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.
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.
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
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!
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 |
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!
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