On Wednesday, I took an overnight train from Urumqi into Gansu province to Jiayuguan, riding hard sleeper. I arrived in Jiayuguan to some light rain. While I had originally planned to rent a bike to ride to the “overhanging” Great Wall and Jiayuguan Fort, I decided instead (due to the weather) to get an earlier train out to Zhangye and to hire a taxi. So, I had the driver take me first to the Overhanging Great Wall, which is supposedly the western end of the Great Wall. At this site, the wall has been restored, and it rises from a plain in two branches to two opposing mountains, and then stops. So, I hiked up to the final watch tower on the first branch, and enjoyed the view. I’d read that during good weather you can see great snow-capped mountains in one direction and the Gobi Desert in the other direction. With the rain, of course, I didn’t have such spectacular views, but it was still nice.
Then I went to Jiayuguan Fort. Jiayuguan Fort, which protects Jiayuguan Pass, is a fairly impressive structure. The Great Wall comes in from the south, connecting to the fort, and then leaves the fort on the north side heading towards that “Overhanging” section of the Great Wall, which I had just visited. The fort splits the wall into several sections, each protected by a large gate and watchtowers and such, acting as a trap for any invaders who might be able to penetrate the first gate. Through the gates, you look out upon the west (from where I had just come), and to where many an ancient poet and scholar was exiled. I walked around a bit, took some photos, fired some arrows at some fake invaders made of straw, took in the Great Wall museum, and then headed back to my taxi.
At this point, I had a few hours until my train to Zhangye. The driver asked if I wanted to go back to the train station. Instead, I told him, “take me to the nicest, most expensive hotel in town.” He looked a little impressed, and asked, “oh, you want to rest a bit?” I said, “no, I want to use their bathroom.” So, I did. And then I went to find some food, and headed back to the train station.
The train to Zhangye only took 3 hours, and I arrived in early evening. I found a hotel (the first “hotel” I’d been to since the southern Silk Road), and went exploring a bit. I would say that the stare rate is probably around 98% in Zhangye, meaning that 98 out of 100 people who saw me, stared at me as I walked by. I’ve been to a number of Chinese cities at this point, and this is probably the highest stare rate I’ve encountered yet. Zhangye was a pleasant enough city. Lonely Planet calls it “bland”, but actually I really quite liked it. There are tree-lined streets, a nice wooden pagoda, a temple complex housing the world’s largest Buddha, and plenty of restaurants and bars. People seemed to be very nice. At dinner they treated me like a VIP and then gave me a Y5 discount, and then one vendor tried to give me a popsicle for free (though I insisted on giving her the Y0.5). One travel agent had put a big-screen TV in his window with speakers, and was showing a kungfu/cop movie to a group of young and middle-aged Chinese men sitting on colorful stools outside in the road. Behind the temple, some teenagers were playing billiards on some outdoor tables (not uncommon for China). In the square in front of the pagoda at dusk, lots of older Chinese people were engaging in typical Chinese park activities—flying kites, doing Chinese yoyos, dancing, singing, playing badminton, and so on. I finished my walk in the dark and went back to my hotel, planning to get up first thing in the morning to head to Mati Si.
Since it was the first time in a long time that I’d had a real bad, however, I overslept the next morning. The good thing about traveling by myself, though, is that it really didn’t matter. If I oversleep, I oversleep and then figure things out from there. So, I cancelled my second night at the hotel, went and bought a bus ticket to Xining for the evening of the next day (instead of the morning as I had planned), then went to the other bus station and bought a ticket to Mati Si, planning to sleep overnight at Mati Si, hike a little that day, a little the next day (Saturday), head back to Zhangye to see the sleeping Buddha, and catch my bus to Xining in Qinghai province.
The bus to Mati Si was a minibus, which packed people in until there was no more room to move, stopping at villages along the way. Fortunately, I managed to obtain a single seat by the window, so the ride wasn’t too bad. After an hour and a half, the bus dropped me off at an intersection just past a small village called Mati He, saying that I needed to go the rest of my way on my own. I looked around for a moment, and saw a sign that said that Mati Si was 9km down the side road. So, I started walking (fortunately, I had left my large pack at the bus station to pick up the next day). I got a kilometer or two down the road before a guy on a motorcycle stopped and offered to take me forward a bit. I happily accepted, tried to offer him a little money (which he wouldn’t take), and then got on. We rode a few kilometers until we’d reached his house, and then he left me off to go the rest of the way on my own. He told me that Mati Si was only 4km away at that point. So, I started walking again. Another kilometer or two down the road, a taxi stopped and offered to take me the rest of the way for Y10. I told him I’d do it for Y5, but otherwise I’d walk. He agreed, and we headed up the hill into the Mati Si “park” area. He asked if I’d be staying overnight, to which I responded that I would be, so he drove me right up to a shop with a sign indicating that it had beds for rent out back.
I paid for one night, and the shopkeeper showed me my room—not too shabby, with no conveniences, and a squatter toilet out back. I put my stuff down, and went out to go hiking. Mati Si is a former Tibetan Buddhist temple, and “mati si” means ‘horse-hoof temple’ (I’m still not sure why). Beyond the small touristy town with Han Chinese architecture that they’d set up, in one direction were red cliff faces with temples carved into their sides at all heights. In the other direction, fields of wild flowers, penetrated by a small river, led up to pine forests and then ascended into the mountains. I decided to head to the cliff-side temples that day, and to save the mountains (where there was supposedly a nice waterfall) for the next morning.
I visited a small Buddhist temple, and then hiked up to the base of the cliffs to examine the ancient grottoes. It seemed that they had all been stripped bare, so I made my descent. On the way down, I met a very lonely Swiss girl. She had been studying economics in Shanghai as a study abroad semester from her German university. Having no background in the Chinese language, and traveling alone, she was very lonely. So, I invited her to hike with me. We went over to a set of large white Tibetan stuppas, and then climbed a nice set of vertical stairs (often what the Chinese call hiking) to the top of the cliffs for a nice view of the surrounding area. Then we headed back and got dinner together. After dinner, I went to lie down for an hour, and then we met up again and went for a walk through an “animal park”. This animal park turned out to be more fields with sporadic cages holding different types of birds: one held some sort of wild turkey, while another pheasants, and so on. The last cage held two fox-like animals which were very scared, and very cramped. After stifling our urge to set them free, we continued up through the fields, where there were sheep, goats, some sort of horned animals that reminded me of small ibexes, and plenty of wild flowers.
The next morning we met at 8:30am, and headed out towards the waterfall. (Even though she had already done this hike, she was so in need of company that she did it again with me.) We past those fields of wild flowers, crossed the river several times, through the pine forests, then up. About two hours of vertical later, we reached the waterfall, which was nice, cascading gently against patches of melting snow, and then down onto the rocks, creating the river through the village. We sat for a little, and then headed down. (Up to this point, we hadn’t seen any tourists in the area.) On the way down, however, we encountered a bunch of Chinese tourists taking the touristy horses up the trails instead of hiking. We stopped before we reached the village, washed a bit in the river (since there were no showers in either of our accommodations), and then went back down to the town, a little tired, and a little hungry. We ordered lunch, and waited 40 minutes. When, at that point, they still hadn’t served us, favoring instead the groups of Chinese tourists, I told them that we were going next door to get cold noodles, (which we did). Then, we tried to find a taxi to take us back down to the intersection near Mati He to catch the minibus back to Zhangye, but all of the drivers wanted Y100. I told them that that was ridiculous, and that we wouldn’t pay more than Y20, so they told us “too bad”. I then went back to the shopkeeper at the place I had slept, and asked her if she had any friends who might be able to take the two of us down to the village. She made some phone calls, and a half an hour later, her policeman friend showed up and took us down to the intersection for an only slightly too expensive Y30 for the two of us (Y15 each). The bus was waiting when we arrived, so we got on, waited a bit for them to get going. We picked a bunch of people up along the way, including a girl with a live chicken in a small potato sack. I should also mention that all of the people in the villages wear shoes that they’ve made themselves, from different weights of fabric, and they’re always amazed at the sight of nice hiking boots.
We got back to Zhangye, and then headed for the Great Buddha Temple, which houses the world’s largest “sleeping” Buddha. We bought entrance tickets, and entered the temple, only to find that it was under construction, and that there was lots of scaffolding obstructing the view of the mammoth “sleeping” Buddha. (I put sleeping in quotations because he actually has his eyes open—I think a better description would be the world’s largest “lying-down” Buddha.) In any case, he was big (I’m not sure exactly how big, but big). After some more snooping around in the temple grounds, we parted ways and I headed back to the bus station for the 10hr hard-seater ride to Xining. In my haste, I had maybe one of the worst food experiences I’ve yet had in China, but I don’t really feel like giving the details. If you ask me later, and I’m in the mood, maybe I’ll share.
Since I always buy my tickets to the next town as soon as I arrive, I always seem to end up with the first ticket. This seat varies from a single seat, to a seat stuck by a window with someone else much too close to comfort. This ride turned out to be the latter. Fortunately, however, no one took the second seat, so I moved over into the aisle. Then, as we went trolling around town for more people, I let an older skinny guy who had body odor that was only slightly reminiscent of TGIFridays. In any case, it gives me the opportunity to talk with the drivers. This driver told me that in the thirty years that he had been driving a bus, it was the first time he had driven an American.
The ride into Qinghai is not a much frequented route, since most people first head to Lanzhou (the capital of Gansu), but I planned this for after Xining (the capital of Qinghai). The road picked itself up into the mountains. Since it was dark, I couldn’t see much, but I have a feeling that if I had, I might have been a little nervous about the road. At about 11:30pm, the driver stopped for “dinner,” and was surprised that I wasn’t hungry. Then, as we climbed higher into the mountains, we approached what looked like a tunnel ahead of us. Instead of entering the tunnel, which was blocked off by construction vehicles, however, we proceeded to drive up the side of the mountain zigzagging back and forth through the dirt until we’d cut onto a higher road.
I got some very patchy sleep, with not much room to move around and a very uncomfortable seat. We arrived in Xining at about 3:40am. I asked the driver if there were any cheap hotels nearby, and he said that if I wanted I could sleep in the bus for a couple more hours. Since most people had left, and I had a bit more room to move around, I took him up on the offer. What I hadn’t expected, however, was that it would be so cold in my shorts and t-shirt. So, I departed at 6am, even though he told me I could stay longer if I wanted. I headed first to the train station only to find that despite the fact that it hadn’t yet opened, there were lines of people hoping to get tickets on the next train to Lhasa in Tibet. Since I couldn’t buy my ticket yet, I headed out to find a hotel for the following night, and a place to put my pack. The receptionists at the first two hotels I tried were both sleeping in cots near the front desk. Upon waking the second one up, she informed me that there were no rooms available, so I apologized for waking her, and let her get back to sleep. Finally, I tried a hotel right by the river in front of the train station (whose staff was already wide awake). I got a room with a shower, and went upstairs to take advantage of it. Then, leaving my pack behind, I went to get my ticket for the following morning to Lanzhou, and then to figure out my daytrip to Qinghai Hu.
Qinghai Hu is a huge salt-water lake after which Qinghai province is named. It has long been considered the halfway point on the trek between Mongolia and Tibet, and it is the place that the title ‘Dalai Lama’ was first conferred by the Mongolian leader in 1578. Because of the salt-water fish population, and the cooler climate, it is also the place where many birds, including many rare species from the areas around the Indian Ocean migrate. Since I’ve now already been there without any problems, it’s also worth noting that Qinghai Hu was the ground zero of the avian flu outbreak.
In any case, I had read that you could take organized tours to the lake and the “Bird Island” preservation for Y150, or you could take a Y30 bus to a town 70km away and then hire a taxi for Y50. Trying to maximize my freedom and minimize the amount of money I’d spend, I opted to go on my own. So, I bought the bus ticket, and took the 4 hour bus out to Heimahe, a Tibetan town on the southern coast of the lake. When I got off the bus, I walked around for a moment, looking for taxis. In so doing, a man dressed as a Tibetan monk (wearing the traditional reddish maroon robes) called me over. I came up to him, and then he motioned me to be silent and to follow him into a restaurant. Curious, I did so. First he asked me if I had any valuables, to which I responded that I didn’t; that I only had Y50 on me. Then he looked around a moment, and pulled something wrapped in old newspaper from his robe. It looked like some sort of Buddhist talisman or something (also actually looked authentic). I told him I was interested. Then he pulled a small plastic bag out of the other side of his robe, looking around even longer than he had before, and offered me what appeared to be some sort of herbal drug. I turned him down again, and made my way out. (I should mention that I don’t know if this man was actually a Tibetan monk, or possibly just posing as one.)
At this point, not seeing any marked taxis, I approached a man in a black car, who appeared to be waiting on the side of the road. He told me he’d take me for Y300. I told him he was crazy, offered him Y50, and then tried someone else. After negotiating with a number of people, having come all the way, and realizing that my book had been wrong, I had no choice but to pay Y150 (return), telling him I only needed an hour at the place. So, this Tibetan guy drove me out to Bird Island, for which the student entrance ticket was a whopping Y75 (the book was wrong again). Then my driver told me he’d only wait an hour, and then he’d start adding money. What I didn’t expect, however, was that the actual spot was 4km from the gate. Fortunately, there was an (unfortunately very slow) electric car driving people back and forth. On the way, a thunderstorm rolled in, and it beginning hailing and then raining. I finally got there and realized I only had about 10 minutes to look around if I wanted to get back in under an hour. So, I took some photos of the many black-colored birds resting on the island, enjoyed the view of the storm over the lake, and then headed back. I told my driver that I had only had 10 minutes, blamed him for not telling me that it wasn’t right at the gate, and then we headed back towards Heimahe. He felt a little bad, so he stopped at a Tibetan site on the banks of the lake for me to look around and take some more photos.
I got back only to realize that I had to wait on the side of the road for a return bus, not sure if there actually was a return bus. I decided to wait 40 minutes, and then start trying to hitchhike back. While I was waiting, a few guys from Gansu, who were in the area doing business, came up to me, and we talked for a while. Just at the 40 minute mark, a bus came zooming into town and I flagged it down. On the bus, a few Mongolian guys in the back called “hello” to me, and motioned for me to come sit with them. So, I did. They offered me a beer, and we talked for a bit, before one of them fell asleep, and I decided that I should probably try to call ahead to reserve sleeper tickets for the last two legs of my trip. The first leg (from Lanzhou to Xi’an) didn’t appear to be a problem, and the guy in Xi’an (for the ride back to Beijing) told me that I’d might as well just wait till I got to Xi’an.
I got back into Xining around 7:30pm, and went to go get dinner. After dinner, I walked around a bit, and headed back towards the hotel, finding an internet bar along the way to make some Skype calls. When I got back to my room, I got a text message from the travel agent with whom I’d reserved my train ticket from Lanzhou to Xi’an, telling me that there were no more beds available. So, it looked like I was riding hard seat again for the 10hour overnight ride.
In the morning, I got up, packed, and headed right over to the train station. I’ve been noticing that as I get closer and closer to Beijing, the security has been getting stricter and stricter. They held me up 10 minutes at the checkpoint outside the train station, looking through my bag for what turned out to be my shaving cream. I told them they could have it since I hadn’t been using it anyway, but they let me keep it and go on my way. The train that I rode from Xining to Lanzhou had departed from Lhasa, Tibet 22 hours earlier. My seat was a window seat in a set of 6 (3 seats facing 3 seats with a small table in between). The other 5 people were business people from Xi’an who had gone down to Tibet to look into expanding their business. I talked with them for the larger part of the 3 hour ride. They asked me to translate their names into English, and to look at a brochure for their company to check the English and explain to them what it meant. Of course, most of the English on the brochure was wrong, so I told them, and they called their boss to let him know. Also in the same car as me were probably about 30 Chinese army recruits, all dressed in uniform, carrying camo bags, on their way back to Beijing after training in Qinghai. They took full advantage of the opportunity to talk with an American, and I gave a couple of them English names as well. (I didn’t especially want to give them English names, and I told them that if they came to the States they could use their Chinese names, but they insisted.)
Into Lanzhou, I checked my bag at the train station, and then went to meet the travel agent who had reserved my next train ticket. She was surprised that I was white, since she said my Chinese was very good. After that, I headed down towards the Yellow River, which runs straight through the town. There were giant water wheels (probably once used for irrigation and possibly mill work, but now just tourist attractions) along its bank. I grabbed a traditional Lanzhou lunch of spicy beef noodles. This dish is actually served as a soup (as most noodles are in China that aren’t specified otherwise). Then, I continued along the river. I passed a small arena where older Chinese people were playing croquet and possibly bocci ball (I’m guessing on this—the Chinese name for the sport translates to ‘earth ball’). Then, I found a shaded area right down next to the river with tables, chairs, and Huang He (Yellow River) beer umbrellas, where lots of Chinese people were playing cards, MaJiang, and so on.
I decided I could use a break from the heat and a cold beer. So, I went down, bought a bottle, and sat down. Maybe five minutes later, a kid who was working at the place came over with two more bottles and opened them promptly. I was slightly confused so I told him that I already had a bottle, and he said “don’t worry about it, it’s a gift from me”. So, we sat together and drank beer. He was a 19 year-old high school student, who, it sounded, was only going to class half the time, working half the time at this beer garden. At one point an older guy came over to talk to me as well, speaking in Lanzhou-hua—the traditional dialect of Lanzhou. (Traveling in China, you find that every place has its own dialect, and that different dialects are often not mutually intelligible.) A little confused, I told him I couldn’t understand. Then the kid told me that he was speaking Lanzhou-hua, and that even he didn’t understand some of it. He told the man to speak in putong-hua (common speech, or Mandarin), but the man said he was over 60 years old, and that he’s not comfortable in Mandarin, that he has to think more, and its slightly embarrassing. So, I told him not to worry about it, and that I’d do my best to understand. (I understood more than I had expected to.) Anyway, I sat with these two for a couple hours just drinking beer and talking. Then, I thanked the kid, and went on my way. I spent the rest of the day (or evening), walking around—found a bakery, a café, and waited for my 10:00 train.
The ride to Xi’an wasn’t overly interesting, suffice it to say I was fairly uncomfortable, and got off in Xi’an at 7:05 the next morning a little tired and a little sore. I checked my bag at the train station as I’d done Lanzhou (this time they actually searched my bag just for this), and found a nice hotel to use their bathroom, change my clothes, and brush my teeth (I didn’t get the opportunity on the train). Then I found the bus out to the site of the Terracotta Warriors (the main reason I’d come to Xi’an). The ride was a short hour, and only cost Y7.
The warriors are truly an impressive sight, filling a large airplane hangar-like structure. Many of them haven’t yet been unearthed, and many are not in great condition. Still, you can clearly see the detail that went into each one; that each one has a different facial expression, and in fact no two are identical. I explored the rest of the area (visiting two more pits of warriors and horses, and then visiting the museum). The army of terracotta warriors was commissioned by Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor (unifier) of China. Some archaeologists say that he had the army built to protect him in the afterlife (his tomb—said to have possibly been one of the most amazing mausoleums of all-time—only about a kilometer away). His tomb, however, has not yet been excavated, and is therefore currently only a large mound of earth. Legend says that there were rivers of mercury flowing through the tomb, with a large orb floating on them, in front of a large pyramidal structure. (The third installment of “The Mummy” movies, scheduled to be released on August 1, is actually about the mummy of Emperor Qin.)
On the bus back, I sat behind a white couple, who looked friendly enough and might want to chat. The man, it turned out, was a Los Angeles-born Jew, who had met his Australian wife while living in Israel about thirty years ago, and had then moved to Australia with her. He told me that when he moved to Australia, he had bought 30 acres of land near the coast, including forest area, for a total of about USD$12,000 (I think these numbers are right—it was a little difficult to hear.) He and his wife had come to China to visit their daughter, who I believe he said was a ballerina. We talked about politics, and the economy, the future of China and the US, Israelis, college, and other stuff.
Arriving back in Xi’an, I wished them a good end to their trip, and went myself to get lunch in the Muslim Quarter. The Muslims in Xi’an are actually members of the Hui minority as opposed to the Uighur Muslims out in Xinjiang. I ate some cold spicy noodles, and some baozis (filled buns), and continued to walk. The Muslim Quarter is actually fairly touristy, and has street vendors all up and down the main roads. I took my time, and then went to sit by look at the Bell and Drum Towers. After examining a part of the Old City walls, satisfied with what I’d seen, I found a café, where I’m currently writing this. It’s 5:30pm now, and my train leaves at 8:16pm. So, I’ll probably relax here a little bit longer, go find some dinner, and then make my way to the station for the overnight train back to Beijing. (I was able to procure sleeper tickets back to Beijing—actually they only had soft sleeper tickets left, so it will be a bit of a step up from the hard seat the night before. I’ve already reserved a hostel for my last five nights in Beijing, and I have a list of stuff I have to do, including seeing all of the stuff I didn’t get to all semester. Traveling through China, I really realize how much there is to do in Beijing. I’m looking forward to meeting up with my friends in Beijing, getting my clothes cleaned, and preparing for my return home.
