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.