Cherchen, Rouqiang, Korla

Monday, September 25, 2006

CHERCHEN (Qiemo), ROUQIANG and KORLA
Just as I was finishing the last posting Xiao Fan came rushing in and said we had to leave almost straight away, at 7pm that night. She accompanied us back to the hotel where we talked with the young manageress Wang Hong Jun (King Red Army literally). She in the meantime had phoned the bus station for confirmation and now said there was a bus leaving for Rouqiang tomorrow at 10am Beijing time. Ideal. It was not exactly an unjustified panic as we discovered there is only one bus onward every Monday, Thursday and Friday. 

Although normally very busy, rushing here and there, Jun said she would walk to the bus station with us to buy the tickets. This took a full hour of her precious time. It was Jun who had also been drafted in to help us choose our dinner the night before. As we walked to the bus stop she told us she had one 5 year old daughter who was cared for during the day by her grandmother. Her English was so good because she had been sent to Xi'an for a one year training course in the language. She commented on the smallness of Chinese families since she and her husband were only children, each grand parent had just one grandchild. The accommodation in Qiemo was in three large high rise apartment block areas, she lived with her husband in Area 1 opposite the airfield, their parents lived in Area 2 and Area 3. It was difficult to see any means of support for Qiemo as there was no obvious industry. She said the population was 60,000 of whom 3,000 worked for the government in the new building which opened in 2005 near her apartment, there was also paper and woollen carpet industry. 

 LOVELY COUPLE COLLECTING RUBBISH opposite the AIRFIELD

At present there was just one plane a week from Urumqi, and we happened to have seen it take off that morning on its return journey, no wonder there were a line of people along the road watching this novelty on its way. Jun agreed that the government were encouraging people to re-settle from the congested area near Shanghai. She was manager of a government hotel, a type she recommended to us for security and standard. We had not realised that before but we were certainly very satisfied here. I guess a lot of those hotels authorised to take foreign visitors fall into that category. Those two caring busy women, Xiao Fan was a teacher at middle school say 10-16, and all we had asked of manageress Jun was directions to the bus station, they were just two more examples of the kindness we are receiving at every turn in China.

Next day the bus left on time and yet another superb modern road through the desert meant we arrived at our next overnight stop in just 3.5 hours. The last hotel of the three we had pre-booked through HITS in Hotan (an excellent move since there is absolutely zilch in the LP about these towns). We asked a taxi driver to take us the Yin Hai hotel, he laughed and pointed over the road for it was right next door to the bus station. If you can't read Chinese in this country you don't recognise anything, even though thanks to the romanisation (Pinyin), which rarely appears at street level, you can say it!


Just as we were entering our room a Canadian came down to speak to us. He had arrived on yesterday's plane at Qiemo. He was a geologist working for BHP Billiton travelling with a group of Chinese armed with two 4WDs equipped for off the road travel. He was carrying out a preliminary reconnaissance hoping to find nickel. Whether they were looking in the desert or the surrounding mountains we did not ascertain, as we never met up again, but spent the rest of that conversation talking about Sudbury (nickel), Elliot Lake (where I had worked 24 hours plus sorting a minehoist) and Thompson Lake (uranium) and the old days in Canada of the late 50's.

Although smaller and less impressively modern than Qiemo it was clear that both towns were being expanded rapidly and that a vast change was being wrought in Xin Jiang province. How this clashed with the laid back style of life of the traditional Uighur population was demonstrated in the Chinese style exercise park where Joan tried hard to get a photo of a worker sitting on the seat by a wheel of the type we give to hamsters with his crossed feet propped up by the wheel and a fag in his mouth. Unfortunately he was determined not to allow Joan her photo opportunity and lowered his feet every time she was about to shoot.

There were just two decent restaurants in town attached to the two hotels situated in adjacent blocks near the Che Khan - bus station to you. We had an excellent meal with beer in the other hotel for just under a pound each, having settled for a much cheaper meal on the night market the night before.

That we are getting back to civilisation was evident when we enquired about buses in Ruoqiang and found that there were buses to Korla at 10, 12 and 14.00 every day, though the 14.00 bus appeared to be almost empty. Next morning we boarded at 10.00am to find we had the last two seats, and were amazed to find two young German backpackers already on board, the first 'western' tourists we had seen since a couple of older Americans in the bank, and, a couple of girl backpackers at Hotan, one American and the other Australian.

TWO STOREY with SHIT  HOLES

It was another uneventful 6 hour journey through the desert to Korla, A single stop at a WC in the desert at the half way point, rudimentary holes in a raised concrete platform and stalagmites of shit below.

 


This trip in the desert rarely without vegetation for long, mainly trees in the early stages, but for miles and miles before Korla there were huge fields of cotton, pickers actively at work at the height of the season, and many lorries piled high with bales of cotton. As we neared the city there were a number of modern processing plants. Puzzled earlier by several sets of three tall chimneys placed in the desert, again without apparent purpose, we now concluded they had been built as a job lot in preparation for yet more cotton factories. 

ROAD and to LEFT THE IRRIGATION CANAL

Parallel to the road for several hundred miles a river sized canal was being built, steadily losing height in contrast to the slight undulation of the road, sealed  by a bottom of concrete and tiled sides. It was empty as yet but a sure sign that the edges of this desert will soon be reclaimed from the wilderness by irrigation, if they can find sufficient water. Like many of the world's dry areas there is apparently a huge reservoir of fresh water under the Taklamakan Desert. Certainly there was no evidence of water shortage in any of the towns we had visited on the Southern Silk Road, there were considerable attempts at maintaining green parks, tree lined roads, and flower beds, each fed by water being flooding full bore out of 50mm pipes at all hours of day and evening.

Nevertheless the driver of the modern economy in this area is oil from the desert. Vast reserves are being tapped and I guess large scale mining for minerals will not be far behind. Panning for gold and searching for jade may well be but a foretaste of what will follow in the next few years. Agriculture will mushroom too given water, and tourism will follow as the infrastructure is now in place.

KORLA CENTRE

Korla is a brand new American style high rise city with some impressive new buildings and a wonderful park with real green grass like Wales. It will never be a tourist attraction but we like the feel of this town, it's modern, clean, impressive and full of city life. That impression persists in spite of the fact that it took us two hours to cash 200 pounds worth of travellers cheques in the Bank of China. I don't think they had ever come up against them before, nor will they see many more as outside the bank was an Visa/Master card ATM one even Visa's own web site doesn't know existed. I did wonder before coming if the rapid modernisation of China would mean the availability of usable ATMs. Still having bought the travellers cheques and having some that have been unused for about 10 years I am determined to cash them - their day is numbered.

For lunch today Joan spotted a minute cafe sporting steamed food in round boxes of something between Dim Sum and Chinese Dumplings, of the sort we have regularly at breakfast. They were delicious. The outer was essentially pasta the filling finely diced pork marvellously herbed. Another 50p each well spent. This is fast food Chinese style, across the road is a big KFC with its burgers, chicken, chips and coke. I was however glad KFC were open early this morning to help with their clean toilet when I was caught short. 

STILL UIGHUR

For dinner we will be shortly going to the popular Uighur restaurant, as stylish as Turan in Kasgar, just a couple of doors away from our hotel, which is variously spelt Bosten and Bositeng and all variations in between. Spelling is always a problem when undertaking phonetic spelling from a quite different script, eg Thai or Chinese. We are not totally out of touch and thus heard about their military coup, as some of the hotels do include Chinese Channel 9, which is broadcast in English. I still haven't got to the stage where I even recognise individual Chinese words in speech, but there is time, With the help of the excellent Rough Guide Phrasebook I can nearly always make myself understood, even if the machine gun reply is more of a problem. One solution is 'you mei you?' have you or haven't you?, which elicits the reply 'you' (yes) or 'mei you' (no). Even that gets you into problems as when I couldn't understand why the first hotel we went to here would not check us in. Have you or haven't you a room ? 'Have', came the reply, but it took a little longer to establish that they were not authorised to accept foreigners.

Tomorrow we will get to the bus-station for 10am confident there will be plenty of buses to Turpan, the first place on the tourist's Silk Road since Beijing and Kashgar. It won't be the same being part of the crowd again. At the end of the month there is an annual holiday in China (30 September to 7 October) which may create problems for travelling and lesser ones for accommodation.