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Tuesday 2004-06-29 - Kuqa, Xinjiang (China)
Buddha caves - from the outside
A two-hour drive away from Kuqa are the Kizil Buddha cases; similar to the Thousand Buddha caves near Turpan (which I visited two years ago), but supposed to be more beautiful.
The road out there takes us through some really spectacular landscapes: the Tien Shan Mountains here consist mostly of layers of sediment only partially hardened into real stone. In some place, these layers are still perfectly horizontal and water erosion (!) has worn them into near-perfect pyramids — these formations are a protected landscape. Farther on, the layers have been pushed around and in one area are now nearly vertical: erosion here has worn away the softer layers, leaving near-vertical ‘walls’ of the harder stone; sometimes such a wall has toppled but many stand. After an hour of such impressive views from a fairly good road, we suddenly take a turn to the left onto a track which first takes us through a wide river bed and then on into the desert which looks like a flood plain (maybe there are flash floods here when it does rain?). Our driver actually gets off the bus to check the track (marked with a line of little flags) before turning into the side track. We’re vaguely worried: are we really heading into the right direction? When a taxi with one passenger overtakes us a little later, it seems we are; after another hour over rough tracks, half-finished roads and detours around road-building works we do indeed arrive at the site of the caves.
Another bus arrived just before us. At the gate, the ticket-selling lady waves us through but when we have climbed a lot of stairs and arrive at the first of the caves — all locked with a padlock — it turns out we do need to buy a ticket after all, as well as a guide to open all those locks for us. So down again we go, with my knees and my hurt foot screaming in protest: stairs are not good for me now!
So I pass: I’m not going to climb all those stairs again (and then lots more) and descend them again; these caves may be better than those near Turpan (the pictures I see later do suggest that) but at least I have seen something similar already. Instead, I take a nice quiet (and slow) stroll in the little wood at the foot of the mountain, where I spot two cuckoos who refuse to sit still for a photograph, and (at last!) make my first picture of the elusive flowering tamarisk bush (until now always only seen from a moving bus). Pity about the caves but I have a nice time anyway, and the landscape on the way here was worth the trip all by itself.
On the way back over the same tracks, half-finished roads and detours our driver suddenly stops. Photo stop? The landscape is beautiful. No — it turns out we have a very tire: no surprise really on these tracks covered with sharp stone fragments. Our driver is quick replacing the tire, obviously having done it before.
Thursday 2004-07-01 - Daheyan, Xinjiang (China)
Deserted desert
I wake up at seven; the sun is shining and an attendant is bringing a new thermos of hot water. We’re riding through a nice mountain landscape, obviously quite high but these mountains are covered with coarse grass; we see some snow-capped peaks behind. Every now and then we go through a tunnel or over a viaduct across a valley. There’s very little sign of human habitation.
Farther on, the landscape gets harsher, a mountainous desert. Curiously, we see a lot of small groups of houses along the railway, even villages — all completely deserted: only the walls stand, all roofs have disappeared. There’s no sign what the inhabitants of these houses could have lived from: no fields, no stables, just houses; yet they must have lived from something. The very sparse vegetation seems barely enough for grazing a few goats. At one point, we cross a river and upstream we see a whole town, also completely deserted: no roofs, no windows in any of the houses and apartment blocks; a power station that no longer works. Why were all these houses, villages and towns built? Were they here before the railway came — or built because of the railway and abandoned again when the railway was completed? Something else? The number of completely deserted villages here in the desert is remarkable but we see no explanation, no clue.
At a little past noon we arrive at Daheyan, a small factory town in the middle of the desert; a bus is waiting to take us on to Turpan, which isn’t on the railway line.
Thursday 2004-07-01 - Turpan, Xinjiang (China)
Hot!
Turpan lies in a basin, the lowest point of which is at 154m below sea level: the second-lowest on earth and sometimes called the “Oven of China” because it’s so hot. So hot, in fact, even I think it’s hot! (It wasn’t this hot last time I was here, but that was at the beginning of October — now it’s summer.) Our hotel, the Turpan hotel, is along the renovated Nian Qing road though, a pleasant avenue completely shaded by grape vines with walking paths on both sides, and the central road accessible only for public transportation. The hotel is OK, nothing special, but doesn’t offer a place to sit outside in the shade — no problem: the local branch of John’s Cafe across the road does. While the kitchen here isn’t as good as that in the Kashgar branch it’s a nice place to gather for a meal or drink — or just sit and write. After a drink in the shade, Carla and I brave the hot sun to find the bazaar, about the only ‘sight’ in Turpan I haven’t seen yet and rumored to be nice.
The rumor is correct. It’s a really very nice bazaar, and since most of it is covered we can stay in the shade to look around and shop a little. There’s a pleasant kind of organized disorder — or is it disorganized order? Trades and goods each have their own corner or street, a whole hall of restaurants, another with just dried fruit and nuts, a street with shoes, and so on, but it isn’t all straight and new either and large enough to get lost in the labyrinth of streets and halls. We see all kinds of foods that are new to us; frequently we are offered a taste if we just look (pickled whole garlic bulbs for instance — I get a clove to taste and it’s very nice) and we end up buying a bag of spicy rice crackers: nice with a cold beer). The people, both buyers and sellers, are a mixture of Uyghurs and Chinese here, all very friendly. I also get myself a nice pair of red-and-black fabric shoes I can use as house shoes — I can use the salesman’s stool to try them on and they cost me only 15 Yuan (1.50 EUR); I don’t even bother to bargain!
Friday 2004-07-02 - Turpan, Xinjiang (China)
Too hot!
Most of the group has hired bikes for today to see some of the sites around Turpan, planning to leave early. I hate biking — I live in Amsterdam and don’t even have a bike! — and I’ve seen all those sites anyway, so I decline and when Carla leaves at 7:00 I just turn around to get some more sleep. At 10:00 I’m woken up again by Carla returning: they’d seen the Imin minaret and adjoining mosque but then Carla decided it was actually too hot to ride a bike and returned, immediately followed by the others. They’ll get a taxi later in the day to see a few other sites…
Fast Internet
I go to the Internet service across the road (a few houses from John’s) to catch up with my site. I’d asked the lady about the price yesterday: only 5 Yuan per hour (it’s 10 per hour in the hotel). In fact, the shop is a small business center, offering photocopies, fax, phone, and Internet access (from a single machine), apparently competing successfully with the business center in the hotel.
When I arrive this morning, there’s only a young boy in sight, 10 years at most. “Internet?” I ask him. No problem, he turns on the modem, the monitor and the machine and waits until the connection is live: I can now work with Windows XP on a modern machine with a 100Mb ADSL connection. Half an hour later mum returns, switches on the airco for me, and asks if I want to drink something. I end up typing for more than three hours in a nice, cool room, with a large glass of hot green tea beside me — and paying only 19 Yuan (less than 2 EUR) for the privilege. “Tired?” she asks, when I get up to leave. Yes, but I’m not finished yet, I merely need a break; I’ll probably be back in the afternoon, I promise her. I still have a lot of catching up to do!
First a little walk to check out the grand “Tour and Culture Square”: I see not much changed here in Turpan since my last visit: I can find back all the shops I remember and buy some snacks for tomorrow on the train. Then after a short siesta in the hotel, I go back to the Internet service for another batch of items in my travel blog. Three more hours of typing takes care of all of Kyrgyzstan. Then back to John’s cafe for a cool beer. I feel I’ve earned it.
Desert storm
Yesterday at the end of the afternoon, a wind started blowing, people at John’s cafe hurried to lay down all the flower vases standing on the tables, so they won’t blow off. Today, the pattern repeats itself, only more so. With Turpan lying in a deep depression in the desert, dust storms are to be expected, but I never experienced one.
After drinks at John’s, some of us have moved to the Uyghur restaurant next door for dinner (very nice, and the friendly girl serving us is soon absorbed in an English-Uyghur phrase book); suddenly, the wind gets a lot fiercer, and it starts to get dark; when we look outside, the air is suddenly full of dust and it’s hard to see any distance. Curiously, through the dust, a few very thick drops of rain are falling as well. Poplar trees are bending over in the strong wind, their crowns almost perpendicular with the trunks. We’re sitting safe here, but looking outside it’s a bit scary.
Power fails a couple of times; a guy from the restaurant sits in the corner, constantly fidgeting to switch between normal and emergency power so we have light to eat by. Thom, sitting at the Internet service next door, is not so lucky: when the power fails, the computer just switches off, and he loses all he’d typed…
Saturday 2004-07-03 - Turpan, Xinjiang (China)
Pizza with chopsticks
There’s a popular theory that says that Marco Polo found pasta on his travels in Asia and introduced it in Italy. That’s quite possible since we’ve seen a wide variation of pasta all over Central Asia, both dried, in all kinds of shapes and even colors, as well as fresh hand-made noodles. But of course it’s equally possible the introduction of a new food went in the other direction or that pasta was simply invented in multiple locations. Today though, the theory gets an extension:
At John’s Cafe here in Turpan, one of the specials posted is something called “Kashgar pizza”; I have no idea what that is (and never seen it in Kashgar) but I’m curious, so I order it for lunch. What arrives is a nice surprise: food for the stomach as well as food for thought. Imagine a flat, round, local nan (bread, baked with some sesame seeds on top), neatly cut into pointed slices. On top a big mound of stir-fried vegetables: bean sprouts, spinach, onions, tomatoes, coarsely chopped garlic (a lot) and mushrooms (a little), all topped with a little melted cheese — and served with chopsticks. I have to think a little before tackling it, ending up eating some of the vegetables with the chopsticks, then a slice of bread, and so on; it turns out to be delicious.
But is this just a local interpretation of ‘pizza’ or is it maybe the other way round? Flat round bread, when covered with vegetables, looks just like a pizza bottom. Could Marco Polo also have found pizza in Central Asia and introduced it to Italy? Who knows, but it’s at least possible….
After my late (and big) lunch I end up eating only a fruit salad for dinner. Around eight we leave in the bus which will take us to Daheyan station again.
