From Xining to Xiahe (day 103 - 29.07.): a Tibetan excursion, or: how a European tourist is treated in China

Much to my frustration, I again had early morning transport. This time, it was a bus at 7.15 from Xining to Xiahe. I had been to the bus station here already and knew that it was less than 15 minutes by taxi from the hotel and that luggage inspections are fast. I therefore, for once (well, not really, but still...), left the hotel quite late. I still wanted to withdraw money and buy some food and drinks for the 6 hour bus ride, especially because I had to leave the hotel before breakfast time. Unfortunately, the ATM did not want to give me cash ("please contact your bank"), but with none of my cards, so it was clear that it was not related to my cards. I bought my breakfast at the bus station kiosque (green ice tea with plum flavour - my absolute favourite here!! - and very dry cookies) and arrived at the ticket control at the bus station at 7.05. The lady looked at me very astonished when she saw my ticket and started to investigate with her colleagues, then she asked me to come with her into an office, where they explained to me that the bus was leaving from another bus station! In a very reproaching fashion, they pointed to some Chinese signs on the bottom of my ticket! Only when I shrugged my shoulders, they realised that I could not read that. Now I realised why the lady at the ticket counter the day before talked so much, she was probably telling me exactly that... The guy immediately picked up the phone and called the other station to tell them that there was this ignorant European tourist who turned up at the wrong bus station and asked them to wait (that is his I interpreted the conversation at least..) and told me to hurry up and take a taxi. I made them write down the name of the bus station and off I ran. Fortunately, the first taxi accepted me, which is not a given thing here (see previous stories...). the driver was a nice lady (actually, there are a lot of female taxi drivers here and I normally much prefer them to their male colleagues..) and I tried to signal to her that I am really in a hurry, which did not really impress her much (for once, I would have preferred one of those testosterone-overdosed macho-drivers!!!!). We left at 9.10, but it turned out that the other bus station was really at the other end of town and each and every traffic light seemed to turn red right when we got there. I thought the bus would probably wait for 10 minutes or so and therefore I had mentally given up at 9.25 and started to develop a "plan B".... (As this is the only bus per day), but still had some irrational hope .. When we got there at 9.32, I just ran but there were so many buses leaving and each one of them could be  mine... I did not even see where the regular entrance was because there were so many people standing around. I therefore entered through the bus exit to increase the chance that the driver would see the lost European traveller and would stop. I showed my ticket to the guy at the checkpoint and he directed me to another guy (nobody checked my luggage by the way...), who got all stressed when he saw that I had a ticket for a bus that was supposed to have left 20 minutes ago. He was shouting my destination very loudly and asked everyone around him whether the bus had already left. One other guy took my ticket and ran into the passenger hall. Right at that moment, the driver of my bus identified himself and signalled that I should come over and the accompanying lady asked for my ticket, which had disappeared with the other guy. So there was a lot of shouting and finally the driver himself ran into the passenger hall to get my ticket back. When I entered the bus, I really felt ashamed and I had the impression everybody was talking about me and how incredible it is that everybody had to wait for me... (the feeling of guilt at its best... They were probably just having normal conversations...) Because of me, the bus started with almost 25 minutes delay! I am not proud of this episode, but find it quite incredible how helpful everybody was at both bus stations. Could you imagine any of this occurring in Europe if this had happened to a Chinese tourist? Frankly, I do not think so! So: thanks a lot to my various Chinese friends at the two Xining bus stations!!! ;-)

The drive itself was very long. Instead of the 6 hours, it finally took 7 and I really got terrible pain in my knees as I could not really move because leg space was very limited. The baby of the Tibetan lady next to me also started to be impatient after 2 hours, but the whole "neighbourhood" (including myself) were trying to find ways to distract the poor little girl. This time, I was not very popular... :-( The strange thing was that at some point, all passengers were asked to pay 5 yuan extra, which probably was related to the fact that we took a detour over a very small mountain road, at least this is what I thought to have understood. Because in some small village, where the driver stopped to buy two buckets of Yoghurt, a guy started talking to him and afterwards he gave some loud speech to all passengers and some discussion amongst them started. Then we continued and the accompanying lady collected the additional money. As far as I have figured it out, the choice was to either wait in that village for 4 hours until the road reopens or to continue via the longer route. And the collective wisdom of the passengers seemed to have been to pay more for arriving faster. While that road was super scenic, it was also in a really bad shape and very bumpy, which did not really help my knees...

Anyway, after a bit more than 7 hours, we arrived in Xiahe, which I thought was a small nice Tibetan village (with a quite famous Tibetan monastery), but actually - for Western standards - it is a medium-sized city. I had decided to stay 3 nights here to recover a bit and really was longing for quiet village life after all these "small" Chinese cities I have been during the last week. But it is true, compared to those cities with their skyscrapers, noise, pollution and traffic jams, Xiahe somehow is a village. But it really seems that it developed a lot in the last 3 years as some of the information in the Lonely Planet is completely outdated, for example that there is only one cash machine... Now, they are actually all over the place!! While the first two also rejected my card, the third one fortunately gave me money... Fortunately, because after paying the hotel in cash, I had barely 20 Euros left... While I write this, I sit in a nice restaurant attached to another guesthouse, which is decorated in Tibetan style and am eating Yak-meat dumplings. They are quite tasty, but also quite intense.... So after eating 3 of them, I had enough, while there are 7 more on my plate... What a waste!

More about after my visits in a separate chapter. And - what a wonder - no photos taken today!

Xining (days 101 to 103 - 27.07. to 29.07.): visiting a Tibetan monastery, or: how a religious place of worship turns into a circus

Perched on the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau, Xining is he capital of the province of Qinghai. The population of 1.2 million is an interesting mix of Muslim (Huí, Salar and Uighur), Tibetan and Han Chinese, but for my taste, the city was too big, load and stressful. So I did not really see much of it (and ere is not much anyway in terms of sights...) as the reason for staying here was that I wanted to visit the nearby Tibetan monastery of Kumbum, which is of the great monasteries of the Gelugpa (Yellow Hat) sect of Tibetan Buddhism. It was built in 1577 on the birthplace of Tsongkhapa, founder of the Gelugpa sect. It’s of enormous historical significance, and hundreds of monks still live here but, perhaps it has become such big tourist attraction that the atmosphere really suffers. Of course, my visit contributes to destroying that atmosphere as well, I am well aware of that.... But compared to the several thousands of Chinese, I have only seen 3 other Westerners here..  The artwork and architecture, however, remain impressive. Nine temples are open to the public, each with their own characteristics. The most important is the Grand Hall of Golden Tiles, where an 11m-high stupa marks the spot of Tsongkhapa’s birth. There are quite a number of Tibetan pilgrims walking circuits of the building and outside the entrance, worshipping Tsongkhapa in a quite impressive way. But the religious purpose of this place almost seems to be forgotten by many of the Chinese tourists, who just laugh and shout right next to the pilgrims praying, despite the many "silence"-signs all over, and without even realising that this was inappropriate. On the other hand, most of them bow in front of the Buddha and whisper some words of prayer and leave quite a bit of money in front of the various statues as an offering... But to me, this did not seem to be spiritual for them at all....

Despite this, I was still glad I visited this place. It was impressive to see the gathering of the monks in one of the courtyards. There was always one of them standing shouting at another one who was seated and the others sat around them observing. The one shouting seems to criticise something about the one seated and after a while made a movement half Tai Chi half Karate towards the seated one pretending he was hitting him and clapped his hands to make the noise that goes with the hitting. It was really strange to hear this noise of clapping and shouting, especially before you have seen what is actually going on. The one seated then started his sermon which I understood was a defence against the criticism hand then the whole thing started again. After a while, a signal was given by the superior, who was impressively dressed (photo) and the monks interrupted this interaction and gathered in a huge semi-circle for prayer.

And despite having read it several times, I still have not understood the explanation how young a Tantra doctor's degree.... Do they really mean "aggressive" ..? ;-) (see photo)

Getting back was however more difficult than I imagined, as there was no direct bus anymore back to Xining (despite what had been said earlier). Fortunately, a group of 4 young women in their twenties, whom I had asked where the bus would leave, took me with them and in an odyssey of 3 hours I made it back to the hotel, whereas the direct bus to get there was less than an hour. The young women insisted even to accompany me from the bus stop (somewhere in the middle of nowhere I have to admit...) by taxi to the hotel, after they saw that - again - I did not manage to convince any taxi driver to drive me where I wanted... (Showing the address in Chinese...). In a funny 20 minutes drive, they were 4 on the back seat of a very small car, but found that vet amusing as did the driver... :-)

Photos of Kumbum Monastery at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A65CmvASGCLGEd 

Jiayuguan and Zhangye (days 99 to 101 - 25.07. to 27.07.), first sight of the "Great Wall" and more Buddha caves, or: how I hopefully helped my taxi driver to get married rather than dying of the plague

The masses of tourists in Dunhuang also meant that I almost missed my morning train as there was a gigantic line at the security check to enter the station. I literally jumped into the train, just before it left (as always so far super on time). Jiayuguan is only a short stop for one night as it is famous for one thing: it marks the symbolic end of the Great Wall, the western gateway of China proper and, for imperial Chinese, the beginning of nowhere. As this was one of the defining points of the Silk Road, a Ming-dynasty fort was erected here in 1372 and Jiāyùguān came to be colloquially known as the ‘mouth’ of China. So, during the single afternoon I had here, I visited the fort and the remains of the Great Wall, both of which have been largely rebuilt in recent years, as you will see on the photos. And the small family-run guesthouse, in a traditional courtyard-house at the north-gate of the fort, which was so nicely described in my German guidebook and to which I was looking forward, was one of the victims of yet another "rehabilitation" / radical transformation of a historic site. Together with other traditional houses, it probably "disturbed" and has just been destroyed and there is now a "nice" little park with a little lake, just like everywhere....  While the fort is yet again one of these typical Chinese tourist experiences, I still thought it was impressive, as was the wall, which was actually quite a steep climb. The views over the lunar-like landscape around were quite nice.

Photos of Jiayuguan at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A652plgjGyuxfd

The next day, i took a train to Zhangye. While this mid-size Silk Road town is mostly a jumping-off base for the unique cliff temples at nearby Mǎtí Sì, it is actually worth spending an afternoon there, as the Lonely Planet recommends and - as a a good obedient tourist - I followed, as there is one of China’s best preserved wooden temples that deserves an extended visit. And all this despite of the fact that the nearby city of Yumen was closed-off as a guy had died a few days before of the plague ("Pest" in German), transmitted by a tick through a marmot (Murmeltier). I would not even had heard of this if my friend Armelle had not sent me a message with a newspaper article attached  and with the ironic remark "hope you are not going there", but actually I was...  While I was first a bit shocked by this, after I had read more, I was much less: it was the "bubonic" pest, which is not transmitted through contacts between humans but via ticks, so there was actually no chance of getting infected in a busy train or bus and also, a simple antibiotic - of which my doctor had prescribed me many for my medical urgency kit - is enough to treat it, in case I would experience any of the symptoms. 

But let's come back to that temple... Originally dating to 1098, it contains an astonishing 35m-long sleeping Buddha – China’s largest of this variety – surrounded by painted clay statues representing "arhats" (Buddhists who have achieved enlightenment) and Qing-dynasty murals. It seems that until the 1960s, small children would climb into the huge Buddha and play around inside his tummy. Today, you are not even allowed to take photos.. (Not even without a flash). Apart from the Buddha-statue, there is also a beautiful main hall with nice woodwork, including the doors and the structure holding the roof. This is one of the few wooden structures from this era still standing in China. In the centre, there is also a nice multi-floor wooden pagoda, initially from AD 528, but the present structure is a thorough reconstruction from 1926. As a nice surprise, I witnessed a performance of a group of older male musicians, who met in front of the temple just to play traditional music together just for the fun of it. And spontaneously it seemed, some women joined and stars singing to it. I sat down for ago half an hour and listened... Really nice.... And they really enjoyed the attention of this foreigner, but also of the many Chinese who started to gather around, some of them joining in the signing (all of them seemed to know melody and lyrics...)

In the afternoon, I hired a private taxi to visit the famous cliff temples / caves of Mati Se. While it is quite a long drive (1,5 hours) and already one third of the distance to my next destination Xining, it was not possible to visit it on the way for various (annoying) logistical reasons. I haggled with at least 5 drivers, who all wanted to charge incredible amounts, until I found a reasonable one. He profited from the occasion of this country-side outing to take along a lady he fancies (that seemed to be very clear and soon I realised from the way she spoke to him that she actually liked him as well...). When I stopped him, he was probably about to see her for a chat (I presume), because the shop she was working in was right in front. He shouted something inside and - after some negotiation with her boss (a family member? Who else would let an employee leave in the middle of the day..?), she joined us. And during the entire drive they were chitchatting. These constant voices that I did not understand actually made me very sleepy, but I could not really fall asleep as the road was far too bumpy. Mǎtí Sì translates as Horse Hoof Monastery, a reference to a legendary event in which a heavenly horse left a hoof imprint in one of the grottos. Between the 5th and 14th centuries a series of caves were almost as miraculously built in these sandstone cliffs and filled with carvings, temples and meditation rooms. The caves are reached via twisting staircases, wooden balconies, narrow passages and platforms that were really impressive. The grottos are spread over many sections and despite initial hesitations, the driver would not wait at the entry gate and let me walk around the area, but negotiated with the lady at the entrance and then drove me in. Strangely enough, hat was actually the rule, as inside the area, there were plenty of taxis driving around with visitors. Sometimes, it was quite difficult to climb up / down to the caves as the ladders / stairs carved in stone were steep and narrow and the Chinese visitors did not seem to realise that it makes lots of sense to first let people come down before going up and so people permanently got stuck from high sides in the middle of the ladders/stairs... The monks at the caves were all very well-equipped with iPhones and had as much fun taking pictures as I had. Quite unexpected.. ;-) I took quite a bit of time to discover the various caves and thus left the two lovebirds plenty of time to flirt. Once, I was ready with my visit but saw them walking in the nearby hills, so I took a bit more time to visit hat the driver would not feel obliged to immediately come back to the car. ;-) On the way back, the lady, who spoke a few words of English, started a very basic conversation and, thanks to my English-Chinese student dictionary, which I bought the night before for 2 Euros (!!), we managed to understand each other. We even stopped for a small roadside picknick to eat the watermelon the driver had bought before. In the the end, it was a very nice day and - hopefully - the two lovebirds will soon get married and will live happily ever after (sorry, I am a desperate romantic...) :-)

Photos of Zhangye / Mati Se at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A65NI45MGXHrUE

Dunhuang (day 97 to 99 - 23.07. - 25.07.), another Silk Road highlight, or: beautiful Buddhist caves and Dunhuang Desert Dune Disneyland

Despite its remoteness in the middle of the desert, per capita income in Dūnhuáng is among the highest in China, thanks to a recent push into wind and solar energy production (sorry, but I just HAVE to mention this..). The town is now thoroughly modern, but compared to other places, it has maintained its distinction and a really nice atmosphere. With clean tree-lined streets, slow-moving traffic, bustling markets, nice cafes and some souvenir shops, it also has remained as much an oasis for travellers as in the Silk Road times.

The visit of the Mogao caves was certainly so far one of the highlights of this trip. From the originally 1000 caves, about 500 still exist and despite their age, some of them are quite well preserved, due to the hot and dry climate and the fact that for about 500 years they had been covered by sand and forgotten. As soon as they were rediscovered, the problems started. A number of Western explorers (or I should rather say thiefs) came here between 1904 (a Brit) and 1925 (an Amercian), with French, Japanese and a Russian following and plundered the caves by detaching some of the mural paintings and steeling (more correctly, they "bought" them for ridiculous amounts from the monk guarding them), the manuscripts and silk paintings which had been discovered in an amazing cave library, amongst which the oldest print in the world. Most of them are now in possession of the Louvre and Musée Guimet in Paris, the British Museum in London and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. The museum here contains only a very sad number of low quality manuscripts and copies of their originals.

The decoration of the caves is really extraordinary: various Buddhas (in all shapes and forms - painted and as statues) and paintings telling stories to relate the message of Buddhism to the simple people. Actually exactly the same, somehow, then the paintings in Cappadocia's cave churches at the beginning of my trip in Turkey.

When I bought the entry ticket (which is scandalously expensive with 20€ (same price for Chinese tourists!!), the lady told me that due to the extremely high number of Chinese visitors, their "leader" had told them to cancel all guided tours in English in favour of Chinese ones. That was a blow because you need a certain level of explanation to understand what is depicted in the murals. I was now very happy that I had carried my one kilo DuMont cultural guide with me all the time as it contained a 12-page chapter on the caves with a detailed explanation of what you can see in some of the various caves. Instead of guided tours, they also put the guides inside the caves and pushed the masses of Chinese tourists from one cave to the next in maximum speed, the open caves being marked with blue and green flags. I followed the flow as the guides had very powerful torches to show the various paintings and statues in the dark caves, so I could actually see the stuff... My torch was too weak to see a lot of things. But i always stayed until after the groups had left and before the next one was let in, which allowed me to look at things without rushing and in some caves, the guides actually gave me some explanation in English as well. They were quite surprised by the level of detailed description in my guidebook.

In the afternoon, I went to visit the dunes, for which Dunhuang is famous. I know I also had to pay another ridiculously high entrance fee here, but I did not expect this kind of "circus". They basically turned this nice wonder of nature into a kitschy Dune Disneyland, with a huge visitor's centre, a kind of shopping mall, a stage for shows, etc. and there were amazing amounts of tourists (almost exclusively Chinese..), all of them wanting to go for a camel ride up the dunes and there are actually enough camels for all of them, which provoked a "traffic jam" on the way up to the dunes (see photo). Whereas most people only went onto the first lower dune, I decided to escape the masses and climb up to the top of the highest dune. The climb to the top of the dunes – the highest peak swells to 1715m – was sweaty work even if it was already around 19.00, but the view across the desert sands makes it really worth while. The view from the dune was spectacular and here were only 3 other young Chinese guys who made it up to hear, so it was wonderfully silent. Exactly the right atmosphere to watch the sunset.

Photos at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A65M7GFPGaJ7eb

Turpan / Tulufan (days 93 to 96 - 19. - 22.07.), the hottest place in China, or: does China / Turpan have talent?

Turpan (Tǔlǔfān) is considered as China’s Death Valley. At 154m below sea level, it’s the second-lowest depression in the world and the hottest spot in China. In July and August (exactly when I am here) the temperatures soar well above 40°C, forcing the locals and the crazy visiting tourists like me into a state of almost permanent heat shock. I actually almost did not want to leave my air-conditioned room in the very nice Silk Road Lodges, which are situated a bit outside town, but surrounded by beautiful vineyards, where - as I was told - I could pick grapes for free as much as I wanted. The building is quite new, but follows the local traditional architecture (photos). Despite the heat, the ground water and fertile soil of the Turpan depression has made this a veritable oasis in the desert, evidenced by the nearby centuries-old remains of ancient cities, imperial garrisons and Buddhist caves.

I did not do much the first day, except a small walk around the vineyards, picking some grapes and admiring the grape-drying-halls that were all over. In the evening, I went into town to a fancy traditional Uighur restaurant, on the shore of a small lake, recommended by the very nice manager of the hotel. The food was very nice. When I came out of the restaurant, I heard loud music and it turned out that in the little park around the lake, took place the Turpan Singing and Dancing Competition, which - of course - I needed to watch. It was something like "Britain has got talent" or "Deutschland sucht den Superstar" but for kids / teenagers. Lots of little boys and girls were singing and dancing and playing the drums (see some bit so sharp iPhone photos below). Sometimes quite good, sometimes just funny! I really enjoyed the atmosphere... In the end, we even had the privilege to see two members of the jury perform, it seems quite (at least locally) famous singers (photos).

As agreed during our lunch after the train ride from Kuche, the next day I went on an excursion with my new Chinese friends Wu Rui bin and Liu Feng mei, a couple travelling for two weeks (photo). I walked up to them at the Turpan train station (which is almost an hour away from town) to ask for help to get to the bus station. I had written the signs down on a sheet of paper, but fortunately, they both spoke a bit of English and offered to go together. The bus station was a 5 minute walk and really well-hidden... From the front, it looked like an office-building. On my own, I would never have found it... During lunch, we discussed a bit and I explained, with a very skilful little drawing, what I actually do for work... It was really ridiculous, but they finally understood. It is really difficult to explain what I am doing to someone who almost does not speak English. ;-) Wu Rui bin is a banker and Liu Feng mei a trained lawyer working for the government (she did not really explain what she was doing though...). They were quite funny and we had a great time together.

The including a number of sights in the area, notably  the ancient city of Jiaohe,which was established by the Chinese as a garrison town during the Han dynasty. It’s one of the world’s largest (6500 residents lived here), oldest (1600 years old) and best-preserved ancient cities, impressive in its scale rather than in its details, where you can still see the remains of a large monastery and a 10m-tall pagoda surrounded by 100 smaller pagoda bases. Next station was the Bezeklik cave-complex (Bezeklik meaning ‘Place of Paintings’ in Uighur), which has a fine location (closer to the flaming mountains) and interesting history, though the caves are essentially empty. The site is famous for having many of its distinctive murals cut out of the rock face by German (!!!) archaeologists in 1905. Some few still remain, but they are not very impressive (and photos were prohibited). The "Flaming" Mountains, the midday appearance of which is compared to multicoloured tongues of fire, were immortalised in the Chinese classic "Journey to the West", when the Monkey King used his magic fan to extinguish the blaze. We then went to the "grape valley", another one of these super Chinese tourist "attractions", which charged a very unreasonable entry fee just to see grapes, which I have already seen around my hotel anyway. So my friends and myself decided to skip that and just to hangs out in the restaurant. We admired the various kinds of dried grapes and my friends bought 2 kilos (!!) as souvenir... Finally, we visited a very kitsch (as entirely newly built) museum dedicated to the uniquely Central Asian–style system of underground aqueducts called "karez" (very similar to what we had seen in Iran), but at least it was nice and cool down there and they had some nice stands selling all kind of Chairman Mao souvenirs (photos). The Emin-Minaret, a very nice Afghan-style structure built by Emin Hoja, a Turpan general, in 1777 was finally not included in the tour, but as it was not far from my hotel I convinced the driver to drop me off there.

The last day, when I again had a night train, I negotiated a late check-out and actually stayed in my room, as it was so hot that I really did not feel like doing anything... At least, I managed to sort out some photos and write up some of my blog, but also tried to catch up on world / EU news...

 Photos at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A6GdIshaZVCL