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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.
