Planning and Preparation

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Saturday August 26, 2006
Will this turn out to have been one trip too far? A month to go to the off and the vibes are improving all the time. Back in January I booked a BA flight to Beijing with my wife for the months of September and October. Then I started to read the Lonely Planet and plot a possible route. It will be interesting to see if it's closely followed - they rarely are.
Fly to Beijing for 2-3 nights
Fly to Kashgar with side trips to Karacul Lake, Karhilik and Khotan (do we proceed via Southern Silk Route?)
If not return to Kashgar and take train to Urumqi
Bus to Turpan and then Duanhuang
Lanzhou and Tianshui
Xian Luoyang
Keifeng
Pingyao
Datong
Beijing and home

Forbidden City

  Fast forward to July for nothing else was done in between and everything started to come back into focus when we started to think about visas and realised we needed our passports in August in order fetch our Anglo-French grandchildren for their usual summer holiday. No need to have worried because Chinese Visa Direct.com got our visas in the hoped for 3 working days and they covered the entire 60 day period.

Took a look at tripadvisor.com to check on the popularity and price of hotels in Beijing. We never used to bother to book even the first night - must be getting old, well I am 71 and unfortunately that qualifies as old for this game. Found that a flight from Beijing to Kashgar could be booked on ebookers. Still haven't proceeded because getting insurance is next, and it's just twelve months since my discharge from hospital with a new hip joint.

Delighted to find that the hip is standing up well to hard manual labour moving many tons of material to build new steps to the back door. Getting strong and fit once again. This will be the first real expedition since hip troubles set in two years ago, the last three being in South America, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru before that it was all south east Asia.

Bought pocket guides to Mandarin and a Travel Talk CD and a Lonely Planet Travel Guide. I preferred Rough Guide to Lonely Planet  for a Mandarin Language and Phrasebook, for theirs is an excellent introduction and it uses the standard Pinyin romanisation of the language, plus English pronunciation phonetic spelling. But I didn't foresee the need of the shagging phrases 'How about going to bed?' ..' touch me here'..... 'its my first time', though they might appeal to a gap year traveller - how should I know? Three years ago I finished two years of night school Mandarin thinking that I was too old to get to grips with the rote learning needed for Mandarin, which bore absolutely no resemblance to any language I had tried, not even Thai or Malay. However I was pleasantly surprised that previous language learning took the unfamiliarity out of the sounds and I am proceeding to learn it with more enthusiasm than I had expected. None the less I expect I will be another exponent of 'pointing at the Chinese script' and expecting them to reply in English, in spite of our lesson in Guatemala - written language doesn't work with taxi drivers who have never learnt to read and write.

Annual Travel insurance gets harder to come by when you pass 65. Based on a Which report I looked at, the AA, Bradford and Bingley, CIS Home Options, and by other suggestion of AMEX. Only Bradford and Bingley and CIS offered cover for a 60 day trip, and only the latter treated medical preconditions helpfully.

When we first tried this type of travel nearly 20 years ago in Nepal we decided not to book ahead even for the first night, arguing correctly that if starting this way we would find it hard to break free. Only once have we experienced problems and on that occasion arrived in Kuching, Sarawak, at midnight on Thirtieth Anniversary of Malaysia's independence, taxi-ing around to find all accommodation was fully booked months before. We slept on the airport floor. The big plus was the superb carnival procession the following morning.

More recently we have started to book a decent hotel for the first couple of nights, having learnt by experience that finding decent budget accommodation in capital cities requires an up to date recommendation, rarely known on arrival, but quickly gained on the grape-vine. In fact, in deference to our age, we have tended recently to seek out comfortable mid range hotels in the heart of each town, especially successful with the colonial hotels in the centre of South American cities.

So we have booked the first three nights in a Beijing hotel once again following the advice of the review writers using 'tripadvisor.com', not content with this we made Internet bookings for the next few nights in Kashgar (Kashi). Thus armed we proceeded to book discounted flights from Beijing to Kashi for evening arrival via 'ticket.9588.com', which gives USD access to internal Chinese airline schedules. It was a little disconcerting when 'precision reservations' and then 'asiarooms' came back to say rooms were no longer available by Internet booking, something 'tripadvisor' knew all along. It's annoying to learn of the shortage of rooms in peak season and realised we would have to sort it out after dark, whereas we could have booked earlier flights. Still it can't be worse than Kuching!

Just been reading Polly Evan's 'Fried Eggs with Chopsticks'. She sounds like my kind of traveller, laughing through experiences others would prefer to avoid. She makes China seem a little unhygienic, but it can't be worse than Nepal or Borneo (see Redmond O'Hanlan who regularly puts the frighteners on would be travellers) and those trips are two of our all-time highs.

One week to go. Must really sort out two months supply of cash, I have become so used to relying on ATMs and plastic, but it seems this isn't an option in China (incorrect as it turned out), so its back to Travellers Cheques I guess. Also must really brush up my Mandarin, its been impossible in the past few weeks, with the house full of grandchildren on holiday - he says looking around for someone to blame. Will I be allowed a phrasebook, a guidebook and a compass in my hand luggage? , this being the days just after the banning of drinking water! If so I reckon we'll survive loss of hold luggage, though it won't be pleasant. 

It takes a great deal of forethought to travel ultra light, if you're carrying for two for the umpteenth time there's not a great deal you would willingly do without. I still have to make the ultimate decision - Do I backpack or submit to ageing joints? , somehow the thought of Oldie Wheelie doesn't chime? And if we go for wheelie luggage, 'will that seem a ridiculous choice in the sand of the western desert? 

Still hankering after travelling east by the lesser used southern silk road, rather than the rail route via Urumqi, will reassess in Kashgar.

Beijing and flight to Kashgar

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Please tell Polly Evans that I ate a Fried Egg with Chopsticks on my very first day in China. There was no way of avoiding this hurdle as the egg came perched on top of a delicious plate of spiced kidney which I had been advised to order in the Youth Restaurant. They let in oldies like us!

Tell her too that finding our hotel was a million times more taxing. Still I highly recommend the Holiday Inn Central Plaza, which is right off the tourist track. I should charge for such hard won information (airport bus 3 to Main Railway Station, Subway 3 yuan to Changchunjie, then number 10 bus south to its terminus. Short walk up Caiyuanjie street (opposite KFC) to hotel. 

We eventually got there courtesy of identifying the hotel on a map prior to leaving UK and the compass. After deducing that the underground to Nanlishilu station would leave us with a straight walk south to the hotel we turned our back on the taxi drivers, who could not understand my Mandarin, or maps, or even read their own language in Pinyin (our alphabet). In despair we dived somewhat nervously below street level to the metro. OK, but the seemingly short walk on a map of a big city took two hours, we even tried a bus but it immediately turned off the road south so we got off rather than risk getting lost. Finally arriving at their reception desk exhausted, disheveled and drenched in sweat.

Forbidden City

First day wanting to do the obvious site seeing Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden city we learned from reception that all we needed to do was to catch a number 10 bus from the nearby corner going east then north-east.

Outside Mao's  Mausaleum

 














Next day, by now relaxed, we decided to explore the Hutongs, the old single story area of Beijing. We went to the Drum Tower by number 10 Bus, Metro and Shank's Pony, where we negotiated a rickshaw tour for a fifth of asking price. Then having paid the rider 80Y + a tip for his hours hard work we decided to retrace the route slowly on foot. So if you are mean like us just follow the passing rickshaws on foot! By foot is a good way to observe the old way of life and note how like the mews of South Kensington it has in parts become very fashionable. The occasional luxury car passes down streets designed for bicycles, when two go in opposite directions all hell breaks loose as the drivers get out and have a pitched verbal battle in angry Chinese. The rickshaws wait patiently and the walkers squeeze past.

Extended Family Hutong

 

 
















At a very old Hutong Quadrangle (600 years old at least) we met Winnie one of two young guides taking two Taiwanese from Canada around. She detached herself from her duties to talk very interestingly to us in English. We have her email and intend to contact her on our last day in Beijing.

Playing Majong and swimming on walk back from Drum Tower

5 September, we were to try out our airline etickets to Kashi purchased at 20+% discount on the Internet before leaving home (ticket 9588.com). A bit too laid back by now we badly underestimated the time to get to the airport, because of the traffic at midday it took well over two hours by public transport to traverse the reverse of route by which we had arrived Tiananmen Square the Airport Bus. We got off at Terminal One. We also now know China Southern fly from Terminal Two. Luckily where there's a need there will be men to fix it, and a chancer seized our ticket and led us rapidly to the correct terminal and correct desk at high walking speed, then charged us a hefty tip - for this indispensable service, on paying which we got our tickets back.

Next we learnt that Hold Baggage seems to be unknown for internal flights in China, so my large rucksack and Joan's wheelie bag went on the plane as hand luggage into a spare seat. Security took a serrated knife in our small rucksack (hand baggage), but paid no attention to scissors in my big rucksack which was obviously treated as 'hold' baggage - such is Chinese logic! Anyway we made it just in time and even found our own way round Urumqi airport to get our onward boarding card and the flight to Kashgar.

We were two of only three passengers on the airport bus in Kashgar but for 5Y (30p each) it dropped us right outside our pre-booked hotel, Wen Zhou Mansion (booked in UK via sinohotel.com). Only problem was that they spoke not a single word of English - we negotiated this hurdle in good humour once they realised I was prepared to try my best in Mandarin. The room was fine, the beds good, very hard but surprisingly comfortable. Chinese breakfast was included. It was a Chinese buffet, which couldn't compare with the Holiday Inn (absolutely superb choices for Chinese or Westerners alike), but which was fine for an all in price for two of 280Y/night (Internet). The cost would probably have been cheaper at desk to judge for our booking at the Holiday Inn on return to Beijing 600Y (£36) versus 770Y/night (sinhotel) for room + 2 breakfasts.

More about Kashgar next posting, for the present we are just enjoying it.

Kashgar, Travellers, Sunday Market, Karakul Lake

Sunday, September 10, 2006

KASHGAR
At first impression it was very disappointing, just another large modern city, with big rather drab buildings but wide streets and pavements, hardly improved by the statue of Mao in the main square. We have been here a week and are just beginning to find our way around. Kashgar is famed as the meeting point of traders, being on the border of Pakistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan etc.

Selling Ripe Yellow Figs in the street

Two boys in the Old part 

Tandori Bread

It doesn't feel like that now, just one interesting old quarter, behind the unimpressive mosque, with two trading streets with lots of bakers operating traditional ovens making nan bread. The round dough is dipped in onion before being shaped and pricked with the maker's pattern before being baked, and finally being brushed with egg white.There speaks a baker's grandson!

It may no longer be a trading hub as of yore, but it certainly is a traveller's Mecca. The Caravan Cafe run at least in part by Michael, a tall English guy, has been for us a wonderful source of information, from him and other travellers. He directed us to a new upmarket Uighur cafe called Turan where we ate wonderfully well on quality food for 55Y (£3) for two, a far cry from the 5Y usually paid but well worth the difference if you can afford it.

The biggest problem is getting understood, they don't appear to understand my Mandarin and although the menu is in pictures it doesn't really help to identify the type of food, nor does a menu in Chinese characters or an unhelpful English translation. For instance Polo is called 'Eat with Hands' and Laghman was 'Drew Noodles with Crushed Lamb'. We now translate this as Drawn noodles and minced meat. Only today at the market did we realise the true meaning of 'drew'.

MAKING NOODLES AT THE MARKET

FINISHISED NOODLES ABOUT TO BE COOKED

A lump of dough is stretched by hand and then doubled and twisted into a plait, time after time to knead the dough, finally the process is repeated but between each fold it is dipped in flour to prevent the threads sticking. It finally emerges as lots of parallel noodles which are thrown into boiling water. The end result is a thick long spaghetti, as delicious as any Italian pasta.

 







Polo was accompanied by home made delicious yoghurt, Yeo Valley eat your heart out! The glasses of water served free with meal were in fact flavoured with lemon juice. (Today on the market we watched whilst our glass of pomegranate juice was crushed on a stall piled high with the original fruits.

Our first destination today was the cattle market, slightly out of town, a 10Y taxi ride. We deliberately arrive early beating the tour parties but also most of the animals. We didn't need to have been so early, 10am Beijing Time, as by the time we left at around 2 pm there were still as many animals entering for sale as leaving with their new owners. Animals were in different sectors of a walled market place, lots of sheep in a wide variety of hues, cattle being forced to jump off the back of lorries and mule powered trucks, and after sale to jump back onto someone else's.

Checking teeth

Sheep for sale

Mules, all in remarkable good condition and sprightly, were being tried out by prospective purchasers', who after the normal feel and teeth inspection then persuaded the seller to demonstrate how well they had been trained. First leading, then riding and finally harnessed into a cart and driven. The owner took first turn and the buyer then tried the same operations himself. Money was changing hands. Some men had huge wads of notes in their hands, others hid smaller sums under their hats. Hands were shaken in a conventional way once a deal was struck, but the greeting was with hands outstretched pressed together and the others hands completing a double decker sandwich.

The horses at the far end of the ground were rather disappointing, their ribs were all too obvious. Most were pulling somewhat personalised decorated carts, their bells jingling as they showed off their prowess. Food stalls where you could eat laghman with the hand 'drew' noodles, or Nan bread cooked on the spot with a lamb stew, and a row of stalls selling ropes, halters, girth material, bells, everything a farmer would need.

THERESA and JOAN

Yesterday we shared a car booked by Theresa to Karakul. She hailed from LA but has lived in London for fifteen years and was clearly involved in theatre and writing scripts, but had engaged on this trip as a way of filling out her research into the Silk Road on which she was intent on writing a novel set in the Tang dynasty. She was good fun, just one of the interesting people we met in the Caravan Cafe. The drive took nearly four hours climbing to the Karakoram highlands. There was a stop at a border post to check our passports as we passed into an Tajik Autonomous Territory, like Tibet still part of China.

KARAKUL

YURTS for TOURISTS

At Kakakul lake there was the inevitable parking lot full of tour buses, many of the passengers were persuaded to take a short trip on a camel or horse, a sort of ride on the sands. We three decided to walk part way around the lake, and to do so had to jump over several small streams, the first time I have jumped on my new hip, so my confidence took a leap as well. It was a first too for Joan on her metal knees, and apart from a huge skid on the mud she performed admirably. The lake is set in a valley surrounded by snow capped mountains. Thankfully the visibility improved after noon as the mist burned off. We found a nice grassy mound and enjoyed the picnic of food we had purchased in the local supermarket. (The supermarket in Kashgar had been difficult to find, but we got there by repeatedly asking 'Yi Jia zai nar?' Later we were to discover a huge shopping street under one of the major roadways.)

At the Caravan we had a long talk with a German, who spoke English far quicker than I and had just arrived from a month in Pakistan through the Hunsa Valley and the Karakoram Highway. As Sarah Hopkins would no doubt concur the area feels completely safe, (unlike our Foreign office which says unequivocally 'Don't enter Gilgit'. He found the people are so poor and so hospitable, sometimes beyond their means. He said, 'For real fundamental Muslims think Pakistan, the people seem to accept the regime without thinking and the women after marriage frequently never leave the house'.

On the other hand he contrasted Iran where he found the people did not accept the role which the state and the ayatollahs were trying to impose and acted in total independence. He was taking every opportunity to advise people to travel in Iran. He had been made very welcome, travel was very easy and dirt cheap, especially petrol, the only drawback was the need to carry all money as cash, since there was not even a means of changing travellers cheques. He was especially impressed by the willingness of those who spoke fluent English to discuss politics openly.

Bruce Wood, retired as GP in Vancouver Island in June, he was cycling with a slightly older friend Carl a retired PE teacher. Bruce once did a year's exchange in Immingham. As he said 'in my working life as a doctor I liked to be in control and everything to be in order, as I suspect you did, but I like to mix it with chaos on holidays'. I guess he was verbalising my thoughts.

They had just returned from three weeks cycling around Krygystan bivouacking in sleeping bags overnight. The bikes were bought in Kashgar. We clicked amazingly well with them, perhaps there was so much in common, apart from age, though I guess we could give even Carl 10 years, grandchildren, Joan and I had lived several years in Canada. Bruce went to Banda Acheh to help the UN effort after the tsunami, where a coast the length of Wales was wiped out in minutes. Joan and I have such fond memories of our month or so on the West Coast of Sumatra, . Bruce's wife preferred to holiday for ten days in Venice, but then she's an artist who will be exhibiting in Birmingham next year.

The last we saw of them was as they cycled the road out to Karakul Lake as we were returning. They were on their way to Pakistan, for some hiking (climbing?) in the Karakoram, before flying to Amritsar and back to Delhi via the Pushkar Camel Fair - that unexpected development did make their wives jealous. We met on the road across a chasm where it had collapsed due to the weight of water flowing down the mountain due to the snow melt that afternoon. Traffic was piling up on both sides. There were three separate pairs of touring cyclists including a German mountain guide and his wife. 

It looked as though we were destined to spend the night there until a huge articulated lorry carrying and large bulldozer parked behind decided to brave it with his power, but got stuck in the pit in spite of a mighty attempt to escape marked by clouds of dense black smoke. Nevertheless he had the means of escape and off loaded his bulldozer which proceeded to fill the hole with rubble and big boulders for the benefit of us all. 

Eventually he got out and this opened the route by which we forded the rushing river. We were going to make the Kashgar Sunday Market next day after all!!

 

Off to the Turan restaurant now where we may meet up again with Theresa.

Kashgar to Hotan via Yarkand (Shache)

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Hotan via Yarkand (Shache)
A no brainer for me. Either travel 36 hours east by sleeper train to the industrial city of Urumqi, or attempt the little travelled Southern Silk Road via Hotan. Who knows what lies ahead. I don't. Joan is questioning my motives.

Leaving Kashgar by bus was to say the least a little chaotic. We went to the bus station and joined the long queue at ticket office Line 1. It didn't appear to move at all, then suddenly there was a splurge of activity and additional people excitedly joined the front of the queue. A lady who we later realised was the ticket checker at the entrance to the platforms came and asked in Chinese where we were going, Shache I replied, guessing her question. She immediately guided me to the front of the queue where a fixer took my instructions and purchased my tickets in addition to several others, probably orders from hotels and travel agents. He charged me 20Y, the face value of the ticket was 19Y so it was well worth the commission. 

Another fixer guided me to the aforesaid lady's desk where she stamped them and he guided me to the correct bus. All done with a few words in Chinese, Shache (our destination by Chinese name), liange piao dao Shache (two tickets to Shache), duo shao qian? (how much?) and sishi yuan (forty yuan).

Chinese out of town buses provide a seat for every passenger, a great improvement on India and Guatemala where not only are there three passengers for each double seat but also as many standing as can force their way in, and there's sufficient leg room to boot. Remember the demonstrations of how many people can get in a mini!
'How many people can get into an Indian bus?'
'One more'.

Far less dangerous than Sumatra, where a single mini-bus driver took us for 17 hours, slept and then drove the return route. He survived tiredness by smoking cigarettes dipped in strong black coffee.


YARKAND - SHACHE
Our first bus ride in China, well outside Beijing, made steady progress deceptively easily so we weren't ready for the next stage. Immediately we descended a rickshaw pedaller offered to take us to the Shache Binguan hotel and waved three fingers in the air. On arrival he wanted not 3Y but 30Y. He was so persistent that he actually got 15Y, the correct fare was 3Y! When I looked round he was grinning to a bystander. The hotel entrance looked grand but the interior was distinctly dingy. I went to look for another hotel but found they couldn't take foreigners, so on returning to the first hotel we discovered an annexe with much smaller but better room for nearly double the price.
 

The pleasant evening hours we spent walking around to get our bearings and we chose to eat in one of a group of very popular restaurants Once again we had chosen well, falling for their yoghurt above all. Next day we made for the Aletun mosque and gained paid entrance to the restored graveyard of the local kings in the adjacent Mahzar. There was a really restful feel about the place, in spite of the distant sound of metal hammering the source of which we were to find. A juicy slice of melon and 5p shorter we went down the lane into the magical Moslem Old Town.

BLACKSMITH MAKING KNIFE

On both sides of the endless street were workshops, blacksmiths making knives and sickles, metal bashers making everything from welding heavy gates to beating bowls into shape or even decorating on a vase. Wood workers with lathes turning out wooden knobs from branches of wood at the speed of an automatic machine, working like a master chef cutting onions, though knobs are also shaped. Makers of the traditional wooden highly decorated hammock-like cots with a wee hole to save on bed clothes and nappies, makers of the dyes which are used to stamp the patterns on the round nan bread, cold iron shoeing of mules and horses held in position by a frame and ropes, key cutters (I now have a spare for the lock on my stainless steel rucksack cage-net, which set me back 2Y), leather shoe repairers with their extra strong sewing machines, seamstresses making new clothes or repairing old ones, hardware shops, bakers of course and many other traditional trades that I have forgotten.

MAKING MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

This is what Xing Jiang province used to be like, but it is fast disappearing.
Kashgar, which was converted into a rather ugly modern city between the wars. Masses of Han Chinese were transported from the east have reached parity in their attempt at domination.

The breakfast room in the hotel next morning was full to overflowing with several coach loads of Chinese tourists. Joan went to one of the 8 seater round tables and was waved to sit down opposite two Chinese. (To date we have tended to sit on a small table by ourselves). I am pleased to say I initiated conversation in my halting Chinese by telling them where we were heading that morning. They were surprised to learn we had no bus but all became clear when I mentioned a bus station. It turned out that the husband was a university teacher of Russian, with only a slightly greater knowledge of English than I had of Mandarin, she was a doctor with little English but a fine ability with sign language, a very precise pronunciation and sense of tone which she used to improve our accents. He made a mouth like Grommit to show me how to pronounce the Y in Yuan the currency. Never the less we learned quite a lot about each other in a very short space of time. 

They, it transpired, were on a circular coach tour of the north and south silk roads in Xing Jiang starting from their home town of Urumqi - that alone was enough to convince of the already germinating thought that our route was feasible. They explained how we should keep the chopped salad items from the buffet on a separate small plate to use as garnishes, rather than pile a hundred different dishes on one plate as was our want. Then all of a sudden they had to go. Such a pity they weren't independent travellers like us, or I'm convinced we would both have stayed put for at least a day before proceeding on our counter-clockwise journeys.

With hearts happy to be making real contact we found absolutely no problem in buying tickets at the small kiosk or in finding the correct bus which was not due to leave for an hour. Confidence now allowed me to leave Joan and our luggage on the bus whilst taking a taxi back to the hotel to return their key.

The journey was even better than the day before, this bus was even air-conditioned. The very fertile land around Yarkand, where river water distributed by irrigation canals had turned the desert into a market garden plus fields of rice, corn, sunflowers, fruit trees and cotton. The market gardens were constructed like row after row of poly-tunnels. The shaped tops were made of bent branches, the Chinese equivalent of Hazel wood, the sides were Adobe walls, both walls the same height in the case of tunnels or one much taller than the other to construct a cold frame shape. In these they would grow the wonderful range of vegetables including the huge and very tasty water melons and melons of different hues which are in huge piles everywhere, pak choi and beans, whilst planting more sturdy crops like onions and carrots in rows between the frames. White carrots are a speciality of the area.

Then in the absence of river water the landscape would transform into barren desert, though the occasional herd of around 25 wild camels would be seen, without giving any clue as to what they lived on. Nevertheless the animals looked in fine condition. There were occasional switches in type of terrain, there is as we learned so forcefully on our trip to Karakul no shortage of water in this area with high snow covered mountain ranges just a few tens of miles to the west (Pakistan) and Tibet to the south. There was a reversion to the consistently well farmed land as we approached Hotan.

One incident is worth recording. The road is is built on a man made causeway fully three meters above the surrounding land (a sure sign of flooding in the summer rain) and the sides are very steep, more than 45 degrees. Alongside the carriageway several rows of tall straight poplar trees had been planted close together, presumably as a break against sand during storms. A large lorry had gone off the road, but far from careering down the embankment and capsizing it was held in a near vertical position by the trees. I don't believe this was entirely by chance, but that a secondary function of the poplars was to act as a safety barrier.

If there's one hazard in China it has to be the streets, the roads are bad enough. The main streets in cities like Kashgar and Hotan are are four or five lanes wide in either direction, the outer lanes are designated as a sort of hard shoulder, and the tiled pavements are at least two lanes wide. A wonderful structure for chaos. You might think that the pavements are a haven for pedestrians but no they are used by vehicles of all types as both transit and parking areas. Pedestrians wanting to walk quickly and safely from 'A' to 'B' choose to walk in the hard shoulder, normally inside bikes, motorbikes, donkey carts and rickshaws, a fair proportion of which are going contra-flow. Worse is to follow. You may reasonably think of jay-walking as a crime, but I have it on good authority that the Little Red Book declares that citizens must develop the martial art of jay-walking without flinching as daily survival training. There are frequently pedestrian crossings, but it's a point of honour that no vehicle ever stops - indeed horns blare to ensure the path ahead is kept clear, I even heard a donkey baying 'Get out of the way, I'm coming through'. The result is that every pedestrian chooses any spot and crosses one lane at a time whilst traffic blazes through in front and behind. A short respite is attained on the double lines in the centre of the express-way.

 HOTAN

MODERN DESERT ROAD TO HOTAN - EMPTY

Hotan was a surprise. Instead of the old desert town we had expected it was the smartest Chinese city we have yet visited, much of it was probably built in the past twenty years. The large Tiananmen square with its huge statues of Mao and an Old Man, symbols of the area was constructed only two years ago. Even the water is drinkable without boiling due to modern street plumbing. We have found a small old Muslim area, but nothing like as impressive as the one at Yarkand. The relatively elegant modern city has a friendly, clean, efficient feel, something we have not experienced here before.

On arrival we checked in at the Hetian (Hotan) Yingbinguan, the one recommended by the LP, but found the hotel was full except for the three bed-rooms in the annexe with shared wash and toilet rooms. Since this was only 20Y per bed we took a room for the night and decided to put off looking around for the morrow. We bought a town map from the receptionist only to find it was entirely in Chinese characters, but cooperating with her we managed to be able to locate a few key places, such as the museum. 

Every street here is marked in Pinyin (Chinese using our alphabet), so by wandering around compass in hand we were gradually able to piece together a usable map, collecting bus numbers as we went.
'Anyone want to buy a map of Hotan?'
'How much?'
'How much you give?'
That's the way they sell white jade here. Hotan was famous for jade, not silk, in the days of the Silk Road. You can see tens of people searching in the stones piled high on the dried out parts of river beds all over this area.

Next day we went looking for Beijing Road and a hotel called Tian Hai, which the evening before we had found recommended by Frommer's guide on the Internet. In fact it was easy to miss since they had the street number wrong (it's 49 not 5) but we were guided by a friendly soldier to the Wen Zhou, for it is part of the same chain we had used in Kashgar. When I bartered the girls burst out laughing when I asked for cheaper, pianyi dianr, and promptly slashed the displayed price in half, 218Y became 110Y. Keyi kan (can I see) seems to get understood, so we had a look at the room. It was fine so I proffered the money for 4 nights. They then said we should go elsewhere as it was too noisy and we might not sleep, and took us to another hotel nearby, but they too were full. We settled for Tian Hai and have been more than happy there. The first night was even a night off for the builders.

One of our main regrets of the trip happened here. An attractive, friendly young woman  with a very white complexion got out of the lift and started a conversation in English. She was here to attend one of the Uighur hospitals. Finally she asked, do you know about the Veega/Weega people? Only later in Tulufan did Michael teach us that was the pronunciation of Uighur, which spelling we would have recognised. We could kick ourselves for not suggesting we have dinner together. We never saw her again. Gone was our best chance to hear the Uighur side of the story.


Close to the first hotel we found The ARAM Coffee, an excellent restaurant with a modern decor which wouldn't be out of place in the Europe, but don't think they serve coffee- presumably they meant cafe. They offered us Polo with yoghurt, and excellent it was too. Polo is rice cooked with pieces of lamb and sultanas and gentle spices. 

Next day we discovered a popular Chinese restaurant almost next to the Tian Hai and here on a scrap of paper they had English translations of the names of the most popular dishes. We opted for Sweet and Sour Pork which turned out to be delicious, far different to anything I have eaten in Britain and not at all sickly, mixed with numerous whole cloves of garlic and spiced liberally with red chili, and as a second dish four fish fried and served in a red chile sauce, again excellent. We had over ordered and couldn't finish but at 66Y who cares. The next day we ordered chicken with tangerine peel, this was a test of our skill with chop sticks (I'm discovering muscles in my hand I didn't know existed) as the chicken was diced together with onion and green peppers, with a couple of dozen whole small red chilli peppers thrown in for good measure. If you ate them it was very hot, I did, if not it was just spicy for Joan, the second dish we ordered that day was vegetables and got pak choi with diced garlic.

Our first visit was to the new museum, small but well presented with artefacts from recent archaeological discoveries of lost cities (1500 years ago) now largely covered by desert sands. Before leaving we got talking to Alie, who worked there and also taught in the History Dept of the university. Importantly he had a reasonable command of English. I asked him to list in order the local attractions we should visit.We followed his advice, see later. Today Alie advised the Lokman where we had a simple Polo called Lokman Pillau, and a plate of huge tender lamb chops, all for 23Y. Incredible, I'm emigrating!

Hotan, Rawak Temple, Atlas Silk Factory

Sunday, September 17, 2006

HOTAN, three memorable days out.
Following Alie's advice we went in search of the Hotan branch of the CITS and eventually found an office in a seemingly deserted office block, where we booked a trip to Buddhist Rawak Temple, 1500 years old, the only visible remains of a once big city, the rest being buried. Next year Hotan have allocated 1 million USD for its restoration along with other money from the Chinese government. When it is complete you will only be able to view from a spectator enclosure, but we were able to walk alone around the ruins. Gigi was very helpful at the HITS (Hotan's version of the Chinese Tourism organisation). The entrance ticket to the ancient city was 450Y each, the Camel was 100Y, the camel driver 50Y and the 4WD (absolutely essential) was 500Y, making a total for 2 of us at 1650Y (£100). It was money well spent.

When we were picked up by the 4WD at 8am Beijing (6am local) we were delighted to find that Alie was accompanying us. The time incidentally was ideal as we missed the heat of the day, which regularly reaches 28-30C. The 4WD drove out through the Jiya township which was just waking up, a girl carrying buckets of water from the river across the road to her shop, few shops were open even for bread and water, our requirements. 

Soon we were following the unmade road into the desert past the airport under construction. At the roadside irrigation canals were being built and 3kv electricity lines had been constructed ready for the construction of a new town. The desert sand was being stabilised by Marram Grass, at least we assumed it wasn't natural vegetation. An hour after setting out we were driving on the desert sand, easily at first, engaging 4 wheel traction when the going got tough, passing a guard house established for the researchers, where our pass was shown, finally coming to a halt after around 2 hours at the start of the high sand-dunes. 

A CAMEL for JOAN

REAL DUNES!

The dunes around were like a series of hills with sand crests as sharp as knife blades and rippled with wind channels which showed up wonderfully in the still low sun of early morning. There, at a dune unusually covered in greenery, we waited for our camel driver. He soon arrived with two camels and a mobile phone! One camel was for me the other for Joan, the driver led the two tethered together. Alie walked. We had mixed feelings about our first camel ride, a 3 day trek in Jaiselmer, India, because those camels were so wide with padding that our legs splayed so much that it was agony to even walk after a spell in the saddle. This ride on unburdened camels was bliss. A deserted desert of high dunes in the cool early morning sunlight, without pain, was an experience not to be missed. 

BUDDHIST RAWAK TEMPLE and ALIE

Forty minutes later in the distance we saw the temple, like a fairy sand castle on top of a hill of sand. We spent about an hour there talking to Alie who explained that the discovery was made in 1901-6 by Stern?, a Hungarian, who removed many artefacts. Terracota and white pottery fragments littered the sand. They would have been original since the city was deserted about 1300 years ago due to shortage of water and the descendants are now believed to live in Jiya Town. The temple was constructed of clay bricks which were clearly being eroded by wind carrying sand and the rain of many a June to August summer. It had reduced in height from 11m to 9 metres in recent years, hence the urgency of reconstruction. There were clear remains of an outer wall 49 metres square, and a possibility of an outer wall. When they excavate next year they expect to uncover painted outer walls covered and hence preserved by the sand, rather like Moche finds in Peru. In the surrounding desert were fragments of the houses which once formed a city in the Han dynasty.

The camel ride back was delightful, Joan declared 'that was money well spent, it was an unforgettable experience'. We tipped the camel driver farewell with 20Y and a bottle of water. Alie said the driver owned 140 camels which he used for giving rides to tourists, having first caught them in the wild and trained them. Alie said there were few visitors to Rawak, 60% Japanese, 30% American and 10% European, but no Chinese whatever for it was much too expensive for them.

SILK LOOM - We have a scarf of this pattern

We stopped at the Atlas Silk and Cotton factory at Jiya Town as promised on our way through that morning, and saw the traditional forming of silk threads from cocoons in boiling water, the old spinning machines and several cloth weaving looms in operation.

SPINNING SILK

 Joan purchased a silk
 scarf made there for 150Y. On return to Hotan Alie had us dropped at the Lokman restaurant. (That very workshop was shown years later in our TV series Wild China).   restaurant.




The day before we had taken his number one visit to Malikewate. We eventually got a Chinese taxi driver to understand we wanted to go to a site out of town, 90% of the population here are Uighur but 10% Han Chinese, with the reverse proportions in the big industrial city of Urumqi. This cost 80Y for the round trip on desert roads.

MALIKEWATE

When we arrived at the gates we were surprised to see a local jump on his donkey cart and overtake us before we reached the barrier. He was soon joined by his wife with a second cart. Joan and I thus had a cart each, and we made the mistake of paying before return. In addition we were continually hassled to buy jade pieces until I made it quite clear I would hurl the next piece they handed me far into the sand, Joan and I, knowing we would be asked for even more money for the return started to walk back to the taxi. Before boarding the carts I drew a large 0 in the sand, in spite of which they tried to embarrass us for money in front of the taxi driver. Good as gold the taxi driver charged us only the quoted 80Y for over 2 hours and 50km, but the local and his wife had extracted 80Y +10Y per ticket +5Y per camera (un-ticketed) from us, and all we had to show for a ruined ruin visit was a jade bracelet for Joan. 

Part of their high pressure selling technique was to fasten the bracelet so tight to her wrist that she cannot remove it to this day, talk about shoving your foot in the door. On the other hand a hard sell is the only technique such unsophisticated people have to get money from tourists, and life on the verge of the desert must be very hard - though we were surprised to see a shepherd guiding a large flock of sheep onto the desert as we left. 

SEARCHING THE RIVER BED FOR JADE

Had we been left in peace the scattered remains of an old town would have been evocative of the past, as it is we will remember the courtesy of the taxi driver and the way he explained that the hundreds of people we could see searching in the stony river were looking for jade, another plus for my Chinese - but not too many people around here understand Mandarin.

On return to Hotan we were looking for a bus onward to Niya for Monday when a 17 year old Chinese girl, recently moved from Jiangsu (near Shanghai), approached us as we studied our map to see if she could help. She told us she wanted to go to university to study Maths, Chemistry and Physics, English and Chinese and was concerned that her English was not strong enough. Yes we would talk to her but our first priority was to find the station from which buses left to Niya, and so she volunteered to help. She walked pushing her bicycle but when we discovered that the buses in question left from another station she asked us to wait whilst she took her bicycle home. 

She arrived on the back of a motorbike driven by a father, clearly concerned to know who she had arranged to go off with. In a hurried meeting we managed to get her address in Chinese characters and an email address, which I have just tried, before she had to leave. A pity really because she could so easily have improved my Mandarin whilst we helped improve her already fluent English. But we totally understood the concern of her father. It might have been our 16 year old granddaughter who was about to go off in a taxi with two complete strangers.

Today, Sunday 1 September, we went to the Sunday market, another delightful Uighur experience. I am now the proud owner of an Uighur hat and Joan has four locally made polyester/cotton scarves of 'Italian mode', although the designs look Uighur to me. Another discovery is that they produce hard boiled eggs by baking them on charcoal. Unfortunately, like Kashgar, the animal mart must be in a separate location to the rest of the mart, and we never found it. Tomorrow we leave for Niya the first of four stops which don't even get a listing in the LP, not that I think we will be that far from civilisation and thanks to Gigi at HITS we have three hotel reservations.

Niya, Cherchen

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

NIYA, CHERCHEN
We are both astonished by what we find. Joan had accused me, 'You're travelling this southern route for travel's sake' thinking the uncertainties were too great. Maybe she no longer thinks this but can see some virtue in exploring.

We got to the East Bus Station in Hotan a little too late for the 9.30am straight through bus to Niya. Rather than wait until 1pm Beijing time for the next one we took a bus part way to Keriya, and then did the second part of the trip by minibus, though we had to wait 1.5 hours until the minibus was entirely full. As expected the road was good as this is the lead in to the new road across the Taklamakan desert. 

Uneventful in large part except when the lad opposite Hao Chao La started talking to practise his English. He was a teacher who had been sent to Keriya to teach Mandarin in the schools. Like Rui he had recently re-located from Jiangsu near Shanghai, part of the Chinese attempt to integrate Xin Jiang, a province which traditionally was Uighur with its own language and own writing and customs, related as it was to Turkey and the 'Stans' of central Europe. Whilst I can generally make myself understood with the obviously Chinese part of the population I have considerable problem when trying to talk Mandarin to Uighurs, and not just because they object to things Mandarin. Hao Chao La has a job on his hands.

NIYA

NIYA

On arrival at Niya a rickshaw took us to the Niya Hotel, our booking was at the New Niya Hotel, just across the road (170Y including breakfast). Opened in 2005 as a high class tourist hotel this was not far off the standard of the Holiday Inn in Beijing. More importantly it was a very friendly place, particularly Xiao Zhang, the young man who ran the sales desk with its fine display of jade and other ornaments, and the waitresses. We purchased a book of pictures of best finds at the large desert Niya Town site, and the following day he took us to the Museum, and got it opened up for us. Another small but interesting museum, concentrating solely on artifacts taken from the old largely buried city of Niya. A Japanese student who was touring some of the 20,000 archaeological sites in China helped us understand some of the exhibits from their written explanation in Chinese Characters. They included a small waterwheel grinding material to extract cooking oil, and the several well preserved mummies.

New Niya hotel had a considerable inflow of tourist bus groups each night, mainly from Japan and Taiwan. On the second night there was a small party of four, travelling independently, we went over to their table to find what they were eating, being incapable of making any sense of a menu entirely in characters. The Chinese haven't realised that we have some chance if only they would also write in Pinyin. English translations where they exist are not very helpful. The older man at the table came over to talk to us he was Jean-Pierre Augremy a Frenchman who had been a member of the first French Embassy in Beijing which was set up in 1964, just before the start of The Cultural Revolution. He loved China and his daughter lived in Beijing, where she ran two art galleries in a suburb called Da Shan Zi where there were over 60 galleries. He had been a diplomat all his life and spent 12 years in London, hence his fluent English. By way of a separate life he was a novelist, writing under the pen name of Pierre-Jean Remy. 

' Do you know a small village in Wales called Hay-on-Wye for 'I'm a friend of the owner of the very first bookshop there'. 
We really connected when he talked of Dylan Thomas as being an important influence in his young life and said he had an LP of A Christmas Story. 
"I too have a record of him which I bought in New York in 1958. 
 He replies 'I was there too in 1958'. 

I wonder if we both bought our copies at the AA Bookstore, the Amazon.com of its day, with a seemingly inexhaustible display of books and records at discount prices. Camden records issued three LPs of Dylan Thomas at the very start of 16 2/3 rpm for speech, when Columbia were issuing the early High Fi or 360 degree sound as they advertised on 33 1/3.

That encounter started me thinking, indeed I spent a sleepless night mulling over the old days in North America. Although fresh from three wonderful years at University in London, New York seemed like the centre of the earth, everything of importance seemed to be happening there and everything seemed full of hope. The hard days of the depression were left behind and the Second World War was won. A symbol of the hope of the age was the new elegant skyscraper of the United Nations building. In the Greenwich Village of Dylan Thomas and the White Horse would-be poets or actors would recite Shakespeare, the pitch black Village Vanguard throbbed to the sound of saxophone colossus Sony Rollins, or to the lyricism of the English pianist George Shearing and his Basie's Macement. The Off Broadway movement was beginning its experiments with minimalist Theatre in the Round. 

Politically it was the end of Macarthyism for the views of Arthur Miller had prevailed over the pursuit of communist sympathisers. The noble rhetoric of John Kennedy 'Think not what America can do for you , but what you can do for America' was offering new horizons. The American Dream was so alive in 1958. It was just one year on from the school segregation riots at Little Rock, a sleepy town where we over-nighted in 1957 on our way across America, just a few weeks before the start of the new school year had thrust it and Governor Fabius into the world headlines. 

It was the era when Martin Lurther King rose to prominence with a power of rhetoric to surpass Kennedy's. Nothing in the political arena affected me so much as the assassination of those two icons and started me on a path of political cynicism which has never left. How did the optimistic progressive America of industrial giants, turn into the intolerant monster we see today.

'What's Good for General Motors is Good for America' 
and General Electric's proud boast 
'Prog..gress is Our Most Important Product'

Will China with its incredibly fast optimistic development sour in the same way? If so we fear that our children and grandchildren may be facing an awful awakening from their hitherto easy existence. 

OLD NIYA LOST TO THE TAKLAMAKAN SANDS

Niya town is an example of that progress. To the west of the inevitable Mao pillar lies the as yet still Uighur town, to the east huge piles of sand as they dig across 3 metre deep trenches right across the two main crossroads in order to lay 600mm concrete sewage pipes to replace the open trenches. In the morning it was simply a sandy mess and almost impossible to pass down the main street on foot let alone by vehicle, by evening they were already starting to back fill those trenches to a level no doubt ready for water, electricity and all the other services of a modern city. 

Given the pace of development a year later you will find instead of an incredibly dirty sand blown town a gleaming modern city. We hope they can find a way to preserve the best of the Muslim town. Side by side with the huge earth moving machines three men were demolishing one of the few old buildings still existing on the East side, with a pickaxe, a shovel and a broom, in a cloud of dust. By nightfall that too had dropped from two to a single story, to reveal our spanking New Niya Hotel, the new Town Hall and the new Sports Centre, built to supplement the rows of outdoor pool tables in the main street. 

But when all is said and done we preferred the diversity and life of the old sector of town, not least because its narrow streets were so cool under the shade of the ancient trees. Then there was the interest of seeing an old fashioned hardware store where everything was apparently haphazard, but everything could be found by the owner. There was a similar hardware store called Griffiths when we first came to Swansea in 1970, but it has long since disappeared in the cause of progress. 

In the small fruit and veg market I took a picture of a diverse pile of gourds on the floor, seeing me the women stall holders encouraged me to take a photograph of a nearby stall-holder who had a pile of particularly large water melons on display. The moment I raised my camera he disappeared, when he returned I playfully raised the camera again and he ducked under the counter, I raised it again and again and by which time he hid his face behind a convenient piece of sacking. The market was in uproar at this piece of slapstick comedy, and to be fair the target was joining in the fun and grinning from around his sacking. Slap-stick humour crosses boundaries of nationality and sophistication.

A very old man sat forlorn in the sand at the site of the roadworks, presumably begging because he held a1Y note in his hand, and an old woman sat a few yards away without even as much to her name. I virtually never give to beggars, but the thought crossed my mind to offer them 5Y each and yet I rejected it. Nevertheless on reflection it remains as a symbol of the degradation, that the poverty stricken old should be seeking 5p and not getting it from the likes of me. Who ought to blame China for the attempt to improve the lot of its people? We saw less poverty there than in the rest of Asia, or Europe.



CHERCHEN Next morning knowing nothing of what lay ahead we set out early, before the town was awake, for the area where the buses park, where we believe they are just starting to build a gleaming bus station, in what will become an important road hub being equidistant to Urumqi north across the desert, and to the major tourist attractions of Turpan (east) and Kashgar (west). Anyway there was no bus, but a young man, an official driver at the outdoor station, offered to to drive us to Cherchen for 500Y. We jumped at the chance for there a seemed no other way to proceed promptly.

We had expected the road to be difficult, it was after-all on the boundary of the Taklamakan one of the Silk Road's most feared deserts. What we found was a brand new wide highway stretching the 400km to Cherchen. I counted the traffic in the last of our four hours on the road, just ten vehicles passed going in the opposite direction, the earlier hours had been even quieter. One local Hutong bus passed us on that journey, a sign that with boundless patience there might just have been another way instead of taxi. A few lorries, rather more cars and two long vehicles much like American School Buses. These dropped a pair of workers at one kilometer intervals, one of each pair walked back the other forward, sweeping the road as they went to keep it clear of sand. For the moment sweepers outnumber vehicles, but not for long I guess. 

Interestingly the desert sand at the side of the road was divided into a network of squares, with about 600mm sides, by Marram Grass planted round the perimeter of each square, an attempt to stabilise the sand. At some places the desert gave sustenance to old large trees, whose trunks showed how wooden cities like the buried Niya of 1500 years ago could have been built.

In continuation of the renewal theme Cherchen city has been almost entirely rebuilt. It is a fine example of a modern Chinese new town, spacious like the rest, but with modern buildings of style, many of which were erected in the year 2000. There is a large park with flower beds, an outdoor gym with man powered exercise machines, at the centre is a fine bronze artwork and to one side an new 'Roman Ampitheatre' built of marble surrounded by pillars beautifully carved to depict the various influences on the area, Uighur and Chinese for example. The only part of the development which seems not to have worked is the substitution of a modern two story shopping mall of lock up shops to replace the old Uighur stalls. It is not just in buildings that the new spirit shows but in road training, they actually wait for the green light before crossing - in spite of the fact that at present there is virtually no motor traffic on the streets.

CHERCHEN

At dinner last night we were joined by a photographer's group with the young man who they introduced as Mr Cherchen, presumably the mayor. When they enquired if we found Cherchen beautiful, I merely said I found it modern. A day later I am fully aware of the justification in their pride. The marvellous thing about China is that the people who deign to come and talk have some knowledge of English, often not a much greater vocabulary than my 150 words of Mandarin but enough to get real contact. Contrast Sumatra where every schoolchild knew how to ask 'What's your name?', and 'What country?' and hardly ever any more, such mindless repetition becomes wearing. 

This morning a very pleasant young Chinese girl Xiao Fan (literally Small Meal) showed us this Internet room where English pop music blares out, a haven hidden behind signs in Chinese writing and a curtain to keep the sun out. Moreover she offered to meet us at the hotel at 8am tomorrow morning and to take us to where the bus to Charlic can be found, to judge from yesterday's trip there may be one a day - if we are lucky. 

Will tomorrow be the day we see the old roads along which the LP advises not to travel for fear of frequent problems, sandstorms and lack of transport? So far the latter is still true, but for how much longer. The photographers mission was doubtless to produce the evidence that this area is worth visiting. We may be seeing the area before a flood of tourism reaches the Southern Silk Road. Fingers crossed, we hope not to get them burned.