China's Silk Road and the Camera Crap Out

And so begins our trip down China's Northern Silk Road. Kashgar - Turpan - Dunhuang - Xi'an. (PICTURES ARE HERE - these were all taken with our film camera, its hard going back to film after getting used to digital, but I think we did pretty good!)

KASHGAR

After Kendra's last update we took a 32 hour (yes thats right)...32 hour sleeper bus from Ali to a place called Karghilik in the Western China province of Xinjiang (pronounced Shinjan, kind of). What a ride :( The bus was old, dirty, extremely small, and packed. We drove over places that most 4x4's would shy away from...ahhh the smells of farting, smoking, sounds of spitting, bathroom stops on the side of the road with people on the bus staring down at you blankly from the windows, and bone jarring bumps will always be with us. For those of you ever inclined to take a trip like this we recommend the top bunks somewhere in the middle, away from the speakers where they blast music so loud that Kendra was wearing ear plugs most of the time (I would have as well but had lost mine...some day, some where). Despite the conditions we were happy to put Ali behind us as this had to be our least favorite place on the entire trip so far.


A small glance at what a sleeper bus is like. This was one of the more comfortable ones as the bus was almost half empty. Yes, that is the whole length of the bed!

OK, enough of the negative. The next stop, Kashgar, was a total suprise and breath of fresh air. After the sleeper bus, (32 hours, did I mention that already, my back aches thinking about it) we immediately took another regular bus for 5 hours to get to Kashgar, the last Chinese trading post on the historic Silk Road. What a cool place!

When we arrived we were greeted by a city unlike any so far. The atmosphere is much more like a middle east country giving us a flavour of the neighboring countries like Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Krgyzstan, Pakistan, and so on. We ate Shish Kebabs, enjoyed traditional Uighur (pronounced wee-ger, the original muslim population of the area) food such as "Leghman" (a noodle dish much like Spaghetti), and just couldn't get over the atmosphere in this ancient city.

The first thing we did was head to the Sunday Livestock Market. Farmers, traders, buyers, and sellers come to trading grounds just outside Kashgar to test ride donkeys, inspect sheep, unload/load cattle, and even take camels for a walk. As we drove into the area by taxi we passed people using all types of transportation, from bicycles, to donkey carts, trucks to buses going to the market. Carts were filled with sheep, trucks had cattle loaded precariously in the back, and bicycles carried feed for all the animals. I'll never forget the sights, sounds, and smells, especially those strange sheep bums.


Uighur man lining up his sheep at the market, nice bums!

After the Sunday Livestock market we headed to the Kashgar Bazaar that also has its routes as a Sunday market but now goes full tilt 7 days a week. This market rivals any market I've seen to date. Tonnes of stuff for sale from pitchforks to silk carpets, from knives to pastachios and once again a great atmosphere. Now, recently I've really started to enjoy bargaining at these markets and relish the opportunities to argue prices with the store owners. For example...

Mike: "How much is that?"
Seller: "ummm...." thinking: 'he's a foreigner, I'm going to start high' "....100 Yuan, good price!"
Mike: "Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha" or "Your crazy, byebye"
Seller: "OK, 80 Yuan...."
Mike: "Hahahahahahahaha"
Seller: "OK, because you are like my brother (seriously they say this), I'll say 60 Yuan"
Mike: "I'm sorry, thats still to much, I'm leaving now...."
Seller: "Wait, OK, 50 Yuan"
Mike: "I've got 40, I'll take it for 40"
Seller: "OK, 40, but don't tell anyone what you got for it...wink... because you are like my brother."

OK, maybe not exactly like that, but seriously Kendra and I really had fun at this market, and not just because of the arguing, most of the time it was just the sights, sounds and smells that put smiles on our face. I have to mention the best part of the market; the carpet/rug shops. It was as if they plucked the store right out of my imagination...awesome. I couldn't resist and went into a really nice/old antique place; carpets on the ceiling, walls, and piled on the floor. Before I knew it Kendra and I were checking out beautiful examples of old silk carpets as if we were going to buy one, it was tonnes of fun, only problem is that when we asked a price I couldn't understand the number, turns out it was so big I hadn't learned the word for it yet...5,000 Yuan, or $697 Canadian! cough cough, I figured even if I got half off, it was still too much...nevertheless a very cool place.


Kendra took this photo just after we spent a half hour picking material and haggling with the owner, good fun.

Anyway, the main reason for staying in Kashgar was to check out the markets but we stayed for an extra day to explore the old town which was worth it. Mud huts in the middle of the city, people selling bread out the front of their house, like I think I've said 10 times already, really cool!


Id Kah Mosque in central Kashgar.


Left to Right: Petra, Kendra, Jodie - inside the Id Kah Mosque. The girls had to where those scarfs to cover up their necks (and cleavage ;) ).

Unfortunately as I described in the title, our camera crapped out when we got to Kashgar. Luckily we have a backup film camera and also luckily we are getting photos from our fellow travellers, because of this our album will not have any significant gaps. Other than that it definetly sucks, the damn thing was brand new and supposed to last if not 5 years at least the whole trip (at least I didn't lose it ;)!). Anyway I'm working on replacing it with Nikon as it is definetly still under warranty. Stupid Camera, now we have to buy a new one. You may think its cheaper here in Asia but not in China, prices are pretty much the same although with a few tricks we should be able to bargain down the price...OK, boring. Next.

TURPAN

After Kashgar was a 30 hour sleeper train (gotta love this "sleeper" transportation) to a place called Turpan. The train was 100 times better than the bus and was actually pretty enjoyable. Turpan itself sits in the middle of a barren desert (not sure if its the Taklamakan Desert or if its part of the Gobi desert...hmmm) in a natural depression that is second lowest on earth next to the Dead Sea. It is at an elevation 154m BELOW sea level...what? We've gone from 5600m high passes to 154m below see level in 2 weeks, we should have tried to run a marathon with all that extra oxygen, too bad it was bloody hot, at one point my little key chain thermometer went through the roof, it read over 50 deg C...Hahaha...we should have been dead. I guess that proves to Kendra that the thermometer isn't exactly accurate, she's been saying that the entire trip.

Turpan itself owes its existence to an ingenious irrigation system called "Karez". In ancient times, around 2000 years ago, the Uighur's devised a way of bringing water from nearby mountains to their desert landscape, I think around 50-80 kms away. They did this by literally digging tunnels underground the entire distance by hand. In total there are nearly 5000km of these tunnels that still bring water, by gravity, to breathe life into their farming industry, incredible. We visited one of the sites which boasted that the Karez systems of the Turpan basin are one of the three major Ancient Chinese projects, along with the Great Wall and the Great Canal (we haven't seen those yet you'll have to look them up, you may have heard of the Great Wall).

We also did an overnight trip of the area where we saw ruins from an ancient trading post on the Silk Road, and an old village called Tuyoq which has a very important Mosque and ruined caves with ancient Buddha paintings. The amount of history here is mind boggling, wait till I tell you about the next two places. We stayed overnight next to desert sand dunes in a small village, another great cultural experience. Unfortunately, one of our fellow travellers Warren had gotten extremely sick from something he ate earlier in the day. It was so bad that he had to rush to Turpan 2 hours away to go to a hospital. We found out later that by the time he got to the hospital he was so dehydrated that his hands were cramped, he couldn't walk, and couldn't see hardly at all. It was bad. Luckily he just needed to get some fluids in him and by morning he was OK. Pretty scary though, we all new that it could have been any of us and if it happened in a place with no hospitals (i.e. Tibet) we could have been screwed.


Kendra modelling at Jiaohe ruins outside Turpan. Yeowzah!


An example of a traditional Uighur village near Turpan - Tuyoq Village


Kendra and I out in the Taklamakan/Gobi(?) Desert.

DUNHUANG

OK, phew, what next. We headed out of Western China and into Gansu another province next to Inner Mongolia and the Gobi Desert. Our destination after, yes, another sleeper bus, was a place called Dunhuang. Basically an Oasis town on the edge of massive sand dunes and barren rocky desert. Unfortunately, shortly after we arrived in town Kendra got the bug that hit Warren. Luckily she didn't get as dehydrated but was in severe discomfort for almost a day and a half and all I could do was watch (the world cup...hehehe, just kidding I did try and help but what can a guy do, we had a room with a TV and every channel was in Chinese. The only thing that made any sense at all to watch was soccer - can you believe that Australia made it through the round robin...crazy...oh yeah - Kendra, seriously) , it was a bad situation for her. We basically took three days off so she could get over it...brutal. We ended up saying goodbye to Warren and Jodie at this point, its hard to believe but we travelled with them the entire way from Zhongdian, Yunnan, till there, almost 6 weeks! They were great companions and lots of fun, good luck on the rest of your trip guys!

Once Kendra felt better we made our way to Dunhuang's major attraction called the Mogao Caves...amazing again! The area is designated a World Heritage Site (another checkmark) and is definetly worthy of the title. The site is formed into a 1.7 km long section of desert cliffs. It is made up of more than 700 caves/grottos (we were able to see 10) that contain some of the oldest known Buddha and Taoist shrines, paintings, scriptures, and sculptures in China. Some of the earliest caves had been decorated as far back as 366AD, they were renovated however sometime around 900-1000AD, ha, renovated 1100 years ago, haha, still bloody old. Another fact is that this site, being so remote, is one of the few sites that escaped the ever destructive clutches of the Cultural Revolution, good on yah Mogao! Another highlight of the trip (highlight after highlight after highlight I know its getting boring...but its so true).


A shot of the Mogao caves. This is a small section of the site, there are over 700 caves each with unique styles, murals, and sculptures.

XI'AN

And finally our current destination, Xi'an, home of the Terra Cotta Warriors and a province with more than 35,000 designated cultural sites. The area around Xi'an has been affectionately dubbed the cradle of China. This is the area where wars were fought, emperors reigned, farmers farmed, hawkers hawked, and yes, tourists flock. After yet another Sleeper train we arrived in Xi'an on Friday and with that the end of our remote travels in China. We found ourselves in a bustling city of over 6 million people (with the smog to prove it), McDonalds, KFC, Cellphone shops every 5 m, and tourists galore. Phew, we sighed a gratifying "sigh" as we sunk our teeth into our first french fries in 4 weeks (I don't know if its a good thing or just plain scary that McDonalds tastes the same all over the world...scary I think).

OK, so your all wondering about the Terra Cotta warriors. We visited the site today, again, an unbelievable example of China's ancient history. I can't say enough of the site, we spent hours walking and marvelling at the 2000 yr old statues all lined up ready for battle. Emperor Qin Shi Huang had the army built as protection for his equally massive tomb. Hundreds of people were used in the building of the caves, and army itself. Apparently he buried the artisans alive within to keep the secrets safe. I guess that works because the site wasn't formally discovered again until 1974, only 32 years ago.


The famous Army of the Terra Cotta Warriors.


A bit tough to capture this site with a camera especially without zoom or wide angle. Every single warrior has his own unique features, none are alike!!

And again we had to say goodbye to the last couple from our original group of 8 that left for Tibet 6 weeks ago. This time it was Karl and Petra who were heading out to Vientienne, Laos. Two more great travelling companions not only for their company and laughs but for that great medicine against...you know what, the runs. Cheers guys, see you in Vienna (or Australia, or New Zealand, or Santiago, or...).

With that we end our trip on the silk road of China and continue now to Chengdu to see Pandas, and Kunming to finally go full circle on our trip to China. After that we are headed back to SE Asia and Vietnam, on track again after our short 2 1/2 month detour in China. We'll keep you informed.

Cheers,
Mike and Kendra

PS. I wrote this along the way from Kashgar so, yes, its a little long winded, I considered breaking it up into two but heh, you're bored anyway, might as well read this then check 150 emails at work...don't miss that...