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Friday 2004-02-13 - Groningen, the Netherlands
The big decision
I’m in Groningen this weekend to see my parents and have a belated new year’s dinner with them. Yesterday evening I brought up the subject of travel: last year they’d offered to pay for whatever trip I wanted to take but due to a load of different adverse circumstances I never got away. When the brochures for the new season started rolling in, my eye was caught by the special Marco Polo trip organized by Koning Aap this year: all the way across Asia, visiting many old Silk Road locations and other places where Marco Polo had been. More than two months to cross the continent West to East, from Damascus to Beijing … not just an exciting prospect by itself but it would also make up for the missed trip of last year.
When I asked Aap people about it at the vacation fair in January, they told me they’d already had quite a few inquiries specifically for this trip, so there was a good chance it would actually take place. So after my arrival this evening I broached the subject with my parents: a “double-length” trip, would they be prepared to pay for maybe half of this one, since I didn’t get to go last year? They’ll pay for all of this one!
Wow. I’m actually going to do this!
Saturday 2004-02-14 - Groningen, the Netherlands
Documentation needed
Today, we went into town for some shopping before the planned birthday dinner. There’s a very good travel bookstore here in Groningen, and I popped in (dragging my parents along) to see what they had to supplement my set of maps and travel guides for the trip.
I have a good set of guides and maps for Central Asia, but nothing for the Middle East, and nothing for China east of Xinjiang. I couldn’t take a decision about travel guides, but ended up with three maps: a very nice one of Syria, an absolutely huge one of Turkey (there don’t seem to be regional maps of the country any more, and this was all they had) and a “Silk Road Countries” map covering Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia: that one will be a handy to take with me (although the bit of Turkey it also covers isn’t very detailed). I’ll keep looking around for more, but I’ll at least take the last map with me.
Wednesday 2004-03-24 - Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Visa: papers, papers, papers
Filling in the visa application forms (Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and China) wasn’t all that hard — except for working out entry and exit dates, needed for most countries. The itinerary we got just works by day numbers, so I had to count through them to work out where we’d be on which dates. (Well, my parents will want to know that as well.) I added a safety margin either way of about 5 days: I have plenty of experience with all sorts of mishaps that can change a planned itinerary; arriving late isn’t a problem, but arriving early or leaving late could be.
Then when I wanted to staple the passport photographs to the forms, I suddenly ran out of staples. Off to the store…
After lunch I’m off to the visa agency (conveniently in Amsterdam) to deliver my passport with all the forms, indicating that I’ll pick it up myself when it’s all done: I like to be able to make a photocopy not just of my passport (already done) but of all the visa as well; and a quick check if everything’s OK is a good idea, too. (I’ve had incorrect dates entered on a visa — a result of bad form design which confused the public servant doing the visa: half in the group had incorrect data on their visa!)
Jabs - do I need any?
I searched the internet for what vaccinations are currently needed for all those countries we’re going to travel through (Syria, Turkey, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and China). It appears that DTP is needed for all, and mine has expired. Typhus is listed for all the countries, too, if your stay is longer than two weeks. Well, apart from Iran and China it isn’t; but adding it all up is of course considerably longer than two weeks. Malaria should be considered as well for some areas of Turkey and Iran; and hepatitis everywhere (but I already have antibodies for that).
Then I needed to find a phone number for the AMC vaccination clinic (the most convenient one for me: in Amsterdam, and easy to get to with tram and metro); finding their phone number was (still) not easy. When I finally had a number it was late; I tried it anyway to check if it was the right one.
(For those searching for the phone number: last time I looked it was 020-566.38.00 to make an appointment, or 0900-95.84 for information.)
Wednesday 2004-04-28 - Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Documentation complete
I’d seen a Lonely Planet guide for the Middle East; there’s a nice one for Iran, too, with more extensive information about that country, but I can’t bring a pile of books. This one covers Syria, Turkey and Iran (and more for later trips). I went to one of the travel stores in Amsterdam, the JoHo Company, and was glad to find they had this book. I got manageable maps of Turkey and China as well: not too large so I can actually use them during the trip and leave my huge (but very detailed) map of Turkey at home.
My travel documentation is complete now.
Friday 2004-06-25 - Torugart Pass, Kyrgyzstan
Wildlife
We’re leaving at eight for the border crossing over the Torugart Pass - “Much too late” I’m thinking to myself and alas I turn out to be right. First we go back along the 15 km track to the ‘main’ road to China which we follow farther up. The road is very bad, even for an all-weather road, but most traffic here consists only of trucks transporting old iron to China (another export ‘product’ of Kyrgyzstan of which they have plenty with all the factories that were closed after independence while China is eager for it for its growing industry). The rest of the traffic consists of tourists, of course, and precious little else.
In the valley near Tash Rabat I noticed one of the mountains was riddled with holes; nests of ground squirrels, I suspect, but I didn’t see any there. However back on the main road I do see many ground squirrels, mostly sunning themselves on the mounds of sand next to their burrows, not paying much attention to our passing truck. There are two kinds of them here, one a lot bigger than the other — I see a lot less of the smaller ones, but maybe they’re just more shy. I suspect these are the same species that live on the high plains between China and Pakistan but I don’t know the names of these species (yet).
Because of the bad condition of the road it takes us a long time to reach the passport check before the actual Kirghiz border; we finally reach the main building at 11:45 — the border closes at noon! Border formalities at the Kyrgyzstan border post are simple and quick though - seemingly smoother each year. The truck is allowed to take us right up to the pathetic little pillar now marking the border, replacing the original monumental gate building at 3752 m. The landmark gate was taken down by the Chinese a few years ago when they claimed another 7.5 m of territory — a move not so good for international tourism. We say goodbye to our team; on the other side of the gate our Chinese bus is already waiting for us (well, we’re late: it must have been here more than an hour already).
Friday 2004-06-25 - Kashgar, Xinjiang (China)
Into Xinjiang
After the actual border crossing on the Kirghiz side, it’s a long trip to the building of the Chinese border post — at first over a bad road, alongside it pieces of old iron that have fallen off the truck exporting it to China: enough to fill another truck. Then into a new river valley, a much better road here; the mountains on each side are mostly bare but along the river bed there’s some greenery and we see some (ethnic) Kirghiz nomads grazing their herds here; the bus sometimes has to stop for a large herd roaming all over the road. Later, we see more agriculture, and Uyghur houses shaded by rows of poplars.
Before the actual border post there’s a small building where the quarantine office is housed now; the questionnaire has a question about SARS, and our temperature is taken (with a kind of hand-held scanner). But since we left late by now we’re late here, too; two trucks are before us, with a load of carpets an other stuff that all has to go through the (single) scanner first. When it’s finally our turn, I’m asked if I have any books (of course!); I then have to open my bag to show them — I take out only my travel guides and decide not to show my old Hebrew book just yet, not knowing what they’re looking for. The officer is probably just curious (but officially looking for subversive materials?): he’s trying to figure out what the books are about, looking through each for maps; it’s obvious he cannot actually read any English; he even walks away with my books into an office: I’m getting worried I might have to leave them behind. After a long time, it’s declared “OK” and I can put my books back. Phew! Ouside there are money changers, but we ignore them; we must move on.
When we finally get into Kashgar, it’s late — and we find that not only the banks are closed but since a year hotels apparently no longer are allowed to change money either. So there we are without any local currency. We’re allowed to have dinner at John’s Cafe (now moved to a building on the Seman Hotel’s grounds) at credit, giving our room number: we can pay tomorrow, when we can get money. Well, I hope … tomorrow is Saturday: will the bank even be open? But we can’t really do anything but have dinner on credit tonight. We’re effectively grounded — forget about going into town. I’m not in my best mood now.
Tuesday 2004-06-29 - Kuqa, Xinjiang (China)
Uyghurs and Han Chinese
Back in Kuqa, Carla and I first walk around the new part of town a little, checking out the shops. In the evening, we all have dinner together: next to the Min Mao hotel is a well-stocked supermarket and next to that is the “Uyghur Restaurant”.
Although this is actually my fourth visit to Xinjiang, here in Kuqa I see for the first time ‘imported’ Han Chinese interacting normally and friendly with the original local population — Uyghurs here. (Original at least when the Chinese claimed this territory; much farther back in history, the Turkic peoples and Tajiks themselves moved into what is now the Xinjiang province of China.) What I saw until now was two different societies living almost completely separate lives, going to different schools, shopping at different shops and market stalls, eating at different restaurants. Here in Kuqa I’m interested to see a mixture of Chinese and Uyghur on the market, a Chinese woman having a friendly chat with an Uyghur woman on the street corner; and here in the restaurant, run completely by a team of Uyghurs serving both Uyghur and Chinese food, both Uyghurs and Chinese come to eat.
This warms my heart: maybe, given time, these peoples can indeed live peacefully together without the Uyghurs giving up their identity.
The atmosphere at the restaurant is very pleasant, and the food is truly excellent so we end up taking nearly all our meals here.
Sunday 2004-07-04 - Liuyian, China
Facilities on the train
It’s light, but we still have a way to go before we arrive at the station in Liuyian. Our night train today is again a little newer, and nicer, than the one before. And there’s one striking difference: in the bathrooms (two at one end of each carriage) there is a mysterious little net fixed to the wall, a little above the rail you can grasp so you can squat safely even if the train rounds a curve. On closer inspection, I see a little sticker next to the net explaining its purpose: it’s to park your mobile phone in while using the facilities. A nice illustration of how popular and wide-spread mobile telephony has become in China in only a few years’ time!
Sunday 2004-07-04 - Dunhuang, China
End of the known world
The section of this trip covering Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Xinjiang in China was “the known world” for me: I’d traveled in all these countries before and visited most of the places we visited now (with the exception of Mary in Turkmenistan and Kuqa in Xinjiang). Not that that was a problem though: it was great to be back in Central Asia and it provided some ‘mental rest’ during a trip otherwise rich in new impressions.
Today I’m definitely in a new country: neither in Liuyian nor all along the road through the flat desert to Dunhuang is there a single word to read in the Arabic script of Uyghur as was the norm in Xinjiang where practically everything is bilingual. We’ve left the Turkic languages and peoples behind now: I’m in the ‘real’ China at last.
Looking out of the window of the bus that takes us from the station in Liuyian to Dunhuang, the landscape isn’t very interesting at first: just very flat and almost completely bare desert and a very straight road. After about an hour of this, we see a slight dip in the desert ahead of us and when we get close it suddenly gets a lot greener, obviously because the water table is closer to the surface. First, tamarisk appears, always a sign of the presence of a little water; later, we see irrigation channels and fields; even tree-lined roads. Checking my map: this must be the area of the Shule He (He means river, but I don’t know what Shule means). When we leave the oasis behind, the ground stays a little greener than before, until we reach the outskirts of Dunhuang and we see fields and trees again.
Dunhuang, my first contact with a real Chinese town, has a friendly provincial atmosphere, immediately apparent when arrive after the two-hour bus ride. This town (population: 100,000) at the edge of the feared Lop desert was originally at the extreme western border of the Chinese empire — its name means “Blazing Beacon” — and the Great Wall was extended to here.
Our hotel, Fei Tian, is unremarkable but we have a comfortable little room — and John’s Cafe is right next to the hotel’s forecourt, along the street.
Market instead of Internet
After lunch at John’s I asked one of the guys there for the Internet Service; they don’t have it here, he says (and neither does the hotel, as I already found out) but he gives me directions where I can find several Internet cafes; “slow”, he warns. Slow is no problem - I’m typing locally most of the time anyway. First I go to the hotel lobby where I sit down at a table and write a bit more; then, accompanied by Carla, who just wants to walk around Dunhuang, I follow the directions given.
At the first Internet cafe, soon found, I am studiously ignored completely, so I walk out again. Not much farther on is another place, like the first with a lot of work stations, but here they’re more friendly. The young man (who tells me it costs 2¥ (Yuan) per hour) shows me to a terminal and starts up Internet Explorer for me. That’s fine, but I need Notepad as well, I try to explain. He doesn’t understand what I mean, so I just sit down and poke around for a while; it’s hopeless — this is a completely customized shell under Windows 98 (I do find out that much) but all menus are non-standard, completely in Chinese, and in fact there are several virtual desktops, it seems. Notepad can’t be found; it’s probably never used — can one even type in Chinese in Notepad, I wonder? I have no idea. I don’t see Wordpad either; I’m forced to give up after a few minutes. I raise my hands in defeat. “No problem,” gestures the young man when we leave.
I give up the idea of updating the travel blog from Dunhuang, and decide to walk around town with Carla instead. In a nice pedestrian street with a lot of stalls with souvenirs we shop around a little, take a peek in yet another Internet cafe (I recognize the same customized shell, so I’m out again very quickly) and then find a nice vegetable market where we roam around a while, and I take some pictures.
Monday 2004-07-05 - Dunhuang, China
World Heritage site
Today we have just time for a visit to the Mogao Caves, an enormous complex of 735 Buddhist caves, 492 of them with sculptures and murals (the remainder were bare, on purpose, and were intended for prayer and meditation), located in the Sanwei mountain. It’s only half an hour’s ride from Dunhuang. Entrance is (at the moment) 100¥ (Yuan), plus another 20¥ per person for an English-speaking guide; the site is well worth it.
Our guide, a nice young lady with a cheerful straw hat against the sun and armed with a parasol, speaks English quite well, but with a very heavy accent that takes some getting used to. The whole complex, comprising one face of the mountain, she tells us, originally had murals all along the outside but only a few fragments of this remain: the rest is weathered away. Also many of the (man-made) caves originally consisted of an entrance portal, with a short corridor leading into the inner chamber housing an altar with sculptures of Buddha, disciples and other attendants. Most of these entrance portals, guarded by huge sculptures of armed figures, have disappeared through natural causes as well — the stone of this mountain is quite soft. But otherwise the caves — protected from the elements unlike the murals outside — are in remarkably pristine condition, probably the finest example of such caves in China, and named a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987.
Construction of the caves began in 366 AD during the Qin dynasty and lasted some 100 years. One reason for their excellent preservation is that the region was taken by the Tibetans in 781 AD so it escaped the persecution of Buddhists in China in the 9th century; another reason is probably that the complex was never completely deserted so later archaeologist treasure hunters could not so easily ‘save’ what they found here.
The style of the sculptures and paintings, even the oldest ones, is remarkably refined. Clearly the best artists that could be found were working here. It’s also interesting to see how many paintings have Persian or Indian stylistic elements: with Dunhuang an important location on the Silk Road, artists must have exchanged their skills along the road or even traveled along with caravans to see art work elsewhere.
There are a few quite strikingly large Buddha sculptures. The largest one, at more than 30 m high is not in the original condition: the original clothing was later adapted into a intricately decorated “emperor’s mantle”. Another one is 26 m high and yet completely contained inside a cave; as with the other large figures, the body was first hewn out of the rock, then covered with clothes made from straw-reinforced clay and painted. This one is in original condition. Most remarkable is that the head, itself 9 m high, is very large in proportion to the body: it’s actually designed so that when the sculpture is seen from below the head actually appears to be in the right proportion - a very early example of perspective correction!
Lost, found, and lost again
In the 19th century the Magao caves near Dunhuang were apparently ‘rediscovered’ by a priest called Wang Luan Yu who set himself up as their custodian. In one of the caves (now ‘nr. 17’) he discovered a secret chamber, the entrance covered with plaster and murals, and hidden by sand blown in by sand storm. Inside the chamber he found a huge library of historical, literary and religious texts as well as many paintings that had been hidden in the secret chamber to protect them.
When British archaeologist Sir Marc Aurel Stein heard of this on his 1907 expedition he came here to investigate — and ended up buying over 5000 scrolls and paintings for just 130 pounds. When the French sinologist Paul Pelliot came to the site just one year later, he found a treasure of texts and paintings so large, he didn’t even realize any had been taken.
Most of the contents of the original library is now in the hands of Western museums, much to the chagrin of the Chinese; among them (part of Stein’s load) is the Diamond Sutra, still on display on the British Museum, which counts as the oldest printed document in the world; it’s dated 868 AD. On the site there is now a small museum, recounting how this library was hidden and lost, found again and then lost again. Some scrolls are exhibited here, as well as some quite beautiful paintings but alas most of them are reproductions of originals now in museums in Paris and London.
Monday 2004-07-05 - Jiayuguan, China
Catching the train
When we get back to the hotel in Dunhuang a little before noon, there’s just time to check out, put our luggage into the bus, and have a somewhat hasty lunch at John’s Cafe. By 13:00 we’re on the road again, with a very tight schedule: it’s a long way to Jiayuguan, estimated at 5.5 hours, but we must be there before seven to pick up our train tickets.
It’s not a pleasant trip but there’s no way around it: we make only two short stops at gas stations to use the facilities — and a two-minute stop every hour to rotate places in the bus (so we all get our share of being shaken apart on the bumpy road) — otherwise we just move on, and have to. At first we progress fast enough and the driver is able to keep a steady speed of 86 km/hr (according to my GPS) but later there are a lot of road works and our speed goes down a lot. There’s also a lot of grit on the newly-covered stretches, and we see many heaps of glass along the road: broken windshields… It’s a worrying sight, but luckily we have no mishaps: we have no time for that! The atmosphere in the bus is unmistakable: everyone is tense and no doubt some of us think back to the flat tire we had near Kuqa.
All goes well though, and a little before seven we arrive in Jiayuguan where — after no more than a glimpse of the famous Jiayuguan Pass, the largest and most intact entrance of the Great wall — we stop at the bus station. Huh? Our driver goes with our travel companion to pick up the train tickets which turn out to be waiting in a tiny restaurant near the bus station. Then on we go to the train station at the edge of town. We have just 6 minutes to board the train which leaves at exactly 20:38. Lights out at 22:30: now we can relax again.
Tuesday 2004-07-06 - Lanzhou, China
“Handle be on worth”
At 7:00 we arrive at the station in Lanzhou, on the banks of the Huang He (Yellow River), where we need to change trains. Not immediately though: our next train leaves only at midday so there is time to go to the hotel across the station square: we can park our luggage there and those who want it can have breakfast (I pass and sit and write my diary instead).
In the hotel lobby, next to our pile of luggage, is a desk with a little sign sitting on it; some Chinese characters (which I can’t reproduce) and English words: “Handle be on worth”. Yes, I swear that’s what it said — I’m not making this up — although when we get down from the restaurant after breakfast there is mysteriously a new sign on the desk saying “Assist. Manager” (not that any manager or even assistant is in sight). Sometimes “Chinese English” can provide a surprising insight in how different both languages are, showing how the Chinese language associates and arranges concepts in a way very different from European languages to convey meaning. But possibly as a result, occasionally the Chinese-to-English translation process derails completely, leaving a meaningless arrangement of words. I’m sure the Chinese on the sign was actually meaningful, but I sure can’t parse the “English” phrase…
After breakfast, I go for a little walk around Lanzhou with Carla who actually has a little map even though our itinerary didn’t indicate we’d stop here; alas, it turns out to be not very accurate: the department store we wanted to have a look at seems to have never existed. With my still-painful foot, the Huang He is out of reach, so we stay a bit closer to the station. Still, it’s fun and I take my first pictures of a big Chinese city (including some on the market, of course): Lanzhou has a population of nearly 2 million. We also have a chat with a couple of local young men and discover they speak with a very different accent here than in Dunhuang: they have a sort of twang, not clearly pronouncing the ‘n’ at the end of a word, for instance.
Tuesday 2004-07-06 - Xi’an, China
A variety of fields
We’re on the train again, continuing after our short break in Lanzhou. Looking out of the windows, the landscape resembles the “Chinese scroll” watercolor landscapes we’ve all seen: green and lush, with rivers flowing in the valleys. Gentle mountains at first, almost completely covered with terraces with fields (no rice though), and more fields in the river valleys. The desert is truly far behind us now.
Gradually, the landscape changes, the mountains becoming steeper and stonier, no longer allowing agriculture, but with a velvety cover of shrubs and small trees; in the valley we see the muddy-yellow water of the Wei He, a tributary of the Yellow River (Huang He), sometimes crossing it but mostly following the course of the river, occasionally taking a shortcut through a tunnel.
Farther on, the valley widens, the railway hugging the mountains on one side, the mountains on the other side far away. The valley is obviously very fertile, completely covered with fields with a great variety of crops grown — but some fields are different. Whereas the Kirghiz locate their cemeteries preferably in a beautiful spot far from the villages, the Chinese here do it differently: this valley is dotted with small cemeteries, at most the size of a field, most a lot smaller. And they’re right in-between the fields with grain, onions, and cabbages: although not inside or close to the villages, the dead are close to the living here, and rest in beautiful spots.
About an hour from Xi’an the scenery gets very urban very quickly; we make a stop in Xianyang, before arrival in metropolis Xi’an at 20:40. We have a very nice hotel here, Jie Fang, right across from the station: we can simply walk there.
Wednesday 2004-07-07 - Xi’an, China
Relaxed metropole
After our long train ride of yesterday, Carla and I make a late start today with a nice plate of noodles for breakfast at the little restaurant around the corner from the Jie Fang hotel. Then we set out to walk to the center of the old city of Xi’an. For a city of millions (6.62 is what I found), the atmosphere here is surprisingly relaxed, reminding me somewhat of Damascus, our first city on this nine-week trip. Traffic is lively, with a wide variety of public transportation ranging from buses (quite a lot) to little red motorized open carts for two to four passengers, a bit like bike taxis except they’re motorized. But no one actually seems to be in a hurry; people don’t walk fast either, the right strategy in this climate since it’s quite hot here. We haven’t walked 100 meters yet and I like Xi’an already.
Although people do look at us strangers, they don’t stare, obviously used to foreign visitors. Still only a few people approach us to speak English to us; very few actually know enough English for a chat, it seems.
When we arrive at the Bell Tower, marking the very center of the old city, we find it’s in scaffolding and closed for restauration. As an alternative we make a short visit to the huge modern department store at the corner of the square: a nice contrast between ancient and modern China. It’s easy to spend half a day or more here, but we have other plans.
After a short rest with some fruit juice in a sort of food court in the basement we leave super-modern China behind for a while and walk on to the Drum Tower. No scaffolding here but although supposedly the tower is in use again, we see no activity. The tower is also a gate building, marking the entrance to the old muslim quarter of Xi’an.
Along the main street, especially near the Drum Tower, there are many souvenir shops and tourist restaurants but when after a while we turn left into a smaller street, in search of the Great Mosque, this abruptly changes: We’re in a normal street in an old town now, a street where people live and work and have businesses catering to locals rather than tourists. This feels like the ‘real’ old Xi’an. I’d like to roam around more here, but my painful foot doesn’t agree.
Relaxing in the mosque… again
Now that we’ve arrived in the ‘real’ old town of Xi’an, we don’t actually see many signs that this is a Muslim quarter: only a few of the men and women we see actually wear their traditional Muslim headdres, but most don’t (even though most people here may actually be Muslim). Chinese Muslims, although ethnically mostly Han Chinese, are called Hui and are recognized as a separate ‘nationality’ in China.
In Kashgar the Hui go to the Id Kah mosque together with the Uyghurs; this mosque, with all its poplars in the large courtyard, is very Uyghur in style and atmosphere. Here, in Xi’an, there are no Uyghurs (although we occasionally see people from other minorities in the streets). So now, after all the mosques we visited on our long trip, through predominanty Muslim countries, we’re curious what a Chinese mosque will be like. Maybe we shouldn’t have been surprised, but when we finally arrive after a somewhat roundabout route avoiding most of the tourist shops, the surprise is how ‘Chinese’ it looks. It’s actually more like a Buddhist temple than a mosque: we miss the architectural pattern we’ve become used to, with a large central courtyard and a central fountain or pond for ritual washing.
According to historical records carved in stone tablets presrved here, the mosque was set up in 742 AD during the Tang dynasty, and restored and further expanded during the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. Not surpisingly, the complex boasts a rich variety of architectural styles in the many buldings, platforms, pavillions and prayer halls arranged along five consecutive courtyards. In the fourth courtyard is a kind of pagoda with an octagonal roof serving as a minaret (unlike any we’ve seen before); instead of a central fountain or pond for the ritual washing there is a separate building dedicated to this purpose to the side of this courtyard. The large prayer hall, not accessible to non-muslims, is at the end of the fifth courtyard. Instead of wide open places, the four first courtyards are actually lush gardens; between the old trees and lots of flowers and shrubs there are many places to sit and rest, and enjoy the quiet: here, shielded from the bustle of metropolis all around it, one hears no traffic — only the chirping and birdsong of the many birds living here. In fact, sitting in the shade in this nice peaceful atmosphere, we find it actually hard not to doze off.
We hang around for quite a while, before braving the tourist shops to shop for some presents to take home.
Handicapped in China
There’s no way I’m going to walk back all the way with my by now tired and painful foot. A taxi would be nice — one of those little open red carts we’ve seen even nicer. But apart from ordinary taxis there’s nothing near the Drum Tower. I decide I can still make it to the Bell Tower; but there’s nothing there either, nor along the main street where we see only buses. Finally, we turn right and at the next corner we find a (very) little red cart.
The driver turns out to be handicapped, with two crutches propped up beside him in what is essentially little more than a motorized wheelchair with a backseat that will hold two passengers (just). I show him the hotel card: yes, he can take us there for 10 Yuan, he says. That’s probably too much, but I agree without bargaining: let him have a good day — I’m certainly not going walk much further. So we squeeze ourselves into the little seat and off he goes. We have to hold on to our hats, but it’s fun! He’s fast and very agile in the busy Xi’an traffic, narrowly but surely avoiding taxis and bikes; when the light changes at one crossing even zooming diagonally across to the parallel road on the left. At the same time he takes care to avoid potholes and bumps in the road, giving us a smooth but nonetheless exciting ride back to the hotel — and a very different view of Xi’an.
Our fun drive in the back of a motorized wheelchair makes me think about the position of people with a handicap in China. We’ve seen other carts like this one (most a little larger) serving as taxis, some with a sticker on it with the international “wheelchair” symbol on it; but not all of them carry this symbol — maybe not all of these taxi drivers are handicapped but some clearly are: it looks as though they can get a special license to operate a taxi like this and thus obtain an income.
I don’t have any more hard facts but did make some more observations which suggest that in China handicapped people aren’t totally left to their own devices (as is the case in many other countries I’ve visited). Whether they have (or can have) some sort of social security isn’t clear to me though. I’ve seen people begging, too, although this is officially forbidden. On the other hand, on the corner near the hotel last night was a street musician: a Chinese albino, obviously blind as a result of his condition, drawing quite an audience with his music. Again, at least that’s a way to obtain an income — but could he live on it? One more observation: the sidewalks along (at least) the main streets in every Chinese town and city we’ve been in now are not only paved nicely with tiles, but also have ridged tiles to guide the blind, as well as curb cuts in the sometimes very high curbs: something that wasn’t the case yet in for instance Kashgar two years ago. So maybe things aren’t yet as good as they might be but there’s definite and visible progress. Still, by the time we’re back in the hotel I’m left with more questions than answers about what it’s like to be handicapped in China.
Thursday 2004-07-08 - Xi’an, China
To the army
In 1974 some farmers in the village Xiang, near Xi’an, while digging a well for their village, suddenly encountered an obstruction: a layer of very hard baked clay. When they finally broke through, they found fragments of more baked clay and bronze arrowheads lying on a floor of blue bricks.
When archeaologists started an excavation that same summer, the importance of the find soon became clear: this was a huge burial vault for the terra-cotta warriors and horses that were buried together with the first emperor of the Qin dynasty — the first emperor to unify several Chinese nationalities in a large feudal state, with excellent organization. It was also this emperor who started building the Great Wall — and this dynasty that gave its name to the present-day country (‘Qin’ is pronounced “chin”).
The site which now comprises three burial vaults with in total some 8000 terra-cotta warriors and horses, as well as more than 100 wooden chariots, is of world-wide importance. It’s been open to the public since 1979 while excavations and restoration of the finds are still going on today.
Carla and I are really looking forward to seeing all this when we get on the #306 bus at exactly 8:00 in the morning. It’s quite easy to get to the site: just take this bus (right in front of the Jie Fang hotel across from the station) and get out at the last stop half an hour later. A lot of merchants are peddling their wares here (rather aggressively) but we’re grateful they’re allowed only outside the gates of the newly landscaped grounds around the buildings that house the movie theatre, the three pits and the museum. We go to the theatre first to see an impressive 360° movie depicting the discovery of the site and its history: at times it’s really as if you’re right in the middle of the battle field, flags waving in your face, clattering arms, chariots racing by.
The museum is next on our program, to get some more background before going to the actual excavations. Here, we find not only a wealth of metal objects found in the pits such as parts of armory, bronze weapons and horses’ gear; there are also the two completely restored bronze chariots that were found in pit 3, each with four horses and driver: every detail — including all mechanics — was carefully reproduced at half life size, each chariot consisting of more than 3000 parts with over 1000 of them made of gold and silver. The museum also gives a lot of background information about the state of technology here during the 3rd century BC, with many intricate fastenings, hinges, crossbows, and even chrome-plated bronze used for weapons: a technology that was discovered in the West only some 2000 years later.
Each of the three pits (named 1, 2 and 3 after the order in which they were discovered) is housed in its own building, simultaneously protecting the uncovered and restored terra-cotta figures and the on-going excavations and allowing the public a view from balconies around and above the excavation areas. Here, too, are excellent displays giving background information and explaining how the process of excavation and restoration works. With the exception of one small area in the museum, all explanatory texts are in Chinese and English. In the building of pit 2 there are also a few glass cabinets housing terra-cotta figures so you can actually see them face-to-face and walk around them. Not only is the amount of detail quite amazing, but literally every figure of this 8000-strong army is an individual. You see young and innocent as well as experienced and battle-hardened faces; clean-shaven, with moustaches or beards, hair done in different styles: all life-size at between 1.8 and 2 m tall. There are generals, officers and warriors, varying in clothing and posture according to their roles. It’s all incredibly impressive, both artistically and technologically.
Last train ride
By 14:00 we’re back in Xi’an, in time for a late lunch of sweet and sour pork with a very good draught beer. Then we go to the supermarket to get some snacks for on the train, and go and pick up our luggage from the hotel storage room and repack a little.
A little before five we walk to the station where we’re allowed into the soft-sleeper lounge again, and can go onto the platform before the masses — thankfully because it’s very crowded here. We find the train for Beijing already waiting; it leaves at exactly 18:00 but by then I find my luck has run out: I have the middle bed on the right — and just don’t manage to climb into it with my still painful right foot which I just don’t dare set on the narrow steps of the ladder (not without my sturdy walking shoes on, anyway). Someone has a brainwave: we swap beds and now I have the middle bed on the left which I can climb into because I can set my right foot on the lower bed, and my left one on the ladder.
Friday 2004-07-09 - Beijing, China
Broke in Beijing
I wake up before five; I slept well but not long enough. An hour later the train attendant comes by to wake us up (if necessary) and swap our little cards for our train tickets. We arrive in Beijing at 6:40.
I’m so tired after my too-short night, the first thing I do when we get our room in the Dong Fang hotel is go to bed for a nap — while Carla goes out with Thom to the Forbidden City. We were told that to view the Forbidden City you’d need to walk around some four or five hours, something I’m sure I can’t manage anyway with my still-hurting foot. When I wake up again it’s 12:30. I’d like to go out for a short walk, but first I’ll need some cash: I’m nearly broke. But before that — and before I can go out at all — I’ll need to have my passport (left at the check-in desk for registration), and I can’t get cash without a passport either.
When I arrive in the lobby and ask for my passport, explaining why I need it, a small opera results: our passports are locked away, it seems, and the lady who has the only key (really?) has gone to the bank to get cash, I’m told; she’ll be back in an hour. I insist they just cannot ‘lock up’ their guests by holding on to their passports: the lady with the key should have left that key behind so guests can have access to their passports. Obviously, things don’t quite work like they try to make me believe: apparently no one present has sufficient authority to open the (locked?) drawer with the passports. When I propose the assistant manager (“#0059” says his name tag, he doesn’t seem to have a name) call the lady with the key that seems to give him an opening; he suggests I sit at the lounge bar to wait … and less than 10 minutes later a bell boy appears to tell me my passport is here. Of course the lady with the key (does she even exist?) is nowhere in sight; I suspect they just decided to open the drawer, maybe without proper authorization.
Anyway, that’s really just the short version of what happened; then actually getting cash involves one non-functional ATM (in the hotel), one broken ATM (at a bank) and a bank teller at yet another bank. But I have my passport, and cash, and now I’m ready to explore Beijing a little — at my snail’s pace.
Not the temple I was looking for…
The little map on the back of my hotel business card indicates the location of the Tian Tan temple, which seems to be one of the must-see places in Beijing. It seems close enough for me to manage, so I set out in that direction. The little map is a bit sketchy though, and certainly not to scale; after passing the Friendship Hospital and turning to the right I do end up at a temple but a very different one — quite a find: my travel guide doesn’t even mention it.
I’m finding myself at the Xiannong temple complex, originally from the Ming dynasty period (started in 1420) and used by both Ming and Qing emperors. Offers to the god Xiannong were made here, and they celebrated the ‘ceremony of the planting’ to ensure a good harvest. The whole complex consists of several beautifully-restored buildings, observation platforms and shrines. It now houses the Beijing Museum of Ancient Architectures. I roam and sit around for quite a while (never going inside any of the buildings) before turning back to the hotel.
“Beautify the environment, Welcome the Olympic Games”
On the way back to the hotel I’m reminded how fast China is changing. Possibly stimulated by the upcoming Olympic games in 2008, China is becoming quite environmentally conscious. Recycling is stimulated: along the streets, the waste bins have separate compartments for different kinds of waste; spitting in public places is discouraged and frowned upon now; public toilets are much cleaner than they used to be. We’ve seen solar-powered hot water installations. In the desert we saw huge wind parks (one still under construction), as well as cell phone antennas powered by solar cells.
What reminded me of all this was the blue Beijing street sweeper’s cart I saw parked along a street near the hotel; on the sides (Chinese on one, English on the other) it bore the slogan “Beautify the environment, Welcome the Olympic Games”.
The opera
This evening we go out with a small group to enjoy a bit of Chinese opera; it’s quite nearby at the Liyuang Theatre, performed by members of the Beijing Opera. Tickets were arranged beforehand and were just 60¥.
Remarkably it’s not just permitted to eat and drink in the performance hall: near the front are seats at tables where snacks are being served, and there are drinks, even draft beer — expensive at 25¥, but most of us take one anyway as an essential ingredient of the experience.
After some introductory music there appears a speaker who (in English) gives a short explanation of how the Chinese opera ‘works’: There is never a set, everything needs to be imagined. Much is symbolic: two horse-less riders on stage may actually depict two armies clashing. Everything contributes to tell the story: music, song, dance, acrobatics and juggling — and of course the costumes and make up of the actors. The 1.5-hour show that follows is exciting and delightful; there’s never a dull moment and no need to understand Chinese to follow the story line. Since photography is allowed, I try to take some pictures, but my film isn’t very fast so I’m not very hopeful.
To round off the evening we dine together at a small neighborhood restaurant, where I have delicious pork in garlic sauce.
Saturday 2004-07-10 - Beijing, China
Delicious bread and a knife
Carla and I make a slow start this morning and leave our Beijing hotel without breakfast; we’ll buy something on the way to the Tien’anmen Square, our goal for today.
It’s a pleasant walk, first across the big road over a pedestrian bridge and then through the lively hutongs of the old center in the direction of Qianmen Dajie (Tianmen Avenue), the wide and fashionable shopping street that leads straight to the square and the Forbidden City beyond that. In the hutongs I note — as I did on my solitary walk to the Xiannong temple complex yesterday — that many of the houses have little low buildings tacked onto them, sticking out into the street. It reminds me a bit of what is called a “pothuis” in Amsterdam, where such buildings are built onto a half-subterranean kitchens and used to store the pots and pans. Except there are no subterranean kitchens here, and they all have a low (padlocked) door set into them on the street side. I make a wild guess: imagine an old town without plumbing — perhaps they attach to a bathroom (instead of a kitchen) and house a barrel for human sewage, to be picked up and exchanged for an empty one using those little doors. I remember this was still the practice in some old towns in the Netherlands during the 1950s where there was no mains water. I never find out whether my guess is right, or they are something else entirely.
Soon we turn right in the direction of Qianmen Dajie we find a place where they sell the type of deep-fried round bread with spring onions or other spices that I’m so fond of. We each get one for just 5 ¥ - in a little plastic carrier bag: they’re piping hot, too hot to eat immediately. As we walk on, the old hutong shopping street metamorphoses into a modern shopping street, where we go shopping, bread bags in hand. Here we come across a shop specializing in kitchen knives (nothing but kitchen knives!) and I can’t resist: I’ve long been looking for one of those large Asian kitchen knives to chop vegetables with and they have dozens of models and sizes here. The lady who helps us (Carla buys two as presents to bring home) does not speak a word of English, but firmly and expertly explains to us with some gestures and mime what the different knives are for (I don’t want a meat chopper!) and what is good quality and why: she clearly wants us to leave the store with a purchase we’ll be happy with for many years. The knife I get is heavy (but not too heavy for my small hands) and at 146 ¥ costs a fraction of what a knife of similar quality would cost in the Netherlands. Happy with our purchases, we sit on a stoop in front of an empty shop across the street to eat our bread: still hot but by now at an edible temperature and quite delicious.
Day off
Once in Qianmen Dajie (Tianmen Avenue) I’m disappointed that what on the map looks like a straight line all the way up to the Forbidden City (this part of Beijing clearly was designed that way, with a long, clear line of sight) is not actually navigable in a straight line now. But after some detours and underpasses we finally arrive on Tien’anmen Square. It’s quite large and impressiive, and busy with lots of predominanty Chinese tourists, despite the dark, hazy weather today. We walk all around, feeling the space and watching the monumental buildings around it — but also the tourists, ranging from lines of children clothed in modern ‘red brigade’ T-shirts to gaping visitors from the provinces; watching the peddlers selling trinkets and kites (flying some to attract attention), and the little girl running and delighting in her graciously flying string of kites; having our pictures taken for a change and taking a picture of the girl and her mother in return; watching the Chinese snapping away with their cameras (no camera? you can buy them right here, and many do so).
On the way back a girl starts chatting to us (she’s not the first): a lot of students are approaching tourists trying to persuade them to go to their art exhibition. When she gathers we’re travelling with a group (but with no group or tour leader in sight) she asks: “Is this your day off?” It takes a few seconds before it registers what that implies; it’s a nice illustration of the Chinese way of tourism. Our explanation that every day is a “day off” because we’re always free to wander around whenever we stay somewhere meets with a blank stare…
On the corner of Qianmen Dajie we share one (large) portion of duck and one (large) beer: a delicious lunch in front of a window watching the crowd go by. Further on in the street we find a bookstore that has maps. I love maps and can’t resist a (bilingual) map of Beijing and a (Chinese) map of the world. Then we go to our hotel to drop our purchases and give my still-hurting foot a rest.
No. 107 isn’t leak-proof
I read somewhere that Beijing’s air is so heavily polluted that one rarely sees a blue sky and Beijing’s children have never seen a starry night. It’s believable: all morning it’s been dark and hazy (although it was much better yesterday — and I now regret not taking a picture of the view from our hotel window then). But when we venture out again after dropping off the morning’s purchases, the sky has become even darker. Our plan is to visit Tiantan: the Temple of Heaven, which I didn’t find yesterday. Just before where we think we should turn right, the sky gets inky; moments later very large drops of rain start to fall.
Together with others we flee to shelter under the overhanging roof of a small restaurant on the corner: No. 107 (I’m not sure whether it has a name or whether that is the name). But the stoop is narrow and the roof doesn’t give much protection: we’re getting wet so we flee inside. The woman who runs the restaurant is calm (as if she’s seen this many times before) and tolerant: she doesn’t come bothering anyone if they want to sit down or eat or drink anything. Carla and I sit down at a table, order a beer, and prepare to watch the fun from our safe vantage point at the window… We soon are reminded of the downpour in Antakya: the road turns into a river, almost knee-deep in places; cyclists suddenly are all wearing rain ponchos (are they always so prepared?), some wading through the water next to their bikes, others managing to cycle through the stream.
Crack! That was a direct hit of lightning nearby — the Friendship Hospital a bit back down the road still has power, but all around it’s suddenly very dark. The wind now becomes stormy, and across the street captures a huge parasol with a heavy foot and drops it in the middle of the street.
Splat! The roof of No. 107 starts to leak — just over our table. We move over to the next one with our beer. Puddles start to form on the floor. Splat! It’s not just water coming down any more: wet plaster is coming with it, leaving white marks all over the tables and chairs near the window. We have to give up our view and move again. At a large table next to us a family is eating together, enjoying themselves and seemingly oblivious to the weather. After half an hour it lightens up a bit and the water level is down, we can see the side walk again: it looks like we might be able to reach the hotel without getting wet feet. For the beer, we only pay 2 ¥ — not sure whether it’s normally that cheap or whether we got a discount for the wet-plaster rain.
Tomorrow we fly back. The Tiantan will be waiting for us to return to Beijing some time…
Sunday 2004-07-11 - Beijing, China
Packing
After a goodbye dinner last night at a Beijing ‘hotpot’ restaurant (our tour companion is staying behind to accompany another group) I started preparing to pack for the flight back. The nice but heavy knife I bought yesterday got me worried: I was sure my luggage is seriously overweight by now so I tried to do some triage: what to take, what to leave. But I can’t leave any of the heavy stuff, really: all books and papers, all my rolls of film in the lead-lined bags, my Chinese kitchen knife… It’s not easy.
So after some sorting I didn’t sleep too well, tossing and turning, waking up repeatedly, mentally unpacking, repacking, sorting, keeping, rejecting. I make a few decisions but I stay worried. When I get up I’m not rested — and nervous. When I actually start packing I manage to save a Kg or maybe two (some clothes, toiletries, flipflops); not enough.
A costly flight back
A bus will take us to Beijing airport; before we leave we engage the bus driver to take a group picture of us at the hotel entrance — with several cameras — and I’m sure he does this more often. At the check-in desk at the airport my worst fears come true: not only is there a weight limit on checked luggage, there’s one for cabin luggage as well: my little backpack with all my rolls of films is twice as heavy as allowed and my bag is (as expected) overweight as well. I have to take out what I really want to take as hand luggage (luckily I have a small bag handy for that) and manage to carry my film rolls — they always go in my hand luggage — and some other essentials; then I convince the clerk she’s already quoted me an overweight on my bag, and shouldn’t suddenly re-weigh and add my now half-empty backpack as well. Still, I have to pay a hefty fee, which surprisingly I can pay with my credit card (they must be dealing with cash-less passengers more often). I shrug it off: compared to the total cost of our trip it’s still peanuts, and I accept it as a necessary cost of my gotten-out-of-hand photography hobby (and those 100 rolls of film in lead-lined bags): others buy more souvenirs, I pay for the films.
The flight back is uneventful; we’re changing planes in Vienna again, this time without being held up. Amsterdam feels strange after 65 days travelling across Asia. Tomorrow I’ll bring my films to the lab.
Wednesday 2004-07-21 - Amsterdam, the Netherlands
“You’re a tough one!”
I’m back in in Amsterdam hospital to have a surgeon have a look at my broken foot. An assistant talks to me first, and hears my story, how I hurt my foot, and how I walked on it for another month. “Not a good start,” he says. Then the surgeon himself, a big gentle man, joins us, also hears my story, and tells me “You’re a tough one!”
He also explains about the risks of an operation which he prefers to avoid. Just to make sure we understand each other I explain how I missed doing things during the trip, such as the visit to the largely unrestored 10km stretch of the Great Wall near Beijing: I want to be able to do that next year, I say, not just walk in the city on nice, smooth pavement. That doesn’t change his mind: he doesn’t agree with the doctor of the emergency ward last week that an operation would have been necessary: “Let’s see first whether it starts to heal by itself now the foot is supported by the plaster,” he suggests. He gives it four weeks, so he can see me again after his vacation. In fact, I can go on vacation myself, he says — I’d planned a week with my parents in Germany — after all, I can walk on that cast, though not quickly or for very long. The prospect of going on vacation with my aging parents cheers me up though.
Wednesday 2004-09-15 - Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Feeling naked
Back to hospital again — straight to the plaster room this time to have the cast taken off, then on to radiology again for yet another X-ray, then to the surgical department, where I talk to the surgeon’s assistant, one I haven’t seen before. He wants to hear my story first and I tell him it seems to be slowly getting better — but I’m obviously not there yet: it still hurts every now and then, especially when I walk more than a little. Then he looks at the X-ray and declares he’s satisfied: there’s ossification now and the original 4mm gap even seems to have become a little smaller. Looking at my sturdy hiking boots, he tells me I can go without a cast now, just wear those shoes, and gradually walk a little more. (Gulp!) Do I have to wear them inside, too? “See how it goes,” he says, “and come back in two months.”
Now while that’s encouraging, not having that sturdy cast around my foot I suddenly feel very naked and vulnerable — and extremely aware that it hasn’t quite healed yet.
Afterwards
The first few days I have to literally think with every step I take to carefully place my foot — otherwise it hurts again, almost as much as in China… Gradually it goes better, but I usually feel no warning signal when I put too much load on it: It will just hurt the next day! So, obviously I’m very careful. I do increase the distance I walk, but when it hurts the day after, I give it a rest again for a day or two. And I’d love to visit my parents but don’t dare, since I’d have to travel by train from Amsterdam to Groningen: especially the thought of getting on and off the train (without the support of the cast) scares me right now.
Tuesday 2004-11-16 - Amsterdam, the Netherlands
China calling
The (Skype) phone rings! I pick it up - and find someone calling from China at the other end: he’d seen my profile, opened my blog in his browser, and seeing I visited China as well, decided to call me!
The caller is an obviously well-educated Chinese, speaking perfect English with only a trace of an accent. The call (fully encrypted, which gives him assurance it can’t be monitored) turns into a fascinating discussion about many subjects, ranging from minorities (no, I didn’t get to Tibetan areas this time, but I was there before and I’m planning to go back soon) and environmental problems in China (lack of clean drinking water in some areas a major concern, as well as the Yellow River being heavily polluted with no plans apparently to clean it up) to technical matters like film scanners (don’t buy Minolta: it may be Japanese but it’s produced in China, he says) and Internet access (professional people, especially those in IT, are likely to have a broadband connection at home, as he has: not nearly everyone is dependent on Internet cafes as I had assumed).
We chat for over half an hour like that - a slight echo every now and then, but otherwise excellent sound quality. I feel like my investment in a (cheapo) headset was a good move!
Saturday 2004-11-27 - Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Back together again, and making plans
Our second reunion for the 65 days across Asia trip, this time at Carla’s place in Amsterdam. I figure out the shortest route and walk over there in just half an hour — good practice for my foot! We’re all there (even Thom, who arrived back from Egypt late last night!), and the “family” feeling that resulted from traveling together for over two months is immediately back. We exchange presents, and photos that we ordered with each other. Carla prepared snacks and a meal with an Uzbek theme (really delicious plov!), and I was able to make small contribution by bringing the herbs-and-spice mix that I was given by a friendly and hospitable local on my first visit to Bukhara; it turns out not to be just good on cucumber but also on the plov.
Unavoidably, we talk not only about our past trip together and earlier adventures, but also plans for next year. We’d already heard from Marie Josee, our travel companion (who seems to be in Damascus right now), that the Chinese are working hard on the railroad to Lhasa; in fact, it looks like they’ll be finishing it even before the planned date. This railroad is expected to make much of original Tibet and Tibetan culture disappear at an increased pace, mostly by a greater influx of Han Chinese; meanwhile we’ve seen the breakneck speed of renovation in Kashgar, and I expect the same to be happening in Lhasa as well — so I’m not surprised to hear the “four girls” want to go to China and Tibet; they want to organize it themselves. I also want to go to Tibet for the same reasons (like now, before it’s all gone), but I prefer an organized trip (no hassle about transport and lodging, more time to explore) and so does Carla who would like to go as well. We also have the same preference for overland travel instead of internal flights; we’re planning to go to the Vacation Fair in Utrecht in January and we’ll likely be able to agree on a trip and go together! And with a bit of luck (September seems to be the best time of the year) we’ll meet the girls there, too! Nothing firmly decided yet, but Tibet is looking extremely likely now.
Wednesday 2004-12-01 - Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Another call from China
Another Skype phone call from China — from a young Dutch woman this time! She lives there, teaches English at a school and was glad to be able to talk Dutch for a change. We have a nice conversation, about life in China, travel in China (she’s been to a lot of places where I have been as well), and more.
I really should add a “Skype me!” link to the site. If I can find a way to display my status online, that is. Later…
Sunday 2005-01-16 - Utrecht, the Netherlands
Tibet!
Today is the last day of the big Vacation Fair in Utrecht; I was going to go together with Carla, but she can’t come today; I promise to do good research on trips to Tibet: both of us are interested.
I go to the stand of Baobab first: they have an interesting trip. A plus is they’re planning a three-day hike along a lake near Lhasa; a big minus is that they’re using internal flights instead of (for instance) the train in China. So let’s see what Koning Aap Reizen (Monkey King Travels) has on offer.
Our travel companion of last year’s trip, Marie Josee, had told me she would be there (an exception, she’s travelling most of the year), and indeed she is. We have lunch together (noodles!) and a long chat: it’s really great to see her again after such a long time. Koning Aap’s trip to (through, actually) Tibet looks attractive too: minus: no hike; big plus: completely overland, no flight anywhere except to Beijing and back from Kāthmāndu. I already know that Carla prefers to travel overland as well. Then comes the clincher (for me, at least): when I mention to Marie Josee that the Baobab has a hike she comes up with two good ideas:
- she’d like to accompany this trip; and
- since we end up in Kāthmāndu we could add an extra week or two and do some hiking in the Kathmandu Valley or near Pokharā — she’d come, too, and she knows a lot of addresses of nice little hotels.
So we make a plan: Marie Josee will tell Koning Aap she’d like to accompany this trip (in September/October), the best time for Tibet, and (if Carla agrees), we’ll book on condition that the trip is accompanied by Marie Josee.
Saturday 2005-09-17 - Frankfurt, Germany
Feathers
As I expected (and half hoped) we have to go through the most interesting airport tunnel I know: the 270-meter long tunnel from concourse A to B on Frankfurt airport could have been a bore to walk through but they made an artwork of it: there’s indirect colored lighting along the walls, changing colors randomly, accompanied by interesting sound effects, all computer-controlled. The whole effect is quite interesting — and relaxing — but in addition the sounds make an interesting combination with the sound of the wheels of my little suitcase on the moving walkway.
At the gate we board on time but just when everyone is settled in their seats the captain comes on the speaker: there’s a problem with one of the engines, and it needs to be checked before we can depart; he apologizes he could not stop the boarding but suggests we’re better off waiting at the gate: the checkup may take 2 hours. When I go out I overhear a purser saying they found feathers on the engine: apparently they caught a bird…
After only 45 minutes we’re told we can board again but many people actually left the gate. The personnel took their boarding cards which the passengers can get back on presenting their passports. The girls at the gate make a game of it, reading out the names, picking up a stack of cards (stacks alphabetically sorted) and pulling up a card triumphantly. The result is that everyone is smiling and no one grumbles at the delay. Then when we’re back on the plane we sit and wait some more, and are told four passengers didn’t turn up: now their luggage has to be taken off the plane for security reasons. All in all we leave two hours late; a Chinese passenger next to us worries he’ll miss his connection in Beijing.
Meanwhile I feel I have a heavy cold coming up.
Sunday 2005-09-18 - Beijing, China
Preparing for the Olympics
In spite of the two-hour delay leaving Frankfurt the plane arrives only 15 minutes late in Beijing where Marie Josee, our travel companion, is waiting for us. Great to see her again — I give her a big hug. We’re at the hotel at noon, in a familiar neighborhood: our Rainbow hotel is only one block south of the Dong Fang hotel where we stayed last year (it’s being renovated now). Both hotels are in an area with relatively untouched hutongs: the old neighborhoods of Beijing — once all of Beijing was like this. To us it has a “fifties” atmosphere.
After getting Yuans and a delicious lunch with Carla and Gwendoline at a familiar neighborhood restaurant, The Tian’anmen square is next on our program for the day. We walk there through the hutongs and the modern shopping street Qianmen Dajie. It’s fun because today is a holiday, and nearly everyone has the day off: lots of people walking around, shopping, and just enjoying themselves on the Moon festival.
When we arrive at the square, there’s a difference, however: Next to the square, on the facade of the museum, there’s a huge display counting down to the 2008 Olympics and on the square itself lots of people are at work building enormous displays with sports themes decorated with lots of potted flowers: no day off for these people. China is preparing for the Olympics at a furious pace. The Olympic village is already built and ready — in fact it’s been standing empty for so long already it’s beginning to look dilapidated and will need some sprucing up before the games begin. The Beijing skyline is a wood of building cranes. In lots of other cities renovation (read: destruction of old buildings to be replaced by new ones) is going on at breakneck speed. Hopefully some of the hutongs in Beijing will be spared.
In the evening we go with the whole group to a hutong restaurant (a loose collection of tables and stools out on the street, and different vendors selling different dishes); we have Muslim mutton kebabs (hot!) and garlic kebabs, and a variety of vegetables, accompanied with a nice beer. A delicious meal for next to nothing.
Monday 2005-09-19 - Bejing, China
Imperial Palace
I wake up with a fever: my cold is getting a hold. I still want to go out though: I’m not feeling that bad. Together with Carla and Gwendoline I go to the Imperial palace today (also known as “The Forbidden City”; officially it’s the Palace Museum), right in the center of Beijing. Once we step outside, we find it’s chilly, quite a change from yesterday: we go back to our rooms to fetch a jacket and note most Beijing citizens are wearing long sleeves today as well. The atmosphere in the streets today is clearly different from yesterday when it was a holiday: now we see people going about their business instead of whole families strolling about lazily.
To my surprise we don’t have to pay right at the first gate (the one with the big portrait of chairman Mao above it) but walk right through onto an enormous courtyard, then on through another gate onto another courtyard. Only there we have to pay (60ұ) to go on into the complex.
What follows is quite impressive: one courtyard after another, all large or very large, with marble bridges over a little river and beautifully carved marble stairways; the buildings surrounding the courtyards all have brick-red painted walls and elegant roofs of yellow-glazed rounded tiles, topped by beautiful animals on all corners; the woodwork (especially below the roofs) is beautifully decorated with multi-colored paintings. The effect is quite pleasing, in spite of the enormous size of it all. Lots of potted plants stand around, there’s a pond full of lotus plants, here and there big bronze and marble sculptures of mythical beasts, and big bronze vats (purpose unknown). A few halls have impressive thrones but unfortunately you can’t go near, only peer at them from the entrance of the halls, and it’s rather dark inside.
It’s rightfully called the forbidden city: not only were ordinary Chinese citizens not allowed inside the walls of the palace grounds, but the whole complex — itself just a small part of metropolis Beijing — is indeed big as a city: I reckon he whole inner city of Groningen would easily fit in this area.
It’s a pity the restoration of the complex is still going on: many buildings are still in scaffolding and whole areas of the complex closed to the public. It will surely all be ready before the 2008 Olympics: maybe we should come back in the spring of 2009 to see it in its full glory.
Mask
On the way back from the Imperial Palace we decide to have lunch near Qianmen (south of Tian’anmen square), where Carla and I had lunch last year. I’m not hungry since I already had a bowl of noodles at the Forbidden City so I only have a beer while Carla and Gwendoline share a dish of sliced duck with onions (a kind of long, thin leek, actually).
From our table at the window we watch Beijing coming by.
I note a man coming from the underpass wearing a green surgical mask: not such a bad idea in Beijing with its polluted air, where the sky is rarely blue because of the smog. The sight of the mask reminds me of a comment from a Chinese I noted on an online forum that the TV news coverage of the SARS epidemic was rather biased: we were shown images of people walking around in masks, as if that was all because of the epidemic, while in reality it was already quite common. That brings to mind how the Chinese have had several campaigns to promote hygiene, for instance to discourage spitting in public: it used to be quite common just a few years ago but it’s rare now; no doubt the SARS epidemic helped bring that message home.
Having just arrived at this point in my musings about Chinese hygiene, I see the man unhooking the mask from his right ear, holding it aside, spitting a thick wad onto the pavement, and smoothly putting the mask back into place. It’s an exception. Really.
Sweeping a waterfall
A while later I note two young men standing outside, laughing, looking up: a waterfall is coming down right in front of the restaurant entrance but we can’t see what’s causing it. A girl from the restaurant goes outside with a mop and starts sweeping the water off the steps — rather futile since the water keeps coming down. Soon she’s joined by a colleague with a broom. Gradually the flood eases a bit and together they manage to sweep away most of the water from the entrance steps — only to have the waterfall start all over again. By the time we leave it’s almost stopped, but the steps are still slippery wet.