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Public Zone 公開區 => Travelogues 遊記相薄 => Topic started by: chin on 08 February 2009, 17:08:35
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My family has been talking about traveling the silk road for some time. We eventually reconciled our schedules, and hired the service of www.travelchinaguide.com (http://www.travelchinaguide.com) to arrange a private tour for our family.
As we got close to the planned departure date, the SARS outbreak was getting momentum and everyone changed their travel plans. We decided to go ahead with the original plan. As a result there were very few tourist "competing" with us in most of the places we visited. Of course some people jumped away from us at the moment they learned that we came from SARS infected Hong Kong.
It was a rewarding and fun trip. The only big surprise was food - it was much better than expected.
We traveled roughly like this:
-> flight to Xian
-> flight to Lanzhou
-> overnight train to Jiayuguan
-> overland drive to Dunhuang
-> overnight train to Turpan
-> overland drive to Urumqi
-> flight to Kashgar
-> return home via Urumqi & Xian
All the pictures were taken in color slides. Lots of the places are either desert or dusty places - therefore earth tone in nature. So I decided to turn all photos into black & white like.
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This little hill in Xian is full of history and legends.
In the ancient time, it was the place where "teasing the warlords with signal fire (烽火戲諸侯)" happened. More than 2000 years ago, in the Zhou dynasty, the king had a new concubine who did not smile. To make her smile, the king lit the signalling fire that was to be used only in grave dangers. When the concubine see the horses and armies rushing to help the king, she finally smiled. The king got what he wanted, but lost his credibility to the warlords.
In the structures at the bottome is the famous Hua Qing Pond (華清池), where the emperor of Tang bathed with Concubine Yang. Yang is one of the most famous women in Chinese history, who is also at the heart of a tragic story.
More recently this was the site of a mutiny that resulted in a united front of Nationalist and Communist against the invading Japanese.
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The terra cota warriors is a must see in Xian.
An ancient capital, Xian was the beginning and end of the ancient silk road in China (before the Ming dynasty.)
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After one night in Xian, we arrived Lanzhou by plane. There are a few cultural heritage sites near Lan Zhou that date back to the days when Lan Zhou was a major stopover for the ancient Silk Road.
On our way to one of such sites, Ba Ling Temple, we stopped over to buy strawberries. It was the one fruit that we found in abundance and very cheap near Lanzhou. Good quality also. Great treat for us because in Hong Kong strawberries are imported from US and Australia and very expensive.
While we were buying fruit, this old man just sitting there looking at us buying strawberries. And very happy to be photographed. After the picture, he even offered me his newspaper wrapped cigarette.
However the sight of tourists is getting rarer and rarer in the weeks to come, as the SARS scare reaching its height. Everyday we heard about how tourist has dried up.
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Lunch stop before visiting Ba Ling Temple.
Officers setup shop on the street to promote the traffic laws. I still don't understand how setting up desk and chair on the street side can promote the laws, but I guess that's how things work in the mainland.
(We will see even more strange government campaigns. Just read on.)
After I took a picture of the officers from the back, two kids near by promptly reported my activities to the police. (Who just brushed them off.) Pictured here are the two kid informants.
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Ba Ling Shi (Ba Ling Temple) is famous for the Thousand Buddha Caves. Few hundred still remain after hundreds of years of building and destruction.
The three pictured here are either preserved well or was restored.
There are quite a few signs that marked the location of caves now buried underground when they built a dam in 1968.
This is the never ending sad struggle in developing countries - that given limited resources and means available, the future and the past simply cannot co-exists.
You know your future generations will mourn about the loses. But without building new ways of life, there may not be future generations to speak of.
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27 meters tall, according to the information posted.
To the left of the giant Buddha is the stairs going up the the big cave on top where more stone carvings are found.
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We took an overnight train from Lan Zhou to Jia Yu Guang.
During the journey the captain of the train asked me to switch to another room because "Senior Management" of the railway company is traveling on the same train and would like to have my soft sleeper.
When we arrived Jia Yu Guang the next morning, we literally got a cold reception. Not only the weather was freezing cold, no one came to the train station to pick us up.
Jia Yu Guang is essentially an one-company town. Jiuquan Steel Mill is the biggest employer complete with its own farm, nursery, etc... Nearby is the famous Jiuquen Satellite Launch Center.
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During Tang, Han and the dynasties before Ming, the Chinese empire extended well beyond Jia Yu Guang further to the west, as evidenced by the pre-Ming Great Wall to the west of Jia Yu Guang.
However soon after Ming dynasty established its new capitol in Beijing, it reversed the open and expansionist policy, by sealed off trade routes and contacts with the outside world. Thus beginning of the 500-year long isolation (and decline.)
I don't quite know the reason for the reversal in policy. Story had it that the palace was hit by lighting and the Emperor took the event as heaven will and punishment, thus he started to reverse his policy to the other extreme.
As the isolation policy set on, the western border is retreated eastward to Jia Yu Guang.
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This is the general's quarters inside the very large fortress.
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Riding camel the first time, right outside the wester gate of Jia Yu Guang.
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From Jia Yu Guang we took a whole day overland drive to Dun Huang. On the way we had our first taste of the vast desert land of wester China. Along the road we could still see the destruction caused by the sand storm of the previous day.
The next morning, we decided to take a 2-hour camel ride in the desert to the Mogao Grottos.
The desert is not entirely deserted. We saw large patch of burial ground (1st picture) where people draw boundary of the plot for the tombs. Those willing to spend the money or efforts actually built short walls around the plot.
For us city people, camel ride was fun for the first 30-minute. Then it started to get boring....
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One of the most famous grottos in China. No pictures allowed inside.
Unfortunately I had not read enough background information to digest the rich histories and stories.
From what I understand, lots of the mural paintings was commissioned by rich families or regional officials. We spent hours there listening to facinating stories of the grottos.
Lots of the paintings and scrolls were taken away by adventurers in the early 1900s, and I hope they have enough fund to preserve whatever remains there.
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On 23 April, we took an over night train from Dun Huang to Turpan. As our local guide took us to the train station, we can see that he was busy and bit nervous. Instead of settling us down at the VIP waiting room, which we were entitled to since we booked soft-sleeper private rooms, he was running around whispering to people. He never give us our tickets even as we board the train.
Something fishy was going on.
Once we settled on the train - which was practically empty in the soft-sleeper section, we started to theorize what happened. Our conclusion was that the Dun Huang guide knew the train was empty in the soft-sleeper, so he paid the rail company low price hard-seats, then bribe train officers to give us the soft-sleepers that we paid for. That's why we never saw the tickets, couldn't get into the VIP waiting room, and his nervousness at the station.
Once the train set in motion, we visited the regular hard-seat section out of curiosity. It was very crowed, smelly, and kind of having a mini party going on with the staff and passengers. The staff were very laid back and boisterously friendly, almost to the point of clowning around.
When we came back to our "luxurious" section, we got another surprise. As soon as the girl in charge of our section learnt that we came from Hong Kong, she jumped 10 feet away, then maxed out the AC in our section to provide "better" ventilations.
First order of the day was to visit the Jiao He ruins. Jiao He means "meeting of rivers" in Chinese. The name described the tableland between two rivers where the former fortress town was built on.
The first picture of the street of Jiao He, and the second picture shows the river bed where the river is largely gone.
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On the edge of the Jiao He town is the remains of a large Buddhist temple. The temple was destroyed when the area is converted to Muslim. The headless Buddha was the only statue remaining in the temple ground.
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These kids hung out in an ancient tombs we visited near Turpan. They were curious about our group but initially shied away from the camera.
But a pack of Oreo cookies broke the ice, and brought the bright smiles.
They were keen to see how they looked in the camera. So the best gift to them would have been an instant photo.
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As we entered Xin Jiang, probably the biggest province of China, we witness the vast desert land that was quite busy.
There were construction almost everywhere along the road - from laying fiber optics to gas pipelines.
Contrast to our expectation before the trip, the road actually gets wider and better in Xin Jiang.
The second picture is taken near a gas station where many restaurants catering for truck drivers from all over the country. The signs advertising difference cuisine from southwestern China (e.g. Sichuang) to northeastern China (e.g. Liaoning.)
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As we were getting close to Urumqi, the highways got wider and better.
Of course, there is no free lunch, such as the road sign reminds travelers. The sign near the toll gate says "Highway Built With Loans, Toll Repays Debts."
The second picture is a rather strange scene in another toll gate. The toll gate staff were lining up near the toll booth, wearing banner that says "serving the people."
Not even our guide knew what's going on. He speculated that perhaps the toll station got a new management, who was eager to show his service pledge (in a wrong way, in my opinion.)
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We visited the Nan Shan Pastureland near Urumqi. It was the beginning of the high tourism season, yet we were the only visitors that morning.
As we arrived the forest, about 20 horse back riding vendors surrounded our van fighting for the chance to be hired. They throw the horse whips into the van hoping that we will pick up theirs.
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My horse waiting for me while I am taking photos.
My guide was a young man of the Kazak ethnic group. At the time of our visit, he was still a university student.
He started as a quiet man, and only at the end of the trip he started to talk more about himself and his world view. His dream was to live in Kazakhstand, where he decribe a rosy picture about jobs and economic growth.
In a later encountered with another group of Kazaks in Xinjiang, we came to realized that the Kazaks don't feel at home partly bacause they are the minority among the minorities in Xinjiang - where the Uygur is the population majority and the Han is the political and economic majority.
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The frozen Heavenly Lake near Urumqi.
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We arrived at Kashgar in the evening of 26 April at about 21:30.
As we step out of the plane, we were greeted by a majestic red and blue sky.
2nd picture is the colour version.
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We arranged to arrive in Kashgar in the weekend because we planned to see the famous Sunday market there.
This is a hotel near the Sunday market cater for the market traders.
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One of the stalls in the Kashgar Sunday market.
The market is big and very interesting to visit. From everyday stuff such as food, colour plastic sandals, rat traps, to minks, furs and silk.
According to the girls of our group, the workmanship of the fur shawls are not very good, but they are very cheap. So we bought a few anyway.
Later we learned that the animal sellers are now located somewhere else. My kids went there and seemed to had lots of fun.
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At the edge of the market is this juice seller.
I went to the knives sellers trying to find a Xinjiang style knife. After they learned that we were not interested in new, made-for-tourist knives, the sellers started to show us smelly knives wrapped in old newspaper.
In order to convince us that the knives are sharp and useful, two sellers started to cut their hairs on their legs with the knives.
When we were shopping for knives, we saw an old man sold his own knife to a stall.
Looking around, we saw lots of Uygur men carrting their knives (including our drivrer.) So knife making and trading is still a living trade driven by local demand instead of a pure tourism business.
(In our trip to Tibet in 2004, we found out the Tibetan knives are mainly made for tourist.)
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In the afternoon of 27 April, three of us split with the rest of the family to spend the night in the Kalakuli Lake.
The lake is situated in an altitude of 3500m by the side of Karakoram Highway to Pakistan.
During the 3 hours drive from Kashgar, we saw highway construction almost everywhere.
I was very disappointed at the tourism development of the lake. Especially after visiting the Chandra Taal lake in norther India. I think people who came this far to see a high altitude lake wants to see the lake at its natural beauty and enjoy the tranquality.
Setting up pool tables on the shore and water bikes in the lake is bad enough an idea. Letting the equipment rot after the failed business venture is even more unforgivable.
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We planned to setup our own tent for the night in Kalakuli Lake. But when we arrived, we found that the yurts are just opened for the coming season. So we were happy to be their first customers.
At night we went out of the tent to see the bright night sky.
The night was very very cold. Our drinking water were all frozen solid the next day.
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A cold but very nice morning at the Kalakuli Lake.