in cages I think I have made my judgment. It may have reflected better if it had said ‘You can judge a nation by the way they treat their pandas’, as the breeding base was very good, informative and a tribute to what the Chinese are capable of in terms of animal welfare. It is just a shame no other animals get such national treasure acknowledgement.
In a recent article we read the fight for the Olympic mascot was a tough one with contestants being the Monkey King, the Tibetan Antelope and the Panda to name a few. The Monkey King was thought too disruptive, as a mischievous character to represent China in the games. The Tibetan Antelope on the other hand embodied the Olympic spirit; with determination and stamina it is able to run vast distances at high altitudes over the Tibetan plateau. This endangered animal (hunted for its fine coat) would have been a great and unusual mascot and the increased publicity would have helped its cause. Then the Panda, who was thought to be a bit of a chubby, non-Olympian sort of fellow was transformed, by the magazine justifying the choice, into a charming, witty beast who, I kid you not, has the ability ‘to be good at all sports, except golf’. Luckily for the Chinese golf isn’t an Olympic event. Although already the mascot for the Asian games the Chinese inability to think outside the box has meant that the very predictable and loveable Panda will be bringing the Chinese luck this year.
Us Europeans were not aware of the Giant Pandas existence until 1869 when French naturalist Piere Armand David bought back a Panda pelt to the West and documented the panda. Now its one of the worlds most easily recognized mammals and is used for logos such as the WWF. Though descended from the carnivorous bear family this bear survives mainly on… you guessed it - bamboo. It seems however that the Pandas digestive system hasn’t evolved at the same rate as the pandas love for bamboo so they have to eat huge amounts to survive, around 20kg a day (depending on the part of the plant they eat) and even then only a small percentage of the plants nutritional value is absorbed. Once living all over China, it is now restricted to five small mountainous areas in the Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. There are only thought to be about 1000 left in the wild. The decline in the population is due to two linked factors – The bamboo itself flowers and dies en-mass every 25 years; whole bamboo forests die forcing the pandas to walk for miles to find new feeding grounds. With Chinas huge population and development clearing land for living and agriculture the bamboo areas are no longer connected together, so poor old Mr Panda starves.
The giant panda breeding base on the outskirts of Chengdu lays claim to about 60 pandas and focuses unsurprisingly, on breeding pandas. On our arrival on a very wet day we were coupled together with two other westerners and a guide. We luckily soon managed to part with the guide as she was whisking us past all written information and heading straight to the main attraction, which was not our idea of learning anything.
The base has a giant panda museum and a rather graphic cinema documentary to set the scene for the panda. In the museum we got to see what dried panda poo looks like – wood chips – OUCH! A pickled panda digestive system, panda skeletons and scenes of pandas roaming the lands of China with wooly mammoths and saber tooth tigers. The cinema documentary took us through the life of a panda, nearly all of which is spent eating and sleeping. Once past their early teens this is all they can afford to do to conserve energy. We then get to see some failing attempts at panda mating – for an endangered species they aren’t half picky. With no success on the natural front we are shown the finer details of artificial insemination. Then comes birth. With a pregnancy period of only 5-7 months the baby panda is a long way from anything panda like on arrival. Looking more like a baby hamster than a bear. When the baby is due the Panda sits down and with an unceremonious, liquidy pop a tiny pink panda no bigger than the palm of your hand flies about a foot or two into the air crash landing on the floor and the mother gets up to look for it. Quite bazaar. The make sure to show you this a couple of times as it is quite easy to miss. Once even in slow motion. In the base as soon as the baby is out on the floor it is snatched away through the bars and taken away for measuring, documenting and caring for. Though this may seem harsh the documentary went on to justify it by showing a new mother, having located her newborn, swiping and hitting it around the floor, scared of it. This was however a first time mother. Second time round they often make excellent parents from the start. Though with this first time mother attitude I struggle to see how the species has made it this far. In zoos pandas can live up to around 35 years old. In the wild it can be as old as 50.
On our wet, bamboo lined walk around the base we saw two adult pandas and five sub-adult (early teen) pandas enjoying their bamboo in the rain. Luckily we had arrived at the base early enough to catch feeding time and therefore the pandas at their most active. We also paid a visit to the nursery. Unfortunately new babies are popped out in the autumn so no luck there, but we did get to see some large teddy bear size ones rolling around and playing in their area. For ¥1200 you could hold one of these young pandas. Though too expensive for us a businessman and his wife wanted to hold one. After getting dolled up in aprons and gloves they were sat on a large wooden bench in the centre of the nursery area so all other tourists could see and fight for front row views. The young panda was then carried out like a loveable fairground toy, placed on the mans lap and given some apples. All this was done to squeals of excitement and jostling from the Chinese crowd. Though the panda appeared unfazed, previous signs about keeping quiet around the young pandas made me feel sorry for it, but it seemed happy enough munching on its apples.
Throughout the base there is lots of information on conservation, habits and habitat along with famous animal related quotes: ‘Wildlife is not food’ and ‘You can judge a nation by the way they treat their animals’. Well, with hardly any animals left in the wild, monkeys performing on the street to the sound of a whip, Beijing Zoo and everything from dogs to crickets kept in cages I think I have made my judgment. It may have reflected better if it had said ‘You can judge a nation by the way they treat their pandas’, as the breeding base was very good, informative and a tribute to what the Chinese are capable of in terms of animal welfare. It is just a shame no other animals get such national treasure acknowledgement.
In a recent article we read the fight for the Olympic mascot was a tough one with contestants being the Monkey King, the Tibetan Antelope and the Panda to name a few. The Monkey King was thought too disruptive, as a mischievous character to represent China in the games. The Tibetan Antelope on the other hand embodied the Olympic spirit; with determination and stamina it is able to run vast distances at high altitudes over the Tibetan plateau. This endangered animal (hunted for its fine coat) would have been a great and unusual mascot and the increased publicity would have helped its cause. Then the Panda, who was thought to be a bit of a chubby, non-Olympian sort of fellow was transformed, by the magazine justifying the choice, into a charming, witty beast who, I kid you not, has the ability ‘to be good at all sports, except golf’. Luckily for the Chinese golf isn’t an Olympic event. Although already the mascot for the Asian games the Chinese inability to think outside the box has meant that the very predictable and loveable Panda will be bringing the Chinese luck this year.
Thursday, 31 July 2008
China's Naxi party
With all four wheels firmly on the tourist trial our next stop was the ancient city of Lijiang, about three and a half hours North West from Dali - an old town of cobbled streets, rickety old wooden buildings and flowing canals. Situated at an altitude of almost 3000 meters the air was much cooler than previous places have been recently, and with a ban of all motor vehicles in the old town the air was… dare we say it.. almost clean! The town is split into two very different parts, the old and the new town, the old being the interesting part and the new being the same as almost every other town in China.
Lijiang is the main town of the large minority group based in this part of the world, the Naxi, who apart from wearing funny clothes have some quite interesting traits. First off is they are the last people in the world to still write using a form of Heiroglyphics which date back over 1000 years, and second is the fact that in their towns the women wear the trousers ( A matriarchal society says Sarah).
The town has a few old men left known as Dongba who are Shamens and the caretakers of the written language, they also act as the mediators between the Naxi and the spirit world and are probably the last few people who know how to write the unique text. We are not sure how much shamanistic acts they carry out now as they are usually hanging round shops writing books and adding text for Chinese tourists souveniers, but seeing someone write using pictograms was so impressive and really gave the feeling of seeing a living dinosaur. We bought a Naxi dictionary just to see the really old man write in the front of it for us.
The Naxi women apparently maintain their hold over men by having a flexible arrangement for love affairs… Their system allows people to get together without setting up a joint residence so the guy and the girl live in their respective homes, at night the guy spends the night at the girls house and during the day he goes back home to work at his mums house which is also where he lives. Any children are looked after the woman who brings them up, the man provides the support until the relationship is over when he would stop with no special effort for paternity. Women also inherit all property and village disputes are settled by what is essentially a big mothers meeting! That’s a meeting made up of lots of mothers not big mummas. This domination by the women also influences their language, we were told that the word female added to a noun would enlarge the meaning and if the word for male is added it decreases it, for example stone + female would mean a boulder and stone + male would mean pebble!
Visiting the old town was very much like being in York or Bath in the middle of the peak tourist season, because of the very narrow streets and its extreme popularity with Chinese tour groups it was packed. Past 9am we were shoulder to shoulder with the red cap megaphone wielding tour goups which very much distracted us from the beauty of the old buildings and waterways. The constant rain added to the danger, not from the threat of being washed away but from all the short ass Chinese people poking our eyes out with their umbrellas. It was like something from an Indiana Jones film, ducking and diving to avoid flying spikes coming towards our eyes!
One of the highlights of the town was the Naxi’s great food, these guys love goats cheese and ham which makes us love the Naxis. Our breakfasts consisted of fired goats cheese, amazing salted ham and huge potato pancake type things, this was a welcome change from the normal Chinese type food. They also cook a huge variety of vegetables and with its tourist site status we were able to find many English menus, which was nice as for once we could pick what we wanted to eat!
Whilst in the town we visited the Mu Mansion, the old residence of the leader of the Naxi. It was destroyed in an earthquake in 1996 so the Chinese have rebuilt the site in a Chinese style… this made it a little boring as it can be added to list of temples and palaces which have all been renovated and repainted in exactly the same style and colours. What separated it from other sites were the waterways running through the site and the fact it was built on a hill so we could walk up and take in the view. The view unfortunately was disappointing as during our time in the temple it rained non stop!
After our time in Lijiang we caught a bus to southern Sichuan to avoid back tracking via Kunming. The journey took us over some high passes via a very windy road. One problem with catching a bus in China on windy roads is the Chinese people’s subseptability to travel sickness… whether its due to their constant eating or because they are not used to traveling almost half the bus starts being sick into bags at some point along the journey, whenever we stop for a break the road is lines with people from the bus throwing up. This combined with some of their other filthy habits can make the journey slightly uncomfortable for us sometimes. The problem is as soon as they stop being sick they sit down and eat a pack of chickens feet or noodles only to throw them up again 30 minutes later???? Why lord why?
Our destination was a city we had never heard of and cannot remember the name of, a large industrial city that spralled along a large river valley for tens of miles but had no mention in our guidebook. The valley was easily one of the most industrialized places we have seen so far on our travels, for over a hour we past many coal and ore mines, and endless other heavy smoky industry. Some plants were pumping out smoke which was bright yellow in colour and the river in the valley was a feable sludgy trickle. We had passed many dams on the journey. After arriving at the bus station we had to get a cab 48km to the train station where we were lucky enough to get a sleeper train the same night onto Chengdu the capital of Sichuan province.
Taking the bus so far in China has had its good and bad points. As an organized system its great, every town and village had a bus station, larger towns and cities have many stations (which can be confusing when you don’t know which one you need) and each station has many buses a day, often as frequently as 20 minuets apart even if the journey is 7 hours or more. The ticket counters are generally easy to use, we show the woman the Chinese characters for the destination and we are given a ticket for the next bus, sometimes it’s a mad dash after she has booked us onto a bus leaving in as little as 3 minutes! The only problems are if it’s a busy station (which is all but the smallest towns) then despite the authorities best effort to impliment a queing system it’s a bit of a scrum to get to the front. Well a scrum is a bit of an exaggeration as about 20% of the people know how to que now but as soon as you let your guard down three or four people would have passed you. Some of the stations we have visited have tried installing some kind of metal gate cattle sorting type contraption, the sort that lines cows up before the slaughterhouse but they still manage to climb over each other and push in. Buying a bus ticket in China requires patience, vigilance and an ability to cast aside any notion of Englishness within your body so you can kick the bastards out the way before they do the same to you!
China is a country constantly on the move, despite buses to most towns every 20 minutes they are almost always full. Every train we have taken has been filled, often booked days in advance in every class. It claims in our guide book that at any moment in time it is estimated there are over 10 million people on Chinese trains… quite a few people! Being crammed so close to people with such horrible habits makes for some really annoying journeys!
Lijiang is the main town of the large minority group based in this part of the world, the Naxi, who apart from wearing funny clothes have some quite interesting traits. First off is they are the last people in the world to still write using a form of Heiroglyphics which date back over 1000 years, and second is the fact that in their towns the women wear the trousers ( A matriarchal society says Sarah).
The town has a few old men left known as Dongba who are Shamens and the caretakers of the written language, they also act as the mediators between the Naxi and the spirit world and are probably the last few people who know how to write the unique text. We are not sure how much shamanistic acts they carry out now as they are usually hanging round shops writing books and adding text for Chinese tourists souveniers, but seeing someone write using pictograms was so impressive and really gave the feeling of seeing a living dinosaur. We bought a Naxi dictionary just to see the really old man write in the front of it for us.
The Naxi women apparently maintain their hold over men by having a flexible arrangement for love affairs… Their system allows people to get together without setting up a joint residence so the guy and the girl live in their respective homes, at night the guy spends the night at the girls house and during the day he goes back home to work at his mums house which is also where he lives. Any children are looked after the woman who brings them up, the man provides the support until the relationship is over when he would stop with no special effort for paternity. Women also inherit all property and village disputes are settled by what is essentially a big mothers meeting! That’s a meeting made up of lots of mothers not big mummas. This domination by the women also influences their language, we were told that the word female added to a noun would enlarge the meaning and if the word for male is added it decreases it, for example stone + female would mean a boulder and stone + male would mean pebble!
Visiting the old town was very much like being in York or Bath in the middle of the peak tourist season, because of the very narrow streets and its extreme popularity with Chinese tour groups it was packed. Past 9am we were shoulder to shoulder with the red cap megaphone wielding tour goups which very much distracted us from the beauty of the old buildings and waterways. The constant rain added to the danger, not from the threat of being washed away but from all the short ass Chinese people poking our eyes out with their umbrellas. It was like something from an Indiana Jones film, ducking and diving to avoid flying spikes coming towards our eyes!
One of the highlights of the town was the Naxi’s great food, these guys love goats cheese and ham which makes us love the Naxis. Our breakfasts consisted of fired goats cheese, amazing salted ham and huge potato pancake type things, this was a welcome change from the normal Chinese type food. They also cook a huge variety of vegetables and with its tourist site status we were able to find many English menus, which was nice as for once we could pick what we wanted to eat!
Whilst in the town we visited the Mu Mansion, the old residence of the leader of the Naxi. It was destroyed in an earthquake in 1996 so the Chinese have rebuilt the site in a Chinese style… this made it a little boring as it can be added to list of temples and palaces which have all been renovated and repainted in exactly the same style and colours. What separated it from other sites were the waterways running through the site and the fact it was built on a hill so we could walk up and take in the view. The view unfortunately was disappointing as during our time in the temple it rained non stop!
After our time in Lijiang we caught a bus to southern Sichuan to avoid back tracking via Kunming. The journey took us over some high passes via a very windy road. One problem with catching a bus in China on windy roads is the Chinese people’s subseptability to travel sickness… whether its due to their constant eating or because they are not used to traveling almost half the bus starts being sick into bags at some point along the journey, whenever we stop for a break the road is lines with people from the bus throwing up. This combined with some of their other filthy habits can make the journey slightly uncomfortable for us sometimes. The problem is as soon as they stop being sick they sit down and eat a pack of chickens feet or noodles only to throw them up again 30 minutes later???? Why lord why?
Our destination was a city we had never heard of and cannot remember the name of, a large industrial city that spralled along a large river valley for tens of miles but had no mention in our guidebook. The valley was easily one of the most industrialized places we have seen so far on our travels, for over a hour we past many coal and ore mines, and endless other heavy smoky industry. Some plants were pumping out smoke which was bright yellow in colour and the river in the valley was a feable sludgy trickle. We had passed many dams on the journey. After arriving at the bus station we had to get a cab 48km to the train station where we were lucky enough to get a sleeper train the same night onto Chengdu the capital of Sichuan province.
Taking the bus so far in China has had its good and bad points. As an organized system its great, every town and village had a bus station, larger towns and cities have many stations (which can be confusing when you don’t know which one you need) and each station has many buses a day, often as frequently as 20 minuets apart even if the journey is 7 hours or more. The ticket counters are generally easy to use, we show the woman the Chinese characters for the destination and we are given a ticket for the next bus, sometimes it’s a mad dash after she has booked us onto a bus leaving in as little as 3 minutes! The only problems are if it’s a busy station (which is all but the smallest towns) then despite the authorities best effort to impliment a queing system it’s a bit of a scrum to get to the front. Well a scrum is a bit of an exaggeration as about 20% of the people know how to que now but as soon as you let your guard down three or four people would have passed you. Some of the stations we have visited have tried installing some kind of metal gate cattle sorting type contraption, the sort that lines cows up before the slaughterhouse but they still manage to climb over each other and push in. Buying a bus ticket in China requires patience, vigilance and an ability to cast aside any notion of Englishness within your body so you can kick the bastards out the way before they do the same to you!
China is a country constantly on the move, despite buses to most towns every 20 minutes they are almost always full. Every train we have taken has been filled, often booked days in advance in every class. It claims in our guide book that at any moment in time it is estimated there are over 10 million people on Chinese trains… quite a few people! Being crammed so close to people with such horrible habits makes for some really annoying journeys!
A few short sentences on Dali
Our second day in Dali we decided it was be rather pleasant to hire some bikes and take the road up the west side of the lake and then take a ferry back. Little did we know this Sunday venture would end up being such a bad idea. After getting hold of some bikes we headed out of Dali old town and joined a three lane road out of the town. According to our trusted guidebook the road we had planned to take would be quiet as the tour buses take the lower road nearest the lake, little did we know that due to road works this route was now closed. About two km outside of Dali the three lane road became a narrow one lane in each direction road so very quickly we were chocking on lung full’s of thick sulphurous gritty diesel smoke and literally being run off the road by arrogant arsehole Chinese bus drivers. With drivers overtaking buses constantly despite oncoming traffic we were nothing but another small bump in the road, Sam was hit by a bus wing mirror and we were both almost knocked down more times than we dared to count. This was not the relaxing country cycle to the little village we had in mind so after about 10km we gave up and cycled back annoyed and with hand full’s of big rocks to throw at the next bus that hit us.
The rest of our time in Dali consisted of checking out the town walls, checking out the markets, enjoying the food, enjoying the bad monkey bar – one of the few places in China owned by English people and a visit to the most boring museum we have ever visited.
The rest of our time in Dali consisted of checking out the town walls, checking out the markets, enjoying the food, enjoying the bad monkey bar – one of the few places in China owned by English people and a visit to the most boring museum we have ever visited.
Monday, 7 July 2008
Kunming to Dali
The day we left Kunming was the sunniest day we had seen since arriving back in China, and we were due to be spending the next nine hours of that sunny day on the train. We had been on budget drive when we were sorting out transport to our next destination, Dali. The train was going to be an old, hard seat, slow train. The worst thing about travel like this is, although it is as cheap as chips, you will inevitably be squashed next to a chain smoking, noodle slurping, hacking, spitting man and his equally noisy family. As we were having breakfast the morning we were due to leave reality kicked in and we had a change of heart. Nine hours in a smoky, wooden benched carriage? No thanks! So we cut our losses and headed to the long distance bus station.
Here we quickly managed to get on the next bus heading to Dali. Despite their being a bus every 15 minutes from 7:30am to 7:30pm every bus is jam-packed with people. Even the trains are fully booked two days in advance, there seems to be a constant exodus and exchange of people all over this country. Looking out over all the big gleaming coaches in the bus station I felt a sense of ‘we made the right choice’, now we will be enjoying a shorter trip to Dali in comfy seats and clean air. Of course this was not to be the case, getting pointed towards the only mongrel bus in the station I realized I was silly to think anything else. We climbed onto a cross between a mini bus and really old coach, waited while the driver went and got more people to get on his bus. With people hopping on and off all the time having a chat and going out for a cigarette every few minutes it seemed we would never leave, but eventually, once every available space had been taken we headed off, to the sound of the creaking and groaning of every joint on the bus.
The main reasons against taking the train: noisy, smoky, cramped atmosphere, and time. We were seated just behind the driver, the most dangerous place to be in a bus as collisions are not uncommon here due to the freestyle driving they employ. We always try and move towards the back of the bus but it was not possible this time. Soon after leaving the driver lights up the first of his constant cigarette chain between here and Dali and shuts the window. The good thing about the bus was despite the creaking noises and constant smoke we didn’t have to be sandwiched between a whole Chinese family eating their lunch or dinner., just Sam and I on slightly more cushioned and comfortable seats.
The road to Dali was a good one, a large three lane motorway with not too much traffic and for once the driver drove at a non pant filling speed which was nice as we had the front row seats. Strangely for a Chinese road there were quite a few traffic cops and speed cameras but the drivers radar detector made sure we were not caught. Also policing the road to ensure the highest level of road safety were cardboard cutouts of police women and men every few miles straddling the central reservation.
Cardboard policemen aside, the journey took us past some other strange sights. First up about an hour from Kunming was the world dinosaur valley, not sure what was in the valley but the villages before and after all had dinosaurs painted on the walls. A few hours later we drove through an area obsessed with mushrooms, the small old villages with white washed walls were decorated with huge paintings of mushrooms… and each house had a different type painted on, no two houses were the same. One mushroom village had also built some huge bright yellow concrete mushroom shaped buildings on the hill behind. All in all the journey was a short one by Chinese standards, this was helped by the fact we are both reading books that have the ability to make us fall asleep after 3-5 pages…. Sarah is reading Moby Dick and Sam Catch-22. Despite their literacy status we have not found either particularly fast paced.
Dali is an old Chinese walled town sandwiched between some big mountains to the West and a great big lake to the East. Unfortunately it’s also really touristy with bars and restaurants geared towards western tourists and local minority women trying to hawk marijuana to you whenever you walk about. We think the Chinese tourists who visit get more of an education into Western tourists as opposed to the minority people living here. Anyhow its nice to look at and the surrounding countryside is stunning, the people are friendly and the food is good! Tomorrow we are planning on hiring some bikes to cycle through some nearby villages and down to the lake where we can catch a ferry further afield and explore the area.
More photos and details to follow soon!
Here we quickly managed to get on the next bus heading to Dali. Despite their being a bus every 15 minutes from 7:30am to 7:30pm every bus is jam-packed with people. Even the trains are fully booked two days in advance, there seems to be a constant exodus and exchange of people all over this country. Looking out over all the big gleaming coaches in the bus station I felt a sense of ‘we made the right choice’, now we will be enjoying a shorter trip to Dali in comfy seats and clean air. Of course this was not to be the case, getting pointed towards the only mongrel bus in the station I realized I was silly to think anything else. We climbed onto a cross between a mini bus and really old coach, waited while the driver went and got more people to get on his bus. With people hopping on and off all the time having a chat and going out for a cigarette every few minutes it seemed we would never leave, but eventually, once every available space had been taken we headed off, to the sound of the creaking and groaning of every joint on the bus.
The main reasons against taking the train: noisy, smoky, cramped atmosphere, and time. We were seated just behind the driver, the most dangerous place to be in a bus as collisions are not uncommon here due to the freestyle driving they employ. We always try and move towards the back of the bus but it was not possible this time. Soon after leaving the driver lights up the first of his constant cigarette chain between here and Dali and shuts the window. The good thing about the bus was despite the creaking noises and constant smoke we didn’t have to be sandwiched between a whole Chinese family eating their lunch or dinner., just Sam and I on slightly more cushioned and comfortable seats.
The road to Dali was a good one, a large three lane motorway with not too much traffic and for once the driver drove at a non pant filling speed which was nice as we had the front row seats. Strangely for a Chinese road there were quite a few traffic cops and speed cameras but the drivers radar detector made sure we were not caught. Also policing the road to ensure the highest level of road safety were cardboard cutouts of police women and men every few miles straddling the central reservation.
Cardboard policemen aside, the journey took us past some other strange sights. First up about an hour from Kunming was the world dinosaur valley, not sure what was in the valley but the villages before and after all had dinosaurs painted on the walls. A few hours later we drove through an area obsessed with mushrooms, the small old villages with white washed walls were decorated with huge paintings of mushrooms… and each house had a different type painted on, no two houses were the same. One mushroom village had also built some huge bright yellow concrete mushroom shaped buildings on the hill behind. All in all the journey was a short one by Chinese standards, this was helped by the fact we are both reading books that have the ability to make us fall asleep after 3-5 pages…. Sarah is reading Moby Dick and Sam Catch-22. Despite their literacy status we have not found either particularly fast paced.
Dali is an old Chinese walled town sandwiched between some big mountains to the West and a great big lake to the East. Unfortunately it’s also really touristy with bars and restaurants geared towards western tourists and local minority women trying to hawk marijuana to you whenever you walk about. We think the Chinese tourists who visit get more of an education into Western tourists as opposed to the minority people living here. Anyhow its nice to look at and the surrounding countryside is stunning, the people are friendly and the food is good! Tomorrow we are planning on hiring some bikes to cycle through some nearby villages and down to the lake where we can catch a ferry further afield and explore the area.
More photos and details to follow soon!
Friday, 4 July 2008
Celebration!
We forgot to say, as of last week we have had over 10000 views of our photos on flickr!
Thats a lot of people!
Thats a lot of people!
Revival!
Hello everyone! Its been a while.. Sarah and I have decided to kick start this beast back into operation as we are heading deeper into the darkness and internet is becoming more difficult to find! Instead of the luxury of emails we are going to try and write more here so you guys can keep track of what we are up if we can't email you all!
After A LOT of deliberation on what we were to do next and problems with visas and my new passport everything has fitted into place nicely and we are back in Southern China. Because the British Embassy managed to make my new passport quicker than the two weeks stated (for the unreal price of 160 pounds - looks like ferrero rocher all round at the embassy) we were able to make it back into China in time, just one day before the re-entrance date on our visa expired. This was a good thing as despite Chinas 'One world, one dream' mantra it is now very difficult for foreigners to obtain a Chinese visa.
We crossed the 'friendship pass' boarder crossing North East of Hanoi and caught a bus to Nanning, the capitol of Guangxi province. Fortunately we were able to get a night train that same evening out of Nanning as, despite its population of 1.5 million there was nothing interesting to keep us interested and the city was just another modern characterless Chinese city (this sounds bad but really its true... more about this soon).
The transition from Hanoi to Kunming has taken us from one kind of dampness to another.. Seven in the morning in Hanoi had us both profusely dripping in sweat unable to dry all day, and Kunming has RAINED non stop for the past three days! Its not even tropical rain, its cold wet drizzly grey rain just like in England! The coldness comes from the altitude - 1890 meters and the wet because its the wet season from now until the end of August! Our arrival in Kunming was a bit of a shock as it had been raining heavily all night and most of the city was under at least a foot of water! To get to our hostel we had to wade through the floodwaters, sewage and various floaters.. nice!
Kunming is yet another Chinese city, this one is the capitol of Yunnan province with a population of 1.2 million. Chinese cities may sound exotic and interesting to the uninitiated but really they are not, the main characteristics are... large featureless glass buildings, huge amounts of construction building more large featureless glass buildings, destruction of anything remotely old or holding character to make way for more large featureless glass buildings, huge amounts of traffic and car fume pollution and shopping malls so vast and filled with luxury goods you could mistake yourself for being in Dubai. Anyway, we have been using Kunming as a base to see some surrounding sights and to prepare ourselves for journeys into more remote parts of Yunnan.
Yunnan is the sixth largest province in China and more interestingly for us is only 50% Han Chinese, the remaining 50% is made up of various ethnic groups who have resisted Han influence and still hold strong local identities. Due to the regions remoteness and ruff rugged terrain its always been a bit of a renigade and has had a history of breaking ties with Beijing.
On a map you will find us just north of Laos and North East of Burma! The scenery here is varied, from thick tropical jungle down in the south (near Burma) to huge mountains in the north (near to Tibet and Sichuan).
We are hoping to travel North East from where we are now towards the mountains of Sichuan and Tibet through various villages and ethnic groups. There are Tibetan areas of Yunnan and Sichuan we are going to try and visit but the word on the street is that they may still be off-limits... We would like to take the 8 day mountain road into Lhasa (capitol of Tibet) from here but its a complete no-no for the Chinese Police, we would be turned back as soon as we leave Sangraii-La. Even though China says Tibet is open to foreign travelers its actually very difficult to enter... the rules are you can only enter via the train or plane or bus from the northern route, you have to be a member of a tour consisting of a group of people all traveling on the same passport type (ie uk), all hotels and tickets must be booked in advance and thats the only place you can stay all through an agency in advance, no visiting a list of monasteries provided by the government (generally the big ones), no traveling outside of Lhasa unless arranged by the same company the original tour was booked through and only after 12 days prior notification by the Tibetan tourist authority (Chinese). All in all its a stupid process that would cost us a fortune in time and money and has only made us more critical of the Chinese handling of the whole situation!
Anyhow, if a journey towards Tibet is not possible we are planning to taking the road North East over the Sichuan mountains towards Chengdu. Not sure of our exact route yet but it will have to take us out west way as in five weeks we will need to be entering Pakistan!
On a different note we have just been reading that the UN has declared this year the year of the potato! With rising costs in rice and failures in wheat harvests they have decided that spuds are the way ahead.... this article has also given a list of the average consumption, in grammes per person per day of various countries in the world, the average being 104 grammes per person per day. China comes out slightly over average at 110 g/p/d, USA 150 g/p/d... us brits doubles that at 310 g/p/d. staggeringly the people in Belarus on average eat 950 grammes per person per day! Thats 50g short of a Kilo each of potatoes EVERY DAY! We found this funny!
Anyway, watch this space for forthcoming updates on our views and stories on traveling in China!
After A LOT of deliberation on what we were to do next and problems with visas and my new passport everything has fitted into place nicely and we are back in Southern China. Because the British Embassy managed to make my new passport quicker than the two weeks stated (for the unreal price of 160 pounds - looks like ferrero rocher all round at the embassy) we were able to make it back into China in time, just one day before the re-entrance date on our visa expired. This was a good thing as despite Chinas 'One world, one dream' mantra it is now very difficult for foreigners to obtain a Chinese visa.
We crossed the 'friendship pass' boarder crossing North East of Hanoi and caught a bus to Nanning, the capitol of Guangxi province. Fortunately we were able to get a night train that same evening out of Nanning as, despite its population of 1.5 million there was nothing interesting to keep us interested and the city was just another modern characterless Chinese city (this sounds bad but really its true... more about this soon).
The transition from Hanoi to Kunming has taken us from one kind of dampness to another.. Seven in the morning in Hanoi had us both profusely dripping in sweat unable to dry all day, and Kunming has RAINED non stop for the past three days! Its not even tropical rain, its cold wet drizzly grey rain just like in England! The coldness comes from the altitude - 1890 meters and the wet because its the wet season from now until the end of August! Our arrival in Kunming was a bit of a shock as it had been raining heavily all night and most of the city was under at least a foot of water! To get to our hostel we had to wade through the floodwaters, sewage and various floaters.. nice!
Kunming is yet another Chinese city, this one is the capitol of Yunnan province with a population of 1.2 million. Chinese cities may sound exotic and interesting to the uninitiated but really they are not, the main characteristics are... large featureless glass buildings, huge amounts of construction building more large featureless glass buildings, destruction of anything remotely old or holding character to make way for more large featureless glass buildings, huge amounts of traffic and car fume pollution and shopping malls so vast and filled with luxury goods you could mistake yourself for being in Dubai. Anyway, we have been using Kunming as a base to see some surrounding sights and to prepare ourselves for journeys into more remote parts of Yunnan.
Yunnan is the sixth largest province in China and more interestingly for us is only 50% Han Chinese, the remaining 50% is made up of various ethnic groups who have resisted Han influence and still hold strong local identities. Due to the regions remoteness and ruff rugged terrain its always been a bit of a renigade and has had a history of breaking ties with Beijing.
On a map you will find us just north of Laos and North East of Burma! The scenery here is varied, from thick tropical jungle down in the south (near Burma) to huge mountains in the north (near to Tibet and Sichuan).
We are hoping to travel North East from where we are now towards the mountains of Sichuan and Tibet through various villages and ethnic groups. There are Tibetan areas of Yunnan and Sichuan we are going to try and visit but the word on the street is that they may still be off-limits... We would like to take the 8 day mountain road into Lhasa (capitol of Tibet) from here but its a complete no-no for the Chinese Police, we would be turned back as soon as we leave Sangraii-La. Even though China says Tibet is open to foreign travelers its actually very difficult to enter... the rules are you can only enter via the train or plane or bus from the northern route, you have to be a member of a tour consisting of a group of people all traveling on the same passport type (ie uk), all hotels and tickets must be booked in advance and thats the only place you can stay all through an agency in advance, no visiting a list of monasteries provided by the government (generally the big ones), no traveling outside of Lhasa unless arranged by the same company the original tour was booked through and only after 12 days prior notification by the Tibetan tourist authority (Chinese). All in all its a stupid process that would cost us a fortune in time and money and has only made us more critical of the Chinese handling of the whole situation!
Anyhow, if a journey towards Tibet is not possible we are planning to taking the road North East over the Sichuan mountains towards Chengdu. Not sure of our exact route yet but it will have to take us out west way as in five weeks we will need to be entering Pakistan!
On a different note we have just been reading that the UN has declared this year the year of the potato! With rising costs in rice and failures in wheat harvests they have decided that spuds are the way ahead.... this article has also given a list of the average consumption, in grammes per person per day of various countries in the world, the average being 104 grammes per person per day. China comes out slightly over average at 110 g/p/d, USA 150 g/p/d... us brits doubles that at 310 g/p/d. staggeringly the people in Belarus on average eat 950 grammes per person per day! Thats 50g short of a Kilo each of potatoes EVERY DAY! We found this funny!
Anyway, watch this space for forthcoming updates on our views and stories on traveling in China!
Tuesday, 20 May 2008
AAAA Scenic Spots
We know we haven't written to you for a while. As we are due to be leaving China in two days we decided to at least give you a taste of what we have been up to in the country.
Since leaving Beijing which can, in short, be described as big, hectic, friendly, modern and varied. We have headed down to the south of China. We took a 28 hour train journey to Guiyang in Guizhou province. We travelled hard sleeper, equivalent to third class. The bunks are three high with the top one stuck up in the roof of the train. We had experienced this once before on our trip to Datong and decided this time, we would opt for the middle bunk. You may still not be able to sit up but it is less claustrophobic as you can actually see out of a window. The train, as usual was jam packed with smoking and slurping Chinese men and families with screaming kids. The train journey was pleasant though, the countryside changed from the more rugged, harsh scenery which surrounds Beijing to the the lush green hills and rice terraces of the south. We really felt like we were in the tropical regions now!
Arriving in Guiyang was the start of our trip down the Vietnamese boarder. The following day was the ascent of the Olympic (One World, One Dream) torch to the summit of Everest, or Mount Chomolungma as it is called in China (this is the Tibetan name). We watched this for a bit, enduring the painfully amusing live interviewing. Not the easiest thing to do, interviewing two Chomolungma mountaineers on live tv as the torch makes it's slow progress to the summit. We had to get going.
We were heading to the nearby town of Anshun. On arriving at the bus station we were sold a ticket for a bus leaving in four minutes, after a mad dash to find the bus we were on our way. It was a hair-raising bus journey, which means the driver didn't like driving on his side of the road and strictly obeyed the rule of tonnage. After finding a hotel and grabbing a good breakfast of dumplings and red rice porridge we jumped on another bus to the 'World Famous AAAA Scenic Spot Waterfall'.
Huangguoshu Falls, after the farce of getting overly complicated and expensive tickets, were really lovely. Walking through a scenic Bonsai tree garden, with lots of very cool big-little trees and little-big trees you come to the top of the escalator, yes that's right, an escalator which takes you down the side of the valley. We hadn't brought a ticket so took the stroll down to the various viewing areas. The route, went behind the waterfalls, we got very wet but standing behind a big noisy waterfall is great fun! We also met a Chinese couple, the husband could speak a little English and they were very keen to have a chat, where had we been, he recommended some places to go, got very excited about the Olympics (as all Chinese people do when you mention it - 'One World, One Dream!')jobs and the weather in England, They were both really sweet. We do have one confession, we took the escalator back up the valley, making sure we adhered to the strict, no photos, no sitting, hand on the rail rules - Beat walking back up!
Next on our trip was the Longgong Caves, after a slightly later than planned start we hopped on a local bus and headed out of Anshun again. What we didn't realise at the time was the motley crew on our bus would actually become vital to our trip and by the end of the day we would be a team. The bus consisted of four students of varying excitability and a middle aged couple, the couple seemed normal enough until the husband produced from the depths of his clothing, jars with live bugs in. The largest one being what looked like a locust, which started chirping away. After getting passed round the insects disappeared from whence they came.
The Longgong caves covers a a massive area. You start your day overlooking rice paddies and limestone karsts, it's beautiful as the karsts are really dramatic and the rice paddies act like flat mirrors on the valley floors, so you get some great reflections, interrupted every now and then by women planting or water buffalo ploughing the muddy waters. Though only a small section is open to tourists the whole area is made up of karst caves stretching 15Km running through about 20 hills and has 90 interconnecting caves. The largest cave on the trip was about 80 meters high and 50 meters wide.
We didn't realize we were supposed to be moving as a group and were happy when the Chinese bus people rushed off in normal Chinese fashion, snapping pictures of the scenery to enjoy it at a later date. We ambled along, getting some pictures and watching the people at work in the fields. By the time we were close to the Chinese again we got shouted at, in an excited, friendly way "We are waiting for you!" We then saw we were all needed to fill up a river boat. The boat which had, what can only be described as bright orange, square rice cakes for buoyancy aids, chugged us through the fields to a tiny village. The village only seemed to be inhabited by very agile old women and chickens. Walking up the street they would come running at you holding bright pink incense sticks. I managed to side step/run away from one and after a walk through a bamboo wood we got to a large Buddha cave. I did buy incense from a cute child on the path who was selling them for her blind mother, so a good deed. The Buddha cave was very tranquil, monks were there to offer prayers and fortune telling. You could pay them to say prayers for you and could buy incense sticks the size of people. After been moved along by the Chinese again we climbed up the side of a hill and went into the first of the caves networks. The caves are garishly lit by lights of all colours, but they are really impressive, steep and winding walkways take you around large stalagmite formations and through narrow gaps. The stillness in the caves interrupted every now and then by chirping coming from the Chinese mans clothing. We ended up at the top of a large and jungly looking valley. With no clear markers on where to go we all ventured down. Then, much to our delight there was a zip wire! The Chinese students got us a slight discount off the price. Unfortunately non of them could afford to do it (though it wasn't expensive at 20RMB), so they cheerfully said goodbye to Sam and I, planning to meet up further down the valley and asked us to wave at them as we went by. The zip wire looked a bit more rickety than the one we took off the great wall and after being told to read the safety instructions in English, started to panic as it said to make sure you apply the break at the end... what break? when? what will happen if we don't? with no further explanation we were strapped up, shown where to pull on the break and told not to touch the wire. Sam went first, speeding off into the distance, yelling, and stopped like a rag doll being thrown in the air at the other end, which created some chuckles from the people attaching me to the wire. So, after seriously thinking about backing out, off I went. The zip picked up speed pretty quickly, I managed a wave to someone below me, but my attention was soon turned to, when do I pull the break? The red flag was being waved at me, I was pulling as hard as I could, I wasn't slowing down! The slightly padded wall was fast approaching and all my weight was now on the break, it might as well not be there! I then shut my eyes, prepared for the worst and screamed, a scream of pure fear, I got thrown into the air... I then opened my eyes to Sam and the two zip attendants wetting themselves laughing. Of course, the little Chinese man was there with the spring loaded wire to stop me. Forcing my legs to stop shaking, laughing for being alive and regaining composure we then ventured into their tiny office and got pictures printed of both of us coming into land, we both look really worried, even Sam has the fear in his eyes and arm muscles, pulling on that break which does nothing expect scare the big Jesus out of you!
We finally managed to find the Chinese guys again, waiting for us in another huge cave, even more grotesquely decorated with a large 'light waterfall' streaming down a section of the massive cave. After a long and Chinese style hurried walk through the caves we came out and, after getting more directions from locals, debating about which choice of route to then take, went round to some boats! Finally, this is what we had been waiting for, boats through caves! It had an adventurous and surreal side to it. Luckily, we had hardly met any other tourists all day and we were the only ones in the caves and on the boats so it felt like we were on our own which added to the adventure feel, silently being punted along the narrow tunnels and across cavernous halls. The purple, red, green and blue lighting added to the surreal side of things casting strange shadows and light across the cave walls and still water. We then changed boats and headed off into the cave network again. This time meeting a orange and white baseball cap tour group coming other other way, but the caves instilled a sense of serenity in the Chinese and they were all really quiet (apart from the Chinese chirping locust) which was great! Emerging into daylight again we headed off, on the home stretch now, we had been walking/trekking for about five hours, this area is massive. We separated from the Chinese for the last bit, they went off to see yet another cave, but Sam and I were exhausted so started to find our way back. It was then we really appreciated having the Chinese around as it took us ages to figure the right way out of the scenic area. Ironically the bus we found to take us back to Anshun had to be full, so we sat around and ended up waiting for the Chinese guys to finish their sightseeing. It created some giggles when they realised, for once, we had been waiting for them! It was a fun day, getting lost in the jungle valley, zip wires, boats through caves, it really did feel like some sort of big team building exercise.
We then spent the rest of the day getting to Kaili, to the east of Guiyan. From here we wanted to visit some minority villages, there are over 13 different minorities living in this region. We chose to stay in greatly named Petroleum Hotel. At 80RMB it was the cheapest stay so far, and it showed. After lugging our stuff up 6 floors of dirty green carpeted stairs and dumping our stuff in a damp ridden room we headed off for some much needed food.
Now we are further south, the food has taken on a more spicy flavour. Even our breakfast dumplings in Anshun were served with a dish loaded with finely ground chilies and spring onions, the locals mix in a small amount of soy sauce to create a fiery paste for a hot morning blast. Our dinner in Kaili was probably one of the hottest things I had eaten so far, including Sams spicy home cooking! Sam also had a really spicy dish. Described on the menu as 'medium-spice' I wouldn't want to see what horror 'spicy' would produce!
As a result we both got off to a slow start the next day with dodgy stomachs. We went to CITS (China International Tourist Service), in most places they are useless and want you to pay lots of money for tours, but this one had a good rep and told us about events happening in the surrounding villages. It was market day in Taijiang, not far outside Kaili, so we hopped on a bus to go and check it out.
Since leaving Beijing which can, in short, be described as big, hectic, friendly, modern and varied. We have headed down to the south of China. We took a 28 hour train journey to Guiyang in Guizhou province. We travelled hard sleeper, equivalent to third class. The bunks are three high with the top one stuck up in the roof of the train. We had experienced this once before on our trip to Datong and decided this time, we would opt for the middle bunk. You may still not be able to sit up but it is less claustrophobic as you can actually see out of a window. The train, as usual was jam packed with smoking and slurping Chinese men and families with screaming kids. The train journey was pleasant though, the countryside changed from the more rugged, harsh scenery which surrounds Beijing to the the lush green hills and rice terraces of the south. We really felt like we were in the tropical regions now!
Arriving in Guiyang was the start of our trip down the Vietnamese boarder. The following day was the ascent of the Olympic (One World, One Dream) torch to the summit of Everest, or Mount Chomolungma as it is called in China (this is the Tibetan name). We watched this for a bit, enduring the painfully amusing live interviewing. Not the easiest thing to do, interviewing two Chomolungma mountaineers on live tv as the torch makes it's slow progress to the summit. We had to get going.
We were heading to the nearby town of Anshun. On arriving at the bus station we were sold a ticket for a bus leaving in four minutes, after a mad dash to find the bus we were on our way. It was a hair-raising bus journey, which means the driver didn't like driving on his side of the road and strictly obeyed the rule of tonnage. After finding a hotel and grabbing a good breakfast of dumplings and red rice porridge we jumped on another bus to the 'World Famous AAAA Scenic Spot Waterfall'.
Huangguoshu Falls, after the farce of getting overly complicated and expensive tickets, were really lovely. Walking through a scenic Bonsai tree garden, with lots of very cool big-little trees and little-big trees you come to the top of the escalator, yes that's right, an escalator which takes you down the side of the valley. We hadn't brought a ticket so took the stroll down to the various viewing areas. The route, went behind the waterfalls, we got very wet but standing behind a big noisy waterfall is great fun! We also met a Chinese couple, the husband could speak a little English and they were very keen to have a chat, where had we been, he recommended some places to go, got very excited about the Olympics (as all Chinese people do when you mention it - 'One World, One Dream!')jobs and the weather in England, They were both really sweet. We do have one confession, we took the escalator back up the valley, making sure we adhered to the strict, no photos, no sitting, hand on the rail rules - Beat walking back up!
Next on our trip was the Longgong Caves, after a slightly later than planned start we hopped on a local bus and headed out of Anshun again. What we didn't realise at the time was the motley crew on our bus would actually become vital to our trip and by the end of the day we would be a team. The bus consisted of four students of varying excitability and a middle aged couple, the couple seemed normal enough until the husband produced from the depths of his clothing, jars with live bugs in. The largest one being what looked like a locust, which started chirping away. After getting passed round the insects disappeared from whence they came.
The Longgong caves covers a a massive area. You start your day overlooking rice paddies and limestone karsts, it's beautiful as the karsts are really dramatic and the rice paddies act like flat mirrors on the valley floors, so you get some great reflections, interrupted every now and then by women planting or water buffalo ploughing the muddy waters. Though only a small section is open to tourists the whole area is made up of karst caves stretching 15Km running through about 20 hills and has 90 interconnecting caves. The largest cave on the trip was about 80 meters high and 50 meters wide.
We didn't realize we were supposed to be moving as a group and were happy when the Chinese bus people rushed off in normal Chinese fashion, snapping pictures of the scenery to enjoy it at a later date. We ambled along, getting some pictures and watching the people at work in the fields. By the time we were close to the Chinese again we got shouted at, in an excited, friendly way "We are waiting for you!" We then saw we were all needed to fill up a river boat. The boat which had, what can only be described as bright orange, square rice cakes for buoyancy aids, chugged us through the fields to a tiny village. The village only seemed to be inhabited by very agile old women and chickens. Walking up the street they would come running at you holding bright pink incense sticks. I managed to side step/run away from one and after a walk through a bamboo wood we got to a large Buddha cave. I did buy incense from a cute child on the path who was selling them for her blind mother, so a good deed. The Buddha cave was very tranquil, monks were there to offer prayers and fortune telling. You could pay them to say prayers for you and could buy incense sticks the size of people. After been moved along by the Chinese again we climbed up the side of a hill and went into the first of the caves networks. The caves are garishly lit by lights of all colours, but they are really impressive, steep and winding walkways take you around large stalagmite formations and through narrow gaps. The stillness in the caves interrupted every now and then by chirping coming from the Chinese mans clothing. We ended up at the top of a large and jungly looking valley. With no clear markers on where to go we all ventured down. Then, much to our delight there was a zip wire! The Chinese students got us a slight discount off the price. Unfortunately non of them could afford to do it (though it wasn't expensive at 20RMB), so they cheerfully said goodbye to Sam and I, planning to meet up further down the valley and asked us to wave at them as we went by. The zip wire looked a bit more rickety than the one we took off the great wall and after being told to read the safety instructions in English, started to panic as it said to make sure you apply the break at the end... what break? when? what will happen if we don't? with no further explanation we were strapped up, shown where to pull on the break and told not to touch the wire. Sam went first, speeding off into the distance, yelling, and stopped like a rag doll being thrown in the air at the other end, which created some chuckles from the people attaching me to the wire. So, after seriously thinking about backing out, off I went. The zip picked up speed pretty quickly, I managed a wave to someone below me, but my attention was soon turned to, when do I pull the break? The red flag was being waved at me, I was pulling as hard as I could, I wasn't slowing down! The slightly padded wall was fast approaching and all my weight was now on the break, it might as well not be there! I then shut my eyes, prepared for the worst and screamed, a scream of pure fear, I got thrown into the air... I then opened my eyes to Sam and the two zip attendants wetting themselves laughing. Of course, the little Chinese man was there with the spring loaded wire to stop me. Forcing my legs to stop shaking, laughing for being alive and regaining composure we then ventured into their tiny office and got pictures printed of both of us coming into land, we both look really worried, even Sam has the fear in his eyes and arm muscles, pulling on that break which does nothing expect scare the big Jesus out of you!
We finally managed to find the Chinese guys again, waiting for us in another huge cave, even more grotesquely decorated with a large 'light waterfall' streaming down a section of the massive cave. After a long and Chinese style hurried walk through the caves we came out and, after getting more directions from locals, debating about which choice of route to then take, went round to some boats! Finally, this is what we had been waiting for, boats through caves! It had an adventurous and surreal side to it. Luckily, we had hardly met any other tourists all day and we were the only ones in the caves and on the boats so it felt like we were on our own which added to the adventure feel, silently being punted along the narrow tunnels and across cavernous halls. The purple, red, green and blue lighting added to the surreal side of things casting strange shadows and light across the cave walls and still water. We then changed boats and headed off into the cave network again. This time meeting a orange and white baseball cap tour group coming other other way, but the caves instilled a sense of serenity in the Chinese and they were all really quiet (apart from the Chinese chirping locust) which was great! Emerging into daylight again we headed off, on the home stretch now, we had been walking/trekking for about five hours, this area is massive. We separated from the Chinese for the last bit, they went off to see yet another cave, but Sam and I were exhausted so started to find our way back. It was then we really appreciated having the Chinese around as it took us ages to figure the right way out of the scenic area. Ironically the bus we found to take us back to Anshun had to be full, so we sat around and ended up waiting for the Chinese guys to finish their sightseeing. It created some giggles when they realised, for once, we had been waiting for them! It was a fun day, getting lost in the jungle valley, zip wires, boats through caves, it really did feel like some sort of big team building exercise.
We then spent the rest of the day getting to Kaili, to the east of Guiyan. From here we wanted to visit some minority villages, there are over 13 different minorities living in this region. We chose to stay in greatly named Petroleum Hotel. At 80RMB it was the cheapest stay so far, and it showed. After lugging our stuff up 6 floors of dirty green carpeted stairs and dumping our stuff in a damp ridden room we headed off for some much needed food.
Now we are further south, the food has taken on a more spicy flavour. Even our breakfast dumplings in Anshun were served with a dish loaded with finely ground chilies and spring onions, the locals mix in a small amount of soy sauce to create a fiery paste for a hot morning blast. Our dinner in Kaili was probably one of the hottest things I had eaten so far, including Sams spicy home cooking! Sam also had a really spicy dish. Described on the menu as 'medium-spice' I wouldn't want to see what horror 'spicy' would produce!
As a result we both got off to a slow start the next day with dodgy stomachs. We went to CITS (China International Tourist Service), in most places they are useless and want you to pay lots of money for tours, but this one had a good rep and told us about events happening in the surrounding villages. It was market day in Taijiang, not far outside Kaili, so we hopped on a bus to go and check it out.
Sunday, 20 April 2008
Wednesday, 9 April 2008
Siberian Logging
Interesting to find this article on the BBC news website this morning, we certainly saw a huge amount of wood heading towards China and trains which had a lot more than 30 wagons on them, these trains were running every couple of minutes. We were supprised at the amount of logging taking place and seemed to pass many villages which had cut down all wood for miles around them... W e doubt the Russians will be doing anything about it any time soon!
Siberian Logging
Siberian Logging
Sunday, 6 April 2008
Another sign which made us laugh...
We found this one in the zoo...
It says "for the safety reason please do not leap across the rail"
No car bombs?
Maybe if they put some of these up in Bagdad it may help? We found this sign near the forbidden city.
Thursday, 3 April 2008
Astrophysics and Vodka
Sam and I had had our eye on this trip since first arriving at the hostel: “watch the stars at night” this was trip up to the Mongolian observatory just outside of UB. Mr Kim the guest house owner has made friends with the scientists so for a small fee and a bottle of vodka we were able to visit. Apparently Mongolia is great for observing the sky as it has the one of the highest number of clear nights per year compared to other countries. This is due to it being so land locked. The observatory is a collection of quite grand buildings perched on top of one of UB’s surrounding mountains, built by Russia in the 60’s now was now only used by a couple of people.
Sam and I also managed to get an Auzzie guy and German girl to come with us. Pickup was at 20:15 and we jumped into something similar to an old Toyota Corolla. The trip up there was experience enough! The Mongols drive like crazy people. To add to this already bizarre mindset our driver had a right hand drive car which meant he drove in the middle of the road for most of the way unless he was forced back onto the right hand side by oncoming vehicles, and even this was done reluctantly and at the last second. Overtaking in Mongolia is something which is done by most; Have a look, make sure something is coming the other way, put your foot on the slow reacting accelerator (automatics), beep your horn loudly and flash your lights, decide that you are going then to play chicken for a bit longer while you continue to try and overtake every other car, truck, bus heading your way then swerve in at the last breath, let the car go past and resume middle of the road position until an equally exciting opportunity for this favourite Mongol drivers game presents itself again.
Luckily though we weren’t on the main roads (by this I mean tarmac) too long. Our driver had already stopped of for a bottle of vodka to give to the guy at the observatory who would be showing us around and let us know he doesn’t like driving on the main roads as it is too busy. He then announced with this we would be taking a short cut – to the observatory perched on top of one of the surrounding mountains. So we headed off the road through a yurt/badly built housing estate. Pausing every now and then to decide a left or right through this wooden fenced warren. Eventually we were spat out of the estate into what can only be described as its sewage/rubbish dumping ground. The driver picked his way between the piles of rubbish and squeezed through an extremely narrow tunnel (he got the wing mirror on the way back), through some slurry the other side and then jetted off in his Toyota Corolla up the hillside. Now the type of car we are in is definitely not built for this sort of ground at this sort of speed, but we bumped and rocked our way up there and finally met the ‘main road’ (not tarmac, but less bumpy than the rest of the field) taking us the last bit of our journey up the dark hill.
On arrival at the observatory we were met with a rather large, austere looking building, which we later found out was were where the astrologers lived/did their work. Our guy referred to it at the 7 star hotel (a good double pun as they call the Plough constellation the seven stars of God). We found our star man buried in his tiny work/living quarters, he could speak very good English and gave us a small astrology lesson before we set off to the telescope. We learnt about the distances of our planets, other galaxies and stars from the earth (he was very relieved when we said we understood light years). He was also an avid researcher of meteorite crash sites, this was his ‘thing’ so we got to look at some pictures and hear some stories about them, there are even a few large ones in Europe – Germany, Finland, Spain, Latvia. Outside on the way up to the telescope our enthusiastic and very knowledgeable sky guide pointed out various stars and constellations, which, despite the large number of stars in the sky and vague hand waving we saw! so learnt some new ones, we have learnt Taurus and Pegasus, saw Saturn, Mars and the Polar star. The telescope we were going to be using is now only for visitors, they have a much more hi-tech digital one (which was from America and had been broken for the past 7 months) that they use to see galaxies, comets etc.. Our telescope was in a large circular building which was getting a paint job on the interior, the instructions “don’t touch the walls” seemed an easy enough order to follow until we got inside and had to walk up some stairs barley wide enough for your shoulders. We got to the domed room at the top and turned off the lights. Then, with much creaking and wooden panel sliding noises part of the roof slid open to reveal the night sky. Very exciting stuff! Our galaxy guide then set to work finding the Orion Nebula, which he managed no probs. The telescope itself was something to be reckoned with. Built in Eastern Germany, it is made up of three interconnecting parts (honestly you couldn’t dream this stuff up) which all acted as….arms, which meant the telescope could be swivelled, angles changed, heights adjusted, all the things you would expect a telescope to do, but moving from one part of the sky to another required moving all three parts in certain patterns to get to the right position – watch your heads!
Through the telescope we first saw the Orion nebula – a cluster of stars on Orion’s sword (or as the Auzzies would say, on the handle of the upside down saucepan) surrounded by a huge slivery cloud of star matter – very pretty. We also saw Mars, though at this point he hadn’t told us how we adjust the focus so it was a big red glinting blob. What was good was once we had seen it through the telescope we could then look at the sky and see the red twinkling star and know it was Mars. As Mr Cosmos loved impact craters he was particularly keen to show us the impact craters on the moon. Unfortunately at this point it had moved behind a large clump of trees, after many frantic movements, Mongolian “tchiss” ing and cursing the trees he beckoned me (Sarah) up to the eye piece. Looking past the blurry streak of a tree down one side of my vision I saw, crisp as anything, a crater on the edge of the new moon – amazing, so clear and so detailed. By the time I dragged my eye away the moon had properly settled itself behind a few sickly looking pine trees and no-one else got to see as much as I did (sorry!) but it was worth it and I want a telescope now! The highlight came when we were told we were going to look at Saturn. Peering through the eyepiece and adjusting the focus Saturn and its rings shimmered into existence. Truly a memorable vision.
Crater man had been living up at the observatory for 200 days, and we think it showed. Our driver was nowhere to be found on our arrival back at the work/living quarters so we piled into his tiny office/kitchen/”sex room” (nice) and cracked open the vodka. After a couple of shots we got to learn all about his family, Studies and love of impact craters. His wife is a palentologist and his daughter is 24 and working in Japan. He studied in Moscow (for 15 years!) and went on expeditions to the black sea for six months of every year, he then came back to Mongolia where he works in the observatory and travels Mongolia and other countries studying craters found by satellites. After agreeing that three large shots of vodka is lucky we had a look at loads of pictures on his computer, some of his crater trips, family, the moon, eclipses, Saturns phases and the best of all, the collection of pictures aboard Voyager. Sparing a thought for these pictures and Voyager in general, we have given them our chemistry, anatomy, lifestyles (in the 70’s/80’s), address, basically some darn good intellegience if they ever decide to come and destroy us. After this sobering though we decided another ‘chut-chut’ of vodka was required. By the time the driver reappeared he could hardly drag us away or stop galaxy guy from finding new things to show us! The journey home luckily was much less scary as we had finished off the bottle of vodka…
A weeks jolly to the Gobi
The Gobi, once part of a large inland sea covers one third of Mongolia. Gobi is simply the Mongolian word for desert. Stretching from the southern region of Khovd in the West all way to the Dariganga region in the East and into northern China the area consists of scrub and rocky plains, with dunes only making up 3%. It is a land of extremes, it receives proper rainfall only every two or three years, and has temperatures soaring to +40 (Celsius) in the summer and dropping to a numbing -40 in the winter. Despite these hurdles life goes on and the Gobi is host to a wide range of fauna: Gazelle, Wild Ass, Takhi (Mongolian wild horses), Antelope, Vultures, Ravens, Buzzards, Desert Warblers, the Bactrian two humped camel and the worlds only desert bear, imaginatively named the Gobi bear, to name but a few. Unfortunately many of these animals are having a particularly tough time of it, apparently 28 species of mammals are endangered in Mongolia as a whole, some of which live in the Gobi: Wild Ass, Wild Bactrian Camels, Gobi argali sheep and the Gobi bear, of which there are only 25 left in the wild. The Flora mainly consists of saxaul, a stubby shrub; the wood of this shrub is so dense that it can sink in water.
The route we would be taking would make a triangle, heading south from UB, down towards the largest town in the south and regional capital, Dalanzagad, turning west towards Gurvan Saikham National Park and then heading north east back to UB. The trip was going to be seven days, six nights and we would be staying with families and friends of the driver along the way. The night before our departure Sam and I got prepared for our trip: Torch, penknife, basic first aid kit, thermals, hat gloves, toothbrush…the usual, and we got some supplies which consisted of plenty of noodles, tinned fruit, beer, vodka, jam, bottles of water and lots of cakes as we had two birthdays to celebrate! The French people we were travelling with were a little less prepared, turning up, after a heavy nights drinking with carrier bags full of beer, two bottles of vodka and little else.
Our driver got us, our bags and supplies neatly loaded up and we were ready for the off! Our drivers name was Baatar (which in Mongolian means Hero! and in French means bastard), he could speak a tiny bit of English, was 25 and wrestled when he wasn’t driving, he was a big lad. We had a whole days driving ahead of us so we settled in for a long stretch. The drive out of the city was the usual nerve wrecking experience and soon we were trundling along with UB fading away behind us. All of a sudden along a perfectly straight part of the road Baatar swerves off the tarmac along virgin land and the van springs into life, bouncing and rocking, moving more up and down, left and right than forward. Bataar turned and made what we thought was a joke “haha, road to Gobi”, we thought he was taking some kind of short cut or stopping off somewhere, but no, this was how it was going to be for the rest of the trip. It wasn’t the road to nowhere, it wasn’t even the dirt track to nowhere it was a ‘lets drive along nothing to nowhere’
Mongolia has 49500km of ‘roads’ (really in the loosest possible terms, not even tracks just areas where people may have driven before!) of which 2.9% is apparently mettaled. Of this 2.9% we would guess only about 40% of the tarmac actually remains so as a result the vehicle would have to be one tough cookie. To be honest when we saw our vehicle we thought it was a bit of a joke, it looked like a soviet style camper van and it was errr… Russian. We had seen plenty of them around (in Russia and Ukraine) and really wanted to ride in one, but not really for an expedition to the dessert! Still, we reassured ourselves, if they were good enough to be Ukrainian ambulances then they were good enough for us.. It turned out to be great. The engine was inside the van on the front seat between the driver and passenger, good for keeping and eye on it and minimising potential dust in the engine. It was high up, comfy and could be repaired by nomads with hammers and scrap metal.
We drove for about eight hours on the first day. Our days with regard to driving normally involved aiming to leave at about 9am, driving until lunchtime, a lunch break, continue driving and stopping off at any sights and aiming to arrive at the camp between 4-6pm.
Not long into our bumpy journey we spotted what we think were white tailed deer. Now any normal driver or safari tour would stop and let you observe the wildlife in a peaceful way… instead Bataar hurtled off the track with his foot was firmly on the gas of the soviet beast rocketing us towards the large group of deer. They ran, and ran, veering left then right, but Baatar wasn’t going to give up easily, he chased them across the flat and started up the side of a hill, these things are quick and there was no way we were going to catch them without doing some serious damage to the van and ourselves who were getting thrown about and whooping in the back, so after a few minutes we surrendered and headed back to the track, all feeling quite exhilarated! The scenery was, in a word, barren. We saw a total of five cars all day, the endless stretching scrub plains and rock-strewn hills went rolling by, hour after hour. We would sometimes spot a glimmer of life in the wasteland; a camel, nomad camp or some horses and we would all point and stare at this bit of brain sugar until it passed, swallowed up by the scrub. This may sound boring and I perhaps haven’t painted an alluring picture, but this is the place for your mind to wander, the unrelenting space and scenery invites you to almost dream while awake. It really is something to see and be a part of. If someone was to ask us for a visual representation of infinity (ya know like they always do..) we would have to bring them to Mongolia, it sounds cheesy but we have never seen the horizon so far away, just endless land joining an endless sky a long long way away. Occasionally we followed telegraph poles connecting distant dusty towns, the poles in a dead straight line hundreds of them visible for as far as you could see. The track we were driving on was no more than a few tyre prints in the dust or snow, and every so often Battar would turn off, drive randomly across the desert to then pick up a new trail. How he knew when to turn off and were exactly to go still remains a mystery, Mongols must have some sort of innate honing system/GPS to find their way through this wilderness, his skills as a driver were to become even more apparent as the week progressed.
By late afternoon on the first day we had arrived at what was our first stop, smooth rocky outcrops which we climbed up. It was good to get some invigorating exercise after the long bumpy drive, it was extremely windy, the sort of wind that laughs in the face of clothes and bites right through. After all the cobwebs had been blasted out and we had taken in the rolling, mustard yellows and ochre’s, faded greens and greys, stretching out to the horizon, disappearing round hills and rocky projections we warmed up in the van as we headed towards our first nights accommodation. The camp was located strangely amongst clumps of knee high tough grasses, it was the only vegetation for a long way so must have been some kind of oasis, but don’t get the wrong impression, this was far from lush – just some dry dead grass in amongst the dry barren steppe. We unloaded into our yurt, everything in the car has to be moved into the yurt as the temperatures drop well below freezing during the night. The yurt is a great piece of planning for the nomads; These round felt tents can be erected or dismantled in a couple of hours, they are fairly large and are used as communal living quarters, kitchen, living room, bedroom, everything happens in these round tents. In the centre of all Yurts is a small stove with a chimney extending out of the top of the tent. These stoves are more often than not, kept alive by animal poo, yak, goat, camel, whatever animal is being kept.
Spring in Mongolia is unfortunately the harshest time of year for the nomads, the rain normally falls towards the end of the summer so the spring is dry, dusty, windy and unforgiving. It’s a time when the weaker animals die and lie frozen until the sun defrosts them. Summer is hectic and busy with many chores and looking after livestock, so strangely the nomads actually like the savage winters as it’s a time of relaxation. We were visiting in spring and it was clear death was all around, dead dogs, camels, sheep, even one of the nomads we were due to visit was caught out in freak weather and died. This was a man who must have grown up knowing the dangers and who still fell prey to the savage conditions. The weather in Mongolia is extremely fickle as very quickly the temperature can drop unexpectedly catching you out. On a positive note the Mongolians like to call the sky blue heaven, it really is the polar opposite to the sky in Britain as they have over 260 cloudless days every year, no clouds just a brilliant blue (cold) sky!
The yurt was heated up by the dung stove in the middle of the room worked surprisingly well. This first night was the only night we would get to use yak poo as a fuel which we determined was the best and most efficient out of all the animal waste fuels (we got to try a couple of different types). The yak poo didn’t have a pungent aroma when burnt, it caught alight quickly, burnt for a long time when compared to the others and gave off a lot of heat. In fact the dung fires were so good that quickly the yurt would become uncomfortably hot and you would have to start taking off all your clothes, when it came to going to sleep it was far to hot to sleep in your sleeping bag so we would fall asleep on top, sweating. When the fire died down the temperature would quickly drop waking you up a few hours later in the absolute pitch black damn cold sending you deep into your sleeping bag, the mornings were bitterly cold until the fire was lit again.
The food on this first night would become a staple for the rest of our trip, it was mutton with lumps of mutton fat in rice served up with tea. The mutton and rice was not too bad but became a little boring after a while. The tea here is not what you would imagine tea to look like, it’s a grey milky salty liquid with the smallest amount of tea in, so small that it actually tastes nothing like tea. Mongolians buy the worst lowest quality tea from china, its all the scraps and stalks compressed into big blocks which they use a small amount boiled in whatever milk is available, usually camel or goat. Its actually very nice but its not tea, more just a warm salty milk drink.
The breakfast was not so good. We were given large flat unleavened bread biscuits that were rock solid, old ships biscuits are like soft cookies in comparison. As we were given a flask of hot water and a pan at the same time I was convinced we had to soak them to soften them… after 15 mins they were still rock solid! The woman who had given us the bread laughed when she saw what we were trying to do and showed us that you actually had to break it up and eat it hard and crunchy style. It really hurt your teeth and as it contained no salt or sugar it just tasted like hard old flour, it wasn’t good. Sometime we were also given some kind of hardened yak milk that was truly pungent and absolutely disgusting. I love blue, strong cheese but this was something else, rock hard, flaky and really rank smelling. It always just sat there untouched.
With cloudless skies every sunset was amazing, bright colours splashed all over the place followed by the darkest nights possible. For some reason the sky was without the moon all week (is this the new moon period of the lunar cycle?), we think it rose later in the morning but we are not sure, anyway having no moon meant you could see absolutely nothing except every star visible to the naked eye and a small slither of light maybe from the doorframe of the yurt. Watching the stars was amazing and if you looked long enough then satellites and shooting stars could be seen, the only problem was the cold! The temperature was lower that -20 (but no wind!) some nights so you couldn’t really hang around looking up, if you inhaled through your nose you could feel the snot freezing hard and when my nose ran it would crystallise in my beard (nice!).
The second day was another long day of off road driving, another chance to sit back with some music and let your mind wander, another chance to think to yourself what the hell are these people doing here. The past winters have been particularly hard and the rains have come late so apparently a lot of livestock has died making their lives even more difficult. Being there you can’t help think how its strange and remarkable that these people are trying to survive in a desert, trying to graze their livestock in an environment that is doing everything possible to kick them out.
In the afternoon we stopped and some bright red fiery cliffs famous for the dinosaur expeditions in the 1920s that uncovered huge amounts of bones and fossils in the soft sedimentary rocks. It was a nice place to walk about and clamber up and down the cliffs.
On the second day of driving we saw no one else all day and had a puncture about lunchtime so worryingly we were driving without a spare for the next day and a half.
The second evening our camp was even more remote than before and the temperature dropped to a very low level. We were using camel dung on the fire which did not burn as efficiently as yak dung and smelt not so good. There were four gers at this site, the owners were camel herders with quite a lot of camels.
The next morning because of the low temperatures the car would not start. The driver had to blow torch the bottom of the engine for about half an hour before we could then try and bump start it, whilst he was underneath it was notice that the suspension was looking a little ropy. Whilst we were waiting for them to repair that we played about with the children and helped the family out with some of their jobs. They were busy milking the camels and getting the camels out to the various different areas to graze or drink. We were able to try camels milk for the first time here which was nice.
This third day was Sarah’s birthday, luckily after the late start we did not have much driving to do, after about 4 hours we were in Dalanzadgad, the regional capital of the southern aimegs
Dalanzadgad was something out of a Wild West film. Wide dusty, dirt streets, wooden fencing everywhere, the town seemed very still, some tumble weed blowing between the streets wouldn’t have gone amiss. The differences however were enough to make you remember you are in Mongolia; the round Gers, now in fenced off compounds, camels tied up in the yard peering over the fence, some people still wearing traditional dress, and the screams of children as they came springing past on top of camels seemingly out of control. The town was a maze of these dust streets and Ger compounds, but Baatar got us to our third nights stop. It was quite early, about 3-4pm. We unloaded all our stuff and the very friendly lady brought us tea and a big pile of sweet scones and biscuits. We were in this town, easily a couple of kilometres through the maze of streets from the tiny town centre, we would need a guide to help us find our way! Just then Baatar announced there was a camel festival going on a couple of kilometres out of town, so we hastily grabbed the cameras and jumped back in the van. The camel festival was actually a big camel polo tournament, we saw at least 10-12 teams. Camel polo is a great game, these large cumbersome looking animals hurriedly loping around the pitch, being dragged this way and that by their nose, the riders on top leaning off them at crazy angles and hitting the polo ball towards the goal, which by then has a large camel standing side on in it with the goalie in the unfortunate position of trying to stop the goal being scored. It is a great game and one is at serious risk of being trampled if the ball comes near the sideline. The other highlight was the penalty shoot out. The crowds and other teams stream onto the pitch and create an alleyway of spectators and camels, the team members then have goes at penalty shooting, which involves the camel and rider running down the alleyway of people and scoring a goal. The audience gets very involved with lots of shouting and cheering. We stayed there for an hour or two before heading back to town. Baatar dropped us off near some showers and a shop. We knew there was a bar around here somewhere so managed to get Baatar to come back in two hours. The town centre mainly involved a couple of small squares, with very little in them, however past the outdoor pool tables we found ‘The Gobi Bear’ bar, also attached to a shop, so two birds with one stone! We sat down to a couple of beers and ordered some food, which involved us pointing at an incomprehensible line on the menu. All the meals were variations on mutton, rice and mutton fat. Sam had bite size deep fried mutton bones which were 90% fat and some rice. Mine was a bit better as it didn’t have so much fat.
The following day we spent trying to cross over a mountain range to make it to an area of large sand dunes which apparently sing in the wind, the only problem was it had snowed heavily the previous night making all previous tracks invisible. Because of the lack of tracks we spent most of the morning trying to find the way around large gullies cutting off our route over the mountains. After a few hours of not much luck, being stuck in deep snow and crashing into a ditch hidden by snow our driver said that it wasn’t going to be possible so we headed to a different area.
This camp was situated in a field of sand dunes with some small shrub like trees doted about. The family we stayed with were camel herders who were scratching a living in a really inhospitable area of the country, trying to keep their camels alive in the harsh desert. We spent two days here exploring the area, climbing sand dunes and taking some of the camels out for a ride, something which I did not enjoy initially but once I was handed by reigns and whip it was great fun trying to make my slow camel run instead of eat! The food here was very bad, just very sandy rice with flecks of fat, the sand would have not been so bad if we had not seen the amount of poo all over the place. Basically if the sand was from outside the ger then it would have been touching poo.
The last evening was spent in a hilly area with some slight vegetation further north and probably just outside of the Gobi zone. Really we were just killing time before we could head back to UB as by this time we were all desperate for a decent meal and some kind of wash (no washing so far so everyone was feeling a little skanky). Sarah and I walked up a near by hill with a can of beer and our books to chill out on top to watch the sunset and talk about the trip so far.
The last day of driving was an epic 8 hours off-road past some pretty uneventful scenery. Stopped off at a relatively nice restaurant where we had a nice long lunch. I should have been suspicious when my food came out 15 minutes before everyone else’s but it tasted good at the time. Arrived back in UB just in time for rush hour so from the outskirts of the city it took us at least an hour to get back to the hostel. Because the water supply to the hostel was down we headed straight out for food, a nice big pepperoni pizza. Unfortunately two hours later it all came back up after my dodgy lunch, such a waste of good pizza. Sarah then had to spend a night with me running out of the room often to empty various bodily chambers.
All in all the trip was amazing and a great chance to see some of Mongolia’s wildest landscapes. The people were incredible, the scenery was epic and the journey was more of an expedition than anything else.
We were not sure what to expect from the people we met, perhaps we thought they lived like this because they had no other choice or because they knew no different, maybe it would be awkward to stay with them but this could not have been further from the truth. It seemed that the nomads in Mongolia positively enjoyed the countryside and chose this lifestyle, they knew from the satellite TV what life was like elsewhere but chose to stay away from the big city, too busy, too many people and no place for your animals. Even though they see every sunrise every day one nomad still walked up to me and said (I think) how beautiful the sunrise was then stood and enjoyed it with me for five minutes before mounting his camel to head of with his heard. In these tiny communities there is no privacy as everyone shares one or two gers, everything is done together and family bonds are so strong. The locals thought it was very strange that we knocked on the door before we entered and just expected us to walk on in and sit down, when we did just walk in and sit down in front of the tv they would not bat an eyelid, it would hardly register with them, you just sit there and a few minutes later some tea would appear, but everyone else is either mesmerised by the tv or getting on with their jobs.
We were told the main factor for nomads moving to towns or the city were the need for modern services such as healthcare or education for children or if they have a sick/old family member who needs looking after.
When you first turn up to a ger camp people shout a greeting which would mean in English ‘can I come in’ but what it actually translates to is ‘Hold the dog!’ we found this quite funny.
Oh we also visited a frozen river in a rock canyon with a large frozen waterfall.. forgot to mention!
The route we would be taking would make a triangle, heading south from UB, down towards the largest town in the south and regional capital, Dalanzagad, turning west towards Gurvan Saikham National Park and then heading north east back to UB. The trip was going to be seven days, six nights and we would be staying with families and friends of the driver along the way. The night before our departure Sam and I got prepared for our trip: Torch, penknife, basic first aid kit, thermals, hat gloves, toothbrush…the usual, and we got some supplies which consisted of plenty of noodles, tinned fruit, beer, vodka, jam, bottles of water and lots of cakes as we had two birthdays to celebrate! The French people we were travelling with were a little less prepared, turning up, after a heavy nights drinking with carrier bags full of beer, two bottles of vodka and little else.
Our driver got us, our bags and supplies neatly loaded up and we were ready for the off! Our drivers name was Baatar (which in Mongolian means Hero! and in French means bastard), he could speak a tiny bit of English, was 25 and wrestled when he wasn’t driving, he was a big lad. We had a whole days driving ahead of us so we settled in for a long stretch. The drive out of the city was the usual nerve wrecking experience and soon we were trundling along with UB fading away behind us. All of a sudden along a perfectly straight part of the road Baatar swerves off the tarmac along virgin land and the van springs into life, bouncing and rocking, moving more up and down, left and right than forward. Bataar turned and made what we thought was a joke “haha, road to Gobi”, we thought he was taking some kind of short cut or stopping off somewhere, but no, this was how it was going to be for the rest of the trip. It wasn’t the road to nowhere, it wasn’t even the dirt track to nowhere it was a ‘lets drive along nothing to nowhere’
Mongolia has 49500km of ‘roads’ (really in the loosest possible terms, not even tracks just areas where people may have driven before!) of which 2.9% is apparently mettaled. Of this 2.9% we would guess only about 40% of the tarmac actually remains so as a result the vehicle would have to be one tough cookie. To be honest when we saw our vehicle we thought it was a bit of a joke, it looked like a soviet style camper van and it was errr… Russian. We had seen plenty of them around (in Russia and Ukraine) and really wanted to ride in one, but not really for an expedition to the dessert! Still, we reassured ourselves, if they were good enough to be Ukrainian ambulances then they were good enough for us.. It turned out to be great. The engine was inside the van on the front seat between the driver and passenger, good for keeping and eye on it and minimising potential dust in the engine. It was high up, comfy and could be repaired by nomads with hammers and scrap metal.
We drove for about eight hours on the first day. Our days with regard to driving normally involved aiming to leave at about 9am, driving until lunchtime, a lunch break, continue driving and stopping off at any sights and aiming to arrive at the camp between 4-6pm.
Not long into our bumpy journey we spotted what we think were white tailed deer. Now any normal driver or safari tour would stop and let you observe the wildlife in a peaceful way… instead Bataar hurtled off the track with his foot was firmly on the gas of the soviet beast rocketing us towards the large group of deer. They ran, and ran, veering left then right, but Baatar wasn’t going to give up easily, he chased them across the flat and started up the side of a hill, these things are quick and there was no way we were going to catch them without doing some serious damage to the van and ourselves who were getting thrown about and whooping in the back, so after a few minutes we surrendered and headed back to the track, all feeling quite exhilarated! The scenery was, in a word, barren. We saw a total of five cars all day, the endless stretching scrub plains and rock-strewn hills went rolling by, hour after hour. We would sometimes spot a glimmer of life in the wasteland; a camel, nomad camp or some horses and we would all point and stare at this bit of brain sugar until it passed, swallowed up by the scrub. This may sound boring and I perhaps haven’t painted an alluring picture, but this is the place for your mind to wander, the unrelenting space and scenery invites you to almost dream while awake. It really is something to see and be a part of. If someone was to ask us for a visual representation of infinity (ya know like they always do..) we would have to bring them to Mongolia, it sounds cheesy but we have never seen the horizon so far away, just endless land joining an endless sky a long long way away. Occasionally we followed telegraph poles connecting distant dusty towns, the poles in a dead straight line hundreds of them visible for as far as you could see. The track we were driving on was no more than a few tyre prints in the dust or snow, and every so often Battar would turn off, drive randomly across the desert to then pick up a new trail. How he knew when to turn off and were exactly to go still remains a mystery, Mongols must have some sort of innate honing system/GPS to find their way through this wilderness, his skills as a driver were to become even more apparent as the week progressed.
By late afternoon on the first day we had arrived at what was our first stop, smooth rocky outcrops which we climbed up. It was good to get some invigorating exercise after the long bumpy drive, it was extremely windy, the sort of wind that laughs in the face of clothes and bites right through. After all the cobwebs had been blasted out and we had taken in the rolling, mustard yellows and ochre’s, faded greens and greys, stretching out to the horizon, disappearing round hills and rocky projections we warmed up in the van as we headed towards our first nights accommodation. The camp was located strangely amongst clumps of knee high tough grasses, it was the only vegetation for a long way so must have been some kind of oasis, but don’t get the wrong impression, this was far from lush – just some dry dead grass in amongst the dry barren steppe. We unloaded into our yurt, everything in the car has to be moved into the yurt as the temperatures drop well below freezing during the night. The yurt is a great piece of planning for the nomads; These round felt tents can be erected or dismantled in a couple of hours, they are fairly large and are used as communal living quarters, kitchen, living room, bedroom, everything happens in these round tents. In the centre of all Yurts is a small stove with a chimney extending out of the top of the tent. These stoves are more often than not, kept alive by animal poo, yak, goat, camel, whatever animal is being kept.
Spring in Mongolia is unfortunately the harshest time of year for the nomads, the rain normally falls towards the end of the summer so the spring is dry, dusty, windy and unforgiving. It’s a time when the weaker animals die and lie frozen until the sun defrosts them. Summer is hectic and busy with many chores and looking after livestock, so strangely the nomads actually like the savage winters as it’s a time of relaxation. We were visiting in spring and it was clear death was all around, dead dogs, camels, sheep, even one of the nomads we were due to visit was caught out in freak weather and died. This was a man who must have grown up knowing the dangers and who still fell prey to the savage conditions. The weather in Mongolia is extremely fickle as very quickly the temperature can drop unexpectedly catching you out. On a positive note the Mongolians like to call the sky blue heaven, it really is the polar opposite to the sky in Britain as they have over 260 cloudless days every year, no clouds just a brilliant blue (cold) sky!
The yurt was heated up by the dung stove in the middle of the room worked surprisingly well. This first night was the only night we would get to use yak poo as a fuel which we determined was the best and most efficient out of all the animal waste fuels (we got to try a couple of different types). The yak poo didn’t have a pungent aroma when burnt, it caught alight quickly, burnt for a long time when compared to the others and gave off a lot of heat. In fact the dung fires were so good that quickly the yurt would become uncomfortably hot and you would have to start taking off all your clothes, when it came to going to sleep it was far to hot to sleep in your sleeping bag so we would fall asleep on top, sweating. When the fire died down the temperature would quickly drop waking you up a few hours later in the absolute pitch black damn cold sending you deep into your sleeping bag, the mornings were bitterly cold until the fire was lit again.
The food on this first night would become a staple for the rest of our trip, it was mutton with lumps of mutton fat in rice served up with tea. The mutton and rice was not too bad but became a little boring after a while. The tea here is not what you would imagine tea to look like, it’s a grey milky salty liquid with the smallest amount of tea in, so small that it actually tastes nothing like tea. Mongolians buy the worst lowest quality tea from china, its all the scraps and stalks compressed into big blocks which they use a small amount boiled in whatever milk is available, usually camel or goat. Its actually very nice but its not tea, more just a warm salty milk drink.
The breakfast was not so good. We were given large flat unleavened bread biscuits that were rock solid, old ships biscuits are like soft cookies in comparison. As we were given a flask of hot water and a pan at the same time I was convinced we had to soak them to soften them… after 15 mins they were still rock solid! The woman who had given us the bread laughed when she saw what we were trying to do and showed us that you actually had to break it up and eat it hard and crunchy style. It really hurt your teeth and as it contained no salt or sugar it just tasted like hard old flour, it wasn’t good. Sometime we were also given some kind of hardened yak milk that was truly pungent and absolutely disgusting. I love blue, strong cheese but this was something else, rock hard, flaky and really rank smelling. It always just sat there untouched.
With cloudless skies every sunset was amazing, bright colours splashed all over the place followed by the darkest nights possible. For some reason the sky was without the moon all week (is this the new moon period of the lunar cycle?), we think it rose later in the morning but we are not sure, anyway having no moon meant you could see absolutely nothing except every star visible to the naked eye and a small slither of light maybe from the doorframe of the yurt. Watching the stars was amazing and if you looked long enough then satellites and shooting stars could be seen, the only problem was the cold! The temperature was lower that -20 (but no wind!) some nights so you couldn’t really hang around looking up, if you inhaled through your nose you could feel the snot freezing hard and when my nose ran it would crystallise in my beard (nice!).
The second day was another long day of off road driving, another chance to sit back with some music and let your mind wander, another chance to think to yourself what the hell are these people doing here. The past winters have been particularly hard and the rains have come late so apparently a lot of livestock has died making their lives even more difficult. Being there you can’t help think how its strange and remarkable that these people are trying to survive in a desert, trying to graze their livestock in an environment that is doing everything possible to kick them out.
In the afternoon we stopped and some bright red fiery cliffs famous for the dinosaur expeditions in the 1920s that uncovered huge amounts of bones and fossils in the soft sedimentary rocks. It was a nice place to walk about and clamber up and down the cliffs.
On the second day of driving we saw no one else all day and had a puncture about lunchtime so worryingly we were driving without a spare for the next day and a half.
The second evening our camp was even more remote than before and the temperature dropped to a very low level. We were using camel dung on the fire which did not burn as efficiently as yak dung and smelt not so good. There were four gers at this site, the owners were camel herders with quite a lot of camels.
The next morning because of the low temperatures the car would not start. The driver had to blow torch the bottom of the engine for about half an hour before we could then try and bump start it, whilst he was underneath it was notice that the suspension was looking a little ropy. Whilst we were waiting for them to repair that we played about with the children and helped the family out with some of their jobs. They were busy milking the camels and getting the camels out to the various different areas to graze or drink. We were able to try camels milk for the first time here which was nice.
This third day was Sarah’s birthday, luckily after the late start we did not have much driving to do, after about 4 hours we were in Dalanzadgad, the regional capital of the southern aimegs
Dalanzadgad was something out of a Wild West film. Wide dusty, dirt streets, wooden fencing everywhere, the town seemed very still, some tumble weed blowing between the streets wouldn’t have gone amiss. The differences however were enough to make you remember you are in Mongolia; the round Gers, now in fenced off compounds, camels tied up in the yard peering over the fence, some people still wearing traditional dress, and the screams of children as they came springing past on top of camels seemingly out of control. The town was a maze of these dust streets and Ger compounds, but Baatar got us to our third nights stop. It was quite early, about 3-4pm. We unloaded all our stuff and the very friendly lady brought us tea and a big pile of sweet scones and biscuits. We were in this town, easily a couple of kilometres through the maze of streets from the tiny town centre, we would need a guide to help us find our way! Just then Baatar announced there was a camel festival going on a couple of kilometres out of town, so we hastily grabbed the cameras and jumped back in the van. The camel festival was actually a big camel polo tournament, we saw at least 10-12 teams. Camel polo is a great game, these large cumbersome looking animals hurriedly loping around the pitch, being dragged this way and that by their nose, the riders on top leaning off them at crazy angles and hitting the polo ball towards the goal, which by then has a large camel standing side on in it with the goalie in the unfortunate position of trying to stop the goal being scored. It is a great game and one is at serious risk of being trampled if the ball comes near the sideline. The other highlight was the penalty shoot out. The crowds and other teams stream onto the pitch and create an alleyway of spectators and camels, the team members then have goes at penalty shooting, which involves the camel and rider running down the alleyway of people and scoring a goal. The audience gets very involved with lots of shouting and cheering. We stayed there for an hour or two before heading back to town. Baatar dropped us off near some showers and a shop. We knew there was a bar around here somewhere so managed to get Baatar to come back in two hours. The town centre mainly involved a couple of small squares, with very little in them, however past the outdoor pool tables we found ‘The Gobi Bear’ bar, also attached to a shop, so two birds with one stone! We sat down to a couple of beers and ordered some food, which involved us pointing at an incomprehensible line on the menu. All the meals were variations on mutton, rice and mutton fat. Sam had bite size deep fried mutton bones which were 90% fat and some rice. Mine was a bit better as it didn’t have so much fat.
The following day we spent trying to cross over a mountain range to make it to an area of large sand dunes which apparently sing in the wind, the only problem was it had snowed heavily the previous night making all previous tracks invisible. Because of the lack of tracks we spent most of the morning trying to find the way around large gullies cutting off our route over the mountains. After a few hours of not much luck, being stuck in deep snow and crashing into a ditch hidden by snow our driver said that it wasn’t going to be possible so we headed to a different area.
This camp was situated in a field of sand dunes with some small shrub like trees doted about. The family we stayed with were camel herders who were scratching a living in a really inhospitable area of the country, trying to keep their camels alive in the harsh desert. We spent two days here exploring the area, climbing sand dunes and taking some of the camels out for a ride, something which I did not enjoy initially but once I was handed by reigns and whip it was great fun trying to make my slow camel run instead of eat! The food here was very bad, just very sandy rice with flecks of fat, the sand would have not been so bad if we had not seen the amount of poo all over the place. Basically if the sand was from outside the ger then it would have been touching poo.
The last evening was spent in a hilly area with some slight vegetation further north and probably just outside of the Gobi zone. Really we were just killing time before we could head back to UB as by this time we were all desperate for a decent meal and some kind of wash (no washing so far so everyone was feeling a little skanky). Sarah and I walked up a near by hill with a can of beer and our books to chill out on top to watch the sunset and talk about the trip so far.
The last day of driving was an epic 8 hours off-road past some pretty uneventful scenery. Stopped off at a relatively nice restaurant where we had a nice long lunch. I should have been suspicious when my food came out 15 minutes before everyone else’s but it tasted good at the time. Arrived back in UB just in time for rush hour so from the outskirts of the city it took us at least an hour to get back to the hostel. Because the water supply to the hostel was down we headed straight out for food, a nice big pepperoni pizza. Unfortunately two hours later it all came back up after my dodgy lunch, such a waste of good pizza. Sarah then had to spend a night with me running out of the room often to empty various bodily chambers.
All in all the trip was amazing and a great chance to see some of Mongolia’s wildest landscapes. The people were incredible, the scenery was epic and the journey was more of an expedition than anything else.
We were not sure what to expect from the people we met, perhaps we thought they lived like this because they had no other choice or because they knew no different, maybe it would be awkward to stay with them but this could not have been further from the truth. It seemed that the nomads in Mongolia positively enjoyed the countryside and chose this lifestyle, they knew from the satellite TV what life was like elsewhere but chose to stay away from the big city, too busy, too many people and no place for your animals. Even though they see every sunrise every day one nomad still walked up to me and said (I think) how beautiful the sunrise was then stood and enjoyed it with me for five minutes before mounting his camel to head of with his heard. In these tiny communities there is no privacy as everyone shares one or two gers, everything is done together and family bonds are so strong. The locals thought it was very strange that we knocked on the door before we entered and just expected us to walk on in and sit down, when we did just walk in and sit down in front of the tv they would not bat an eyelid, it would hardly register with them, you just sit there and a few minutes later some tea would appear, but everyone else is either mesmerised by the tv or getting on with their jobs.
We were told the main factor for nomads moving to towns or the city were the need for modern services such as healthcare or education for children or if they have a sick/old family member who needs looking after.
When you first turn up to a ger camp people shout a greeting which would mean in English ‘can I come in’ but what it actually translates to is ‘Hold the dog!’ we found this quite funny.
Oh we also visited a frozen river in a rock canyon with a large frozen waterfall.. forgot to mention!
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