Suzhou - Garden City

The first of my two day trips out of Shanghai was to Suzhou in Jiangsu province, just a short hop away on the train. This city is famous for two things, it's canal network and it's gardens. I came to see both but only really managed the gardens. I had the usual two hour hassle of running about trying to arrange how to leave the city again later that day, which frustrated me no end, particularly as apparently the boat I wanted to catch overnight down the Grand Canal to Hangzhou wasn't running anymore. Instead of leisurely cruising down the world's longest canal I had to take yet another bus. The Grand Canal really isn't that well known but equals the Great Wall in scale and was begun 2500 years ago. Missing that was a big disappointment.Still, Suzhou has a number of canals within the city itself and walking along those was nice enough. Not great though. Some people seem to love it, I felt fairly indifferent. The real highlights were the gardens though. The first one I found was the Humble Administrators Garden.This was a nice place to chill out after all the stress of the morning. It was like walking through a door into another little world: a world of peace and quiet, clean and green. A total escape. You couldn't believe that China was just over the other side of the wall. I had a bit of time to sit down, breathe...and chill out. If I hadn't I think I'd have flipped when a guy in a noodle shop round the corner took the piss and ripped me off by pointing at one thing and telling me it was something else, later charging me more money than I'd thought it would be. I consequently ran out of cash and had to walk for about an hour trying to find an ATM to use my credit card in. If the last attraction I saw hadn't been as absolutely amazing as it was, Suzhou would have been a complete disaster.Thank God for the Garden Of The Master Of The Nets. Chinese classical gardens are primarily works of art, and this was a masterpiece. The main elements of all these gardens are water and stone, with almost no flowering plants. Small trees and grasses feature instead. They tend to be quite ornamental, but in a way that is meant to appear totally natural. They were built mainly for local officials and are completely contained within the bounds of the house by high walls and divided up by covered walkways and pavilions. Some are well over 600 years old too.
This particular garden is quite small, but never comes across that way. It's minimal in planting but what is there is done to great effect. I loved it. The pictures say everything else you need to know, except for the fact that I want one myself!

Shanghai

Can you think of many countries where it's a four and a half plane ride from one side to the other? That's how long it was from Urumqi to Shanghai, and Urumqi's not even right on the western border! Crazy. Boring too though. Still, I was going to Shanghai!!I really liked Shanghai. It's another of those cities whose reputation precedes it. I'd wondered for a long time what it'd be like, and whether I'd like it in the end, but it was easy to get around, with plenty to see and do, and nicely westernised. It was a bit of comfort after being on the road for so long. The nightlife was decent too. I finally found a good bar!! I'd almost given up all hope of finding one, and nearly didn't bother going as I had really caught the sun during the day (It was cloudy at first, thought I'd chance it without sunscreen - factor 30 every single day and lotion stains round all your collars gets a bit irritating) and was 'radiant', but there were a few near the cinema I'd been to so I couldn't not. Very glad I did as I met some very nice people who gave me a few tips on Shanghai and where else to go. It was a good night. I did meet an Italian exchange student there who really did my nut though. He's studying Oriental Business and was on the first of a few trips to China for study. He'd only been here six weeks and already couldn't stand the place. He kept complaining about everything, saying it was all 'too Chinese'. As if. It's barely recognisable as a specifically Chinese city, and only Hong Kong can offer you more of the west than this. All this moaning right in front of the other Chinese people. Moron. His Chinese was really awful too. Mine's much better. Ha!My time in Shanghai was split up by a couple of days out in nearby cities so I was only in town for one day at first. I spent this just wandering around the main centre along the Nanjing Road down to the Bund. This is the waterfront alongside the Huangpu river. Shanghai is still very much a port city and there were ships passing by all the time. The Bund is famous for its architecture, mostly enormous 20s and 30s style former head offices of big financial corporations and the like. The weirdly futuristic Pudong area on the opposite shore couldn't be more different if it tried. I also took a river cruise along the river here which was ok. A decent view but not hugely different from that you got from the bank and it really didn't travel very far at all. Nevermind.

Urumqi Museum

I left Turpan for Urumqi to catch a flight later on that evening to Shanghai, ending my western adventure. I think this part of my six week trip was one of the definite highlights, even though I didn't get to explore Kashgar and the Uighur heartland. Still, I know I'll be back one day so I guess I can wait. Xinjiang's capital Urumqi didn't really hold any attraction for me but while I was passing through I did find a little time to pop into the newly reopened Xinjiang Museum. This was a great place with some excellent exhibits. There were mummies from 800BC, four thousand year old woolly hats (my Dad has one just like it) and other items of clothing, dessicated dumplings from the Tang dynasty and all manner of random artefacts amongst the displays of fine craftsmanship.

They were really pushing the 'individual cultures living happily under the all-embracing umbrella of Chinese nationalism' angle and one of the introductory plaques really rammed this down your throat:

'The ancient western regions mainly refer to today's Xinjiang. Xinjiang has been an inalienable part of the territory of China. This is a region where multi nationalities live and many kinds of religions prevail. At the same time, here was also the hub of the Silk Road and the place where the world civilisations assembled. As far back as the time of the Stone Age, there were human footprints here. In the long historical development process, the people of all nationalities living in here have worked in unity and helped one another, worked together, created distinctive ancient civilisations with their own hands and intelligence.

After having scaled mountains and forded streams, walked all over grasslands and deserts, the archaeologists of Xinjiang have excavated and collected a large number of unearthed relics and articles that have been handed down from ancient times. We have selected a batch of fine works from them and run this exhibition of these precious relics and auxiliary exhibits from the stone age to Qing dynasty for the purpose to show the contributions the people of all nationalities in Xinjiang have made for safeguarding the reunification of the motherland, for enriching the motherland's cultural treasure-house, and to make the masses of audiences receive the education in patriotism.'

Yes, quite.

While the blatant nationalism wasn't exactly endearing, the 1400 year old sense of humour of Tang dynasty sculptors really was. Check out that camel's grin!

More Turpan

On my second full day in Turpan I got up late. Too late. I missed the cooler morning and was right into the middle of the hottest day of the week. I ventured down the road to get some food and knew right away that there was no way I'd be able to go out for some hours yet. I chilled in my hotel room (3 bed dorm but with no-one else in it cos they'd all gone for the cheaper 8 bed ones. Bargain), read my book and spent a good few hours on the internet waiting for the temperature to drop a little. Finally at about 7pm I decided I couldn't wait any longer and rented a bike to ride out to the ruins of Jiaohe city.I missed the bit in my guide book that said in the 'cooler months' you can cycle out here and thought it'd all be fine. It took me about an hour to cycle there and by the time I arrived my T-shirt was sopping wet. I'd been told that it closed at 9pm but when I went to but my entry ticket they almost didn't let me in, telling me it was due to close in half an hour. I begged to be let in, and I must have been a pitiful sight, because they let me. So I raced around the ruins, wishing I'd just got in a taxi and come earlier. It was hard to take in the layout of this two thousand year old complex, but some of the ruins did stand out as definite structures. What was really spectacular though was the setting of this city. It sits on a high plateau surrounded on three sides by steep river valleys for ultimate defensiveness.I cycled back at a bit of a slower pace but still ended up throwing my t-shirt away when I got back. It was never going to be the same again... A shower and clean t-shirt later I ventured out to get some street food. The streets and squares were buzzing and I wished I had been with a big group of people as it just seemed like such a fun place to hang out and have fun. I ate some good kebabs and delicious roast lamb, washed down with some local Kawas wheat beer. I ate watermelon and drank this fantastic concoction of fruit, juices, tea and God-knows-what on the way back. I mused on the fact that I'd never have done all this a year ago without thinking twice about the hygiene and then spent the night going back and forth to the bathroom. Cruel irony, but I judged it to be worthwhile!The next morning I did ensure I got up as early as possible and well before my bus onwards towards Urumqi rented out another bike and rode out to the Emin Minaret, one of the symbols of Turpan. The ride out there through the old streets was lovely, with people out and about buying big flat-breads for breakfast and the minaret and mosque were beautiful. Love this place.

Turpan

Turpan was my next stop after Hami, and it was another long and boring bus ride to get there. If I ever watch another Kung Fu movie after leaving China it'll be too soon. I have been consistently astonished by just how dire all these movies I've been subjected to have been. It's like 'Hi John, oh look, here come the Vietnamese'. Cue killing. After the obligatory and overly long sadistic prison scene it finishes with the little guy finding his girlfriend who was blown up at the beginning and whose apparent death he has been avenging willy nilly throughout the film. That or his father's. It's all dubbed so awfully too. It seems girls can barely breathe without moaning or gasping pathetically. In the rare cases where there were actually English subtitles it was even worse. Jackie Chan has had some really bad hairstyles...

I shudder just thinking about it.

But anyway, Turpan. Desert oasis, second lowest depression on Earth and hottest place in China. Coming here in the peak of summer was maybe not the greatest idea - the temperature peaked at 45 degrees C. - but it was a dry heat, and totally different to the heat and humidity in the south, where I'd be dripping wet and exhausted just walking down the road. Activity here seemed to be much more bearable, but going outside in the middle of the day was like standing in front of an open oven door. Sooner or later you just had to take shelter. This was a little inconvenient from a tourist's point of view as it led to a lot of downtime, but with long evenings you could still accomplish a lot.

I'd been met off the bus by a young guy working for a local tourist agency. We chatted for a while and although I turned down his tours due to the price, I did say I'd be interested in joining in other people to bring down the cost. So, the next day I arranged to meet him again and he introduced me to two other Brits, David and Steven, who'd just arrived by train from Europe and Kazakhstan and were on their way to Shanghai before taking the Trans-Siberian Express back home. They were nice guys and we had a great time travelling round the local sights.
Our first stop was Grape Valley, home to our driver, who drove right past the special tourist park and took us to his family restaurant, where we sat underneath the grape vines on a low, cushioned platform over a small stream drinking tea and eating fresh grapes and watermelon. It was fantastically relaxing. I loved it. Turpan is famous for it's fruits, and particularly the quality of it's grapes. However, because no-one here drinks alcohol, the grapes are not turned into wine and are instead dried by the side of the road to produce raisins. Here dozens of varieties were on sale and we got to sample a load. I had no idea that raisins could vary in colour and flavour so much, but I guess wine does, so why not raisins. There were some really expensive varieties on show, and some we tried tasted just like rose petals. Amazing.
Leaving Grape Valley we drove through the desert out to the Flaming Mountains, which supposedly appear to be bathed in tongues of fire. In the famous legend 'Journey to the West', the Monkey King had a magic fan to put out the flames here, but we had no such relief from the heat and couldn't stay long. The colours and patterns of the gullies kind of looked like flames I guess, but it was pretty enough anyhow so that was fine.We continued to drive across the desert (always wanted one of those empty road shots) and passed one of the big reasons for China wanting to keep hold of this part of the country - oil. We then came to Tuyoq, an ancient village and centre of pilgrimage for local Muslims, which was a pretty interesting little place to explore.
A trip to the desert sand dunes was also on the agenda, but not until the (relatively) cooler evening. Until then we crashed at the driver's friend's house, with more tea and watermelon and a chance for a nap on his big seating platform. I want one of these in my house. Great fun. One thing I started to notice while driving through the local villages were all the beds standing outside. It turns out that in the summer months people sleep out under the stars as it's cooler. How ace is that?

So later on we drove out to the sand dunes. There is a paved road out to them, as they're pretty popular with tourists and locals alike, who like to bury themselves in the hot sand to relieve aches and pains etc. However, there must have been rather a lot of rain at some point recently as the road was completely washed away. The sand and cracked mud that now stood in between the two fragments of roadway made it very hard to imagine such a deluge, but displayed nature's force quite impressively.
As in Dunhuang, the desert was beautiful and once again we were there at the end of the day and could watch the colour changes shown above as the sun set. Having witnessed something similar in Dunhuang made it no less of a fantastic sight. I could watch it every day.

Into Another World

I left Dunhuang, and China it seems, behind on a bus trip across the monotonous desert-scape to a town called Hami. I was now in Xinjiang, largest province in China and home to the Uighur people. I could have been in another country. Suddenly I found myself in an area where Chinese, in whatever form, was no longer the main spoken language; where people looked and dressed differently and had a completely alternative identity. This area, though fundamentally having more in common with neighbouring Central Asian states, has had a long association with China. However, as in places like Tibet, that association does not always sit well with the local population. There have been separatist campaigns, and China has crushed these with iron fists, flooding the area with Han Chinese immigrants in an attempt to strengthen control and influence. I couldn't say if this has had a long term effect, but out here it certainly didn't seem to be the case. Hami was a bit of an unplanned pit stop. I had never heard of the town, but as a direct bus to Turpan was not available I opted to go halfway and see what connection I could get on from there. I was lucky enough to be travelling with one of the Japanese guys who I had shared a dorm with in Dunhuang, and he had a good idea of where he was heading. Between him being able to read and write a little Chinese and me being able to speak a little, we found our way quite well. He was there to see some specific attractions, which gave me something to do when I found out I couldn't get an onward connection until the next day.This town was previously home to the Hami Uighur Princes, who controlled the area in conjunction with the Chinese Qing Dynasty from the 17th century until around 1930. I visited a sleepy complex containing two of their mausoleums, the Islamic style blue-patterned tile Bixir Mausoleum and more local style wooden Mausoleum of the 9th Prince and Taiji, along with the Heytikar Mosque. While I'd seen Islamic hints in some of the local new build architecture, this little complex blew me away. A complete change to all those red and gold Chinese temples, and a welcome one at that. Beautiful.

As shocking as the difference in architecture was the trouble I suddenly encountered with language. I completely failed to find the other historical sight because I couldn't find another Chinese speaker to ask! Eventually one woman, speaking to me in English, pointed me back the way I'd came and I just gave up and went back for some food. The difference in food had become apparent ever since I made my way to Ningxia and beyond, with pork disappearing to be replaced by lamb for obvious reasons, and becoming less spicy and aromatic. Now it was more about capsicum peppers than chilli peppers, more noodles than rice...and real bread. Oh my God, real bread. I'm not sure I'd missed a food in China as much as bread. The Chinese always make it sweet. I don't know how you can mess up something as simple as bread, but outside of the major hotels in big cities even, it was almost impossible to get hold of. Here they not only baked proper, savoury bread, but different varieties even! One of the nicest meals I had here was simply a big crusty loaf and a couple of sweet peaches. Heaven.

I was only in Hami for an afternoon really, and the next morning after breakfast in the lively bazaar I was on my way to Turpan. This little taste of Xinjiang's Uighur culture had whetted my appetite for what was to come and I couldn't wait. Riding the local bus to the bus station my Japanese friend asked the driver what nationality he was. He replied, with a smile on his face, 'I am Uighur'.

Dunhuang And The Desert

This view was a dream come true for me. It is one of THE images of China that will always stick in my mind. This is the Gobi Desert near Dunhuang, the next staging post on my journey west and first stop on the Silk Road after leaving the Great Wall behind in Jiayuguan. I caught my bus at 12.30pm in Jiayuguan and it was a long, long journey through the featureless desert. The journey seemed to be lasting forever in fact. The day just kept on going. It was like time had stood still. Outside it looked like it was mid-afternoon but my mobile told me it was 7.30pm. It was then that it hit me just how far I'd come from Beijing over the last five days. China spans about 3 different timezones, but bizarrely enough everywhere is made to operate on 'Beijing Time' which really knocks the day about. This far out west opening hours all have to be modified to take this into account and people speak of 'Local Time' as well as 'Beijing Time', which is very confusing, especially as people's interpretation of what local time actually is can vary quite a bit! It lends the area a nice lazy atmosphere with lengthy siestas and lively, Mediterranean style late evenings. Dunhuang town was quite chilled itself, and I had a nice evening wandering round before turning in for the night.

Next morning I visited the Mogao caves for a guided tour around the grottoes, completing the trilogy of famous Buddhist cave art sites in China. I'd seen the Longmen caves near Luoyang and the Yungang caves near Datong - of which I thought Yungang to be the best - but Mogao was something else. The caves here are exceptionally preserved and are all still well-protected from the elements. I think the dry desert environment helps a lot, with precipitation being something like 5cm a year and evaporation somewhere in the range of 20cm! With this in mind it was all the more exceptional that on the way to the caves we passed by the ruins of a bridge that was apparently washed away in recent floods. Bizarre.

You are required to take a tour in order to see any of the caves here and can only see a certain selection at any time. It means you could revisit again and again and not see the same caves twice. I didn't have time for this but was very, very impressed with what I did see. I don't have any photos because they are very strict about all that, but the art was amazingly vivid inside and while maybe less monumentally impressive than Yungang it's original purpose and effect was much more tangible. Our guide was also amazing. She was a member of the research team based there and really took her time to explain everything and answer all our questions. Fantastic lady. The two weird Australian girls I'd met on the bus who'd gone with the cheaper Chinese tour guide were finished ages before we were done. Lost out there I think.
I returned from the caves to escape the afternoon heat and take a short nap, getting up late in the afternoon for some noodles and then to catch a bus out to the nearby sand dunes in the desert. There is some kind of desert theme park here, centred around a crescent shaped lake down amongst the dunes that has an astronomical entrance fee. Those in the know however take a walk along the line of the fence through the woods and back lanes until you reach the very end of the fence itself and can get in for free! I didn't push my luck by trying to get round to the park area, but I wasn't bothered about that in any case. What I wanted to do was climb the massive sand dunes. It was hard going up and I had to stop every few minutes for a swig of water and to catch my breath, but eventually I made it up to the top and was rewarded by amazing views over the lake and the edge of the oasis as poplar trees and gardens met the sand.
I climbed up along the ridge of the tall dunes and sat myself down to watch the sun set and the colour of the sands change with it from yellow to pink. Travelling can be a lot of hard work and pretty tiring at times, especially solo. By the time I arrived in Dunhuang I was beginning to feel pretty run down from the effort but when I climbed this dune those feelings instantly disappeared. I just sat, peacefully and watched. It was perfect.
Eventually though I had to climb back down, and before it got too dark. I found my way back alright but by the time I was walking from the foot of the dune along the lane back towards the main road and bus stop it was pitch black. As I was walking I suddenly became aware of something approaching me. I heard the tinkling of bells, saw movement along the edge of my vision, looked up and jumped right out of my skin as two huge dark shapes lunged toward me - all knees and humps and odour. It wasn't Santa, but a pair of camels being led back from the desert park to their stables for the night. In the absence of any street-lights I wasn't aware of them until they were right on top of me and I nearly crapped myself. Again and again these processions of animals passed me by in groups of as many as eight, obediently following a man on a bike or the back of a truck at a fair trot. It was quite a cool sight once my eyes had adjusted to the light sufficiently and I was certainly glad to have witnessed it. I still didn't sleep too well that night but I think that was more down to the tremendous snoring of one of the Japanese in my dorm than nightmarish visions of camels in the dark!