The adventures never seem to cease, another week passes by in a flash
with plenty of surprises along the way. Dunhuang proved to be a great place to
spend a couple of days. More compact and laid back than other towns
so far with less traffic, although crossing the road was just as
hazardous with the lethal electric scooters which you don't hear
coming. After being presented with a stuffed camel from the hotel
for his birthday Jeff and friends headed out to the dunes and
crescent lake, rode camels and slid down the dunes on rubber rings.
Others headed down to the “beach” and had great fun playing on
the bumper boats with water canons. Everyone came off soaking, much
to the locals amusement. Chinese tourism at its best. Dunhuang also
marked the entry into our second province, Gansu.
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| Jeff's birthday camel |
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| Ryan and Nick |
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| Laura and Pip |
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| Di |
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| G Rod, Pip and a bit of foul play |
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| Jim, Julia and Di going head to head |
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| Julia & Jim |
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| Dunhuang dune |
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| A lung burning climb up the dunes |
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| Dunhuang night market |
Fellow travellers are few and far
between in this part of China so stories are often exchanged. We've
met a friendly group of Swiss Citroen 2CV enthusiasts a few times who
are driving a convoy of 4 cars and truck carrying spares (they had to
use a spare gearbox in Turpan!) all the way from St Moritz to Beijing
and back via a different route, delivering medical supplies to remote
places along the way, another enviable journey.
A short drive onto Jiayuguan which
marks the symbolic end of the Great Wall and was one of the defining
points of the Silk Road. There isn't much left of the old town, but
just outside are some sections of Great Wall and the fort, one of the
classic images of Western China. We enjoyed a scramble up the wall,
first constructed in 1539 and reconstructed in 1987. Not content
with climbing to the top of the wall, some explored a network of
spooky tunnels underneath the wall, with heavy metals doors at each
end. Some then went on to the fort and had a dash round before the
rains came. Jiayaguan Fort, built in 1372, was the last major
stronghold of imperial China, the end of the 'civilised world',
beyond which lay only desert demons and the barbarian armies of
Central Asia.
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| Ascending the Great Wall |
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| Betsy |
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| Chris |
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| Laura |
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| Nick emerging from the caves |
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| Great wall posers, Rogs, Ryan & G Rod |
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| Hels underneath the Great Wall |
Irony struck as we drove into Zhangye
the next day, spotting a familiar tyre brand logo we pulled over to
see if they had tyres in our size having struggled to find them in
previous towns. While signing, drawing pictures and comparing tyres
in the shop George darted in to say air was leaking from one of our
tyres! One of the ones we had planned to replace had decided to give
out at that very moment. Our luck wasn't quite in though as we
couldn't find any in our size so the group went ahead to the hotel on
a bus whilst we whipped the rear two tyres off and swapped them with
the spares that we already had on the back. Crowds gathered on the
busy road in fascination, always handy when heavy wheels need to be
lifted back onto the rear of the truck, they were only too pleased to
be able to help. A couple of hours later we rolled into Zhangye,
drove past the hotel twice before finding it, then topped off the day
nicely by spending the next hour doing a 45 point turn in a car park
designed for scooters. Anyone for a cold beer or seven...?
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| Tyre change crowd |
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| View from under the truck |
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| The brake drums take their revenge on Rogs |
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| Fitting shiny new parts! |
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| Mid air window cleaning |
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| Hmmm... how to get out of this one.... |
The group used the afternoon to explore
Zhangye, the town where Marco Polo stopped for a year, local
authorities honouring his legacy erected a statue of him. Also home
to China's largest reclining Buddha, 35m-long in the Great Buddha
Temple dating back to 1098.
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| Balloon transport |
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| Julia and Cher working out |
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| Jim on the parallel bars |
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| Di & Pip |
The following day we covered miles and
miles of rather uninspiring motorway to Lanzhou, a city divided in
two by the Yellow River. Not that we can complain, the Chinese road
building machine has been busy, in previous years journey times have
been much longer. It's easy to forget when undertaking such a big
trip the time these vast distances will take to cover. It's all part
of the journey and the days on the truck allow time to read, write,
play cards, listen to music or just gaze out of the window, watch the
world go by and contemplate life.
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| Lanzhou dumplings |
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| Hels and Rogs, a bit muddy after shopping in the market |
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| Lanzhou dragon at night |
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| Elephants |
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| Jeff, Rowan & Betsy |
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| Puppies for sale |
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| Group exercise |
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| Rowan & the dragon |
A short drive the next morning to
Bingling Si and the Liujiaxia reservoir which at high water allows
access to some Buddhist grottoes. A pleasant afternoon was spent on
a small speedboat seeing stunning scenery around the lake, terraced
hillsides and the grottoes, carved over a period of 1,600 years by
sculptors dangling from ropes down the dramatic canyon walls.
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| Bingling Si Buddhist art |
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| Mikkel |
Later on we were at last rewarded with
some beautiful scenery and exciting mountain roads, carving our way
along the ridges, terraced rice fields lining every hillside. Shame
it wasn't the right road or even the right direction. Our GPS only
showing an arrow on a blank screen for the last couple of weeks and
leaving a trail like breadcrumbs behind us. Onwards we went for a
good 3 hours, searching for what was scheduled to be our last bush
camp of the trip. The sun dropped over the hills and darkness fell
quickly. We hadn't been choosy up to then but by that point beggars
really couldn't be choosers so we pulled off the road at the first
track we could, investigated on foot and decided we could make it
work. A flat area to park and cook, and a further flat area 50m down
the track for camping. The locals multiplied by the minute, you
don't imagine the Chinese to be as curious about Westerners or white
faces as other countries but in these rural parts they certainly
were. We sought refuge in the truck as Wimbledon final updates came
through by text from England and we enjoyed a delicious spaghetti
bolognese near midnight feast. Slowly we, and the locals, went to
our beds wondering where the road would take us the next day.
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| Stunning scenery en route to the bushcamp |
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| Jody attracting quite an audience with her cheese grating |
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| Shelagh and friends |
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| Breakfast with a crowd |
A five pronged attack to find our way
to the correct road in the morning, sending GPS co-ordinates to the
office, who were also using our location from Spot Tracker, pouring
over maps, asking the locals and eventually resorting to switching on
Hels UK mobile roaming to look at Google maps. It may sound extreme
but we had so much conflicting information and no idea where we
really were, or even whether to go left or right at the first turn.
If you happen to use our GPS data in the future, the point marked
'Great Bushcamp', somewhere West of Lanzhou, should be disregarded.
It all came good in the end and we headed back the way we'd come the
day before, and then down a concrete road towards the dam and a small
ferry port to barter our way onto the next available ferry. This
involved much negotiation, playing good cop bad cop with George and
the ferry officials. Us shouting and waving at George, him shouting
at us and then the officials and them shouting and gesticulating
angrily, us turning the engine off in a defiant stand that we would
not be moved from the front of the queue which admittedly we had
queue barged our way to. Bloody tourists hey. Eventually they tired
of our antics and smilingly promised we would be on the next ferry as
long as we moved a little to let some local traffic through, which of
course we obliged. Once the other side we had a unusual shorter than
expected journey to Xiahe, at nearly 3,000m above sea level and set
in a beautiful mountain valley, we were relieved to be back on
course.
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| Boarding the ferry |
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| Nice day for a cruise |
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| George is the boat driver? |
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| Trying to squeeze a few more in |
Xiahe, in Gansu province, used to be
part of the Tibetan region of Amdo but locals still consider
themselves as part of it, often we were asked if it was our first
visit to Tibet. It really was as close to being there without
being, monks wandering the streets in their crimson robes, juniper
incense in the air, Tibetan food and crafts for sale and women
wearing traditional dress carrying their babies on their backs with
swathes of colourful fabric. Some awoke at sunrise and walked the
3km kora (pilgrim path) around the perimeter, joining the local
pilgrims spinning hundreds of prayer wheels. We enjoyed a tour of
the Labrang Monastery, the largest monastery outside of Lhasa and the
most important outside of Tibet, visited by thousands of rural
Tibetans every year who come to pray, prostrate themselves and seek
spiritual fulfilment. An English speaking monk guide showed us
around, although you had to fine tune your ear to pick up everything
he was saying, the words melting into a chant like sound. The tour
ended with a quick look around the largest temple that can seat over
1,000 monks and which we saw with around 200 at morning prayer all
chanting in rhythm, similar in sound to an orchestra of didgeridoo's,
deep and resonating, mesmerising us all. It was a wonderful chance
to experience a taste of Tibet for a couple of days.
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| Chris and Gill |
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| Jody, Gill and Gareth up early |
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| Labrang monastery complex |
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| Nick |
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| Popular Nomad restaurant in Xiahe |
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| Prostrating, immense religious devotion |
Perhaps rather optimistically we
decided to try and find one last bush camp en route to Xi'an. We
woke to a drizzly, damp cold day which didn't improve, even once we'd
dropped down from the mountains. Gloomy faces peered out of the
windows in the back, wondering if they would be forced to camp in the
rain. Some hasty research and we managed to arrange a lovely
homestay in the Maiji Shan (haystack mountain) area, set among wild
and lush green hills. It was a literal breath of fresh air from
driving into hectic big cities for a night. Nestled amongst the
forest we divided into basic rooms across 3 houses with rock hard
beds and enjoyed an evening in one of the houses small restaurants.
We now seem to have tunnelled our way
to Xi'an (and our 3rd province Shaanxi), an astounding
number of tunnels along the way, some more than 7 miles in length and
totalling at least 50 miles. Small sections inside with spot
lighting and pot plants giving drivers some light relief from the
endless dark hole ahead, a nice touch. Road signs and general
translations are a constant source of amusement in China, one
particular favourite which passed by too quick to photograph must
have been translated with the help of a passing Scot, reading “Tool
Ahead, Slow Doon”.
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| It's not just the road signs that keep us amused |
Apart from a wasp sting on the bottom
for Hels whilst driving to keep her on her toes that's about all the
adventures for now. We're off to see the Army of Terracotta Warriors
in the morning and then to Chengdu to say hello to the pandas.
