Travelog
This diary tracks our progress along the Silk Roads, with episodes appearing in date order, most recent first. You can get to earlier entries by turning pages at the bottom of the screen.
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- Written by Ellen Winter
- Category: Travelog
Happy Samhain!
We were informed by a please looking memeber of the hotel staff where we are staying in Xian that is was Hello-in today. There was a brief thunderstorm earlier, but now it is sunny.
I have just read on Wikipedia about a woman in Penwith in Cornwall who was the first person to register with the Inland Revenue as a 'village witch'. I wonder if there are any 'city witches'?
Current book: Bill Bryson's Brief History of Nearly Everything ***/*****
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- Written by Andy Stone
- Category: Travelog
We have seen he famous Panncotta Terriers. Or is that Tapioca Wurlitzers? Terracotta Warriors? Whatever, were they were pretty impressive both in terms of individual beauty and sheer numers: Emperor Qin Shi Huang (the first guy to unite disperate territories into a single Chinese state) was buried with over 6,000 individually sculpted life-size figures of infantrymen, generals, charioteers and archers in a bid to protect his passage through the underworld. Although much has been destroyed there are still a good collection of figures left, all very beauiful and on a staggering scale, and the site itself is interesting as it is still a working archaeological dig: there is plenty of excavation still to do and it actually looks to be being carried out in a responsible way.
Getting to the Terracotta Army itself was an odd experience for me - we decided to take an organsied tour. This, as you know, goes against all of my instincts and much ridicule and scorn I myself have poured on tour parties myself over the years. But hey, everything's worth trying once eh? And the tour covered lots of other sites that we wanted to go to, all a fair way away from each other; its cost wasn't much more than the total cost of all the entry tickets so it was easily justified. With a sense of foreboding I boarded the coach, and surely enough after about 2 hours I was reduced to the same switched-off slack-jawed dull-eyed zombie state I have always noticed in tour group members before - aaargh! The main problem with these things is that you get herded along and told stuff so you don't actually need to use your brain or eyes at all. No active engagement required when you can passively recieve it all with no effort.
As it turns out, the tour was well constructed, serving up the poor stuff first (trip to badly staged factory shop, followed by visit to a local museum housing the items not good enough to be shown in the excellent Shaanxi history museum we went to the day before), and improving quickly via the excellent Huaqing Hot Springs Palace, lunch, and the Terracotta Army followed by Qin Shi Huang's tomb. And once I'd gotten over my switched-off stupor and roamed around by myself for a bit I was able to take the best bits of the tour - background information given, convenient transportation from place to place - and combine them with being able to experience the amazing things I'd come out here to see. In the end the thing lasted 10 hours, we got to see loads of good things that we wanted to visit anyway, and we had absolutely no frustrations trying to organise details becuase this was all done for us. I must say that I still do not feel drawn to tours, and that this one still lacked any sense of the discovery or self-achievement that we could've got by doing it for ourselves, but must concede that when done well a tour can be a real hassle- and time- saver. There's no way we would've got out as far as some of the places we went to independently and all in all it was a top day, making our huge detour to Xi'an more than worth it.
It turns out that Xi'an is the start (or end depending on your perspective) of the Silk Roads. I had assumed that the terminus was Beijing but of course when trading was esablished the capital was here, not in the east. This makes our time here even more special as the main aim for this second half of the journey is to try to retrace the silk roads back to Istanbul and on to France. To be stood here in this great city, which thanks to the dust, ancient city walls and towers, and vibrant muslim community already feels more like a Central Asian city than a Chinese one, it feels as though we have reached a major milestone - a dizzying feeling that brings a real sense of acomplishment tinged with trepidation: after we have detoured to South East Asia this journey home promises to be the trickiest yet. Hurrah again for traveling!
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- Written by Ellen Winter
- Category: Travelog
We are currently in Xi'an. Beijing was a wonderful experience, for the amazing cultural treasures and the fantastic time we had with our hosts. The day we went to the Forbidden City we got back at 6pm, had a great time making dumplings which our family and their friends, then tried to make out the rules as they settled down to a long night of Mahjong, with side bets. There was no confusion as to which country we were in.
We also now have Chinese names - mine is Wen Huilan, which is a bit like Win (for Winter) Auspicious Orchid, although the Hui bit means lots of things - all good, I am assured. I think this is Xuemei and Yinghui's idea of a joke because they said it was a very traditional Chinese name, very tender sounding with overtones of being a good housewife.
We also found out that Lao means old/respected; to take something out of water; work; or to cook pancakes, depending on the intonation. No wonder that when I tried to use my rudimentary Chinese to say I am vegetarian (woor char sui) in a restaurant, the waiter nodded understandingly, and quickly brought us a pot of green tea.
We went 'soft sleeper' from Beijing to Pingyao - the equivalent of 'kupe' in Russia. The two Chinese businessmen we shared with were a bit surprised, but as we all quickly settled down to sleep, it was all OK. We arrived in Pingyao at 5.30am, were met by someone from our lovely hostel, and whisked away to some much needed solitude. As we got to the hostel at 5.45am, you can imagine, I scampered into bed like a squirrel up a tree. Andy was very confused. "It's only an hour to breakfast! I though we could go and explore." As if!
When we did make it out, at a respectable 9.30, we found Pingyao was lovely, but, like much of China, very polluted - mostly coal dust everywhere. Many people smoke, and spitting is very much still evident. It's not the occasional discreet bit of saliva - and the accompanying gurgles and hawking have to be heard to be believed.
We negotiated our way onto a bus to the Qiao House, about an hour away from Pingyao. This was where one of my favourite films, Raise the Red Lantern, was filmed. It was interesting to see a place that had not been restored to within an inch of its life, but without much English signage, much of what we saw was unfortunately, unintelligible.
Yesterday we hired bikes and headed off out of town to the Shuanglin Temple. It took us about half an hour of fumes and 'hellos!' to get there, and gave us great views of the local agriculture. When we got there it was a lovely Autumn day, with a few other tourists around, but not many, and lots of peaceful sunlit courtyards and ancient painted sculptures to peruse.
We are becoming very indebted to UNESCO for getting to most places before us, and sorting out which bits are really worth seeing. World Heritage rocks!
When we got back to Pingyao, (neither of us could quite believe we were casually cycling through central China, without a care in the world) we toddled round the ancient walls on our bikes, but were reluctant to part with the 120Y (about a tenner each, an extortionate price here) to go up onto the ramparts. We went on to a famous Taoist Temple, only to find we needed the same expensive ticket to get us in there too.
We returned the bikes and mooched around the streets, looking at the innumerable old buildings (some were still in the process of being re?-built) and their associated knick-knack shops. We came across a bunch of Chinese tourists being herded in to an interesting looking temple and scootched in at the back, to spend a happy half hour in one of the best Taoist temples I have seen, with great views over the city to boot. Ha!
We got on our 'hard sleeper' train to Xi'an last night at about 7pm. We found ourselves next to a couple from Sheffield and a couple from Auz. The train was noisy, dirty, very smoky, smelly, and our berths were next to the toilets. Quick chat - open window, earplugs in, eyeshade on, thank genetics for poor sense of smell (Ta, Mum!) and slept until prodded by an officious railway personage at 6am. Welcome to Xi'an.
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- Written by Andy Stone
- Category: Travelog
Not officially, anyway. But as you can see we are accessing it, because we've been able to add this article! We have out-nerded the CCP and shall continue to do so, ensuring that full regular updates on our travels continue albeit at a slightly slower pace than ususal (caution is urged, after all). So please bear with us if you don't see articles as frequently, or if we are slow to respond to emails. We are still alive, happy, healthy and having the time of our lives in this wonderful if overly paranoid country.
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- Written by Andy Stone
- Category: Travelog
Yesterday we took the bus to Badaling and walked upon the Great Wall. I'm amazed that I didn't fall off becasue the realisation that I was stood on top of the Great Wall of China was so dizzying and improbable that my head couldn't really get around it. In itself it is quite a fantastic piece of engineering when you see it snaking over such tricky and vast distances, especially when you remember that most of it was constructed about 200 BC, but really it is the sybolism that staggered me: the Great Wall has always been a far-off exotic marvel that I really did never expect to see. As it was there were plenty of visitors near the cable car point, but a little walking in the opposite direction found solitude. Stunning views from the wall in a very beautiful part of China and one of those life-affirming moments.
Other than that we have had a wonderful time, doing plenty of tourist things as Beijing demands (is there anywhere else in the world with such a concentration of first class attractions?) - the Summer Palace was a delight, the Forbidden City was, well, being renovated mostly but what we did see was super, and today I went to the Taoist Dongue Temple, a kind of chamber of horrors Chinese style where there were many depictions of weidness such as 'department of wandering ghosts', 'department of 15 ways of implementing death' adn so forth. Its not called Beastly Court of Hell for no reason, and my only regret is that I didn't get to come here with Vincent Price.
All these things were very good fun, but the best part of our visit has been staying with our hosts - such warm and generous people as so many Chinese people are. To be taken to Chinese cafes off the tourist beat, to help with making supper - regional speciality of dumplings, and to talk about life in China has been an amazing honour and the perfect start to our time in China. If Beijing is anything to go by China is doing really well at the moment - it is a safe and happy place where people have time for each other, and where there is plenty of opportunity. However so much is being built, in 'partnership' with the west, that I very much hope that the things that make China special do not get forgotten along the way.
Off to Pingyao tomorrow by train, which is a well preserved Ming dynasty city, made famous as the location for shooting Raise the Red Lantern (actually shot some distance away, but the rough area is correct). We shall stay 1 night before moving on to Xi'an in central Shaanxi province where we can explore much of ancient China, as this was the capital until the Tang dynasty. Very exciting and I can't wait - China is really amazing!