Day 52 - Tuesday 23rd May - Hami to Turphan

As we left Hami, Green warned us that the predictions were for wind and a dust storm and the temperature would climb to 30c. Turphan is the hottest part of China and one of the lowest an -50m below sea level. We thought that the drive would be all downhill. What we did not appreciate was that before we descended we climbed to 1600m.

The wind and the dust storm came. Luckily it was mainly from behind and blew us along. The dust swirled across the highway like snow spindrift. The landscape reminded me of the Painted Desert south of Oodnadatta.

The toilets in the truck stops for morning tea were a significant improvement on the previous day. They had both porcelain and running water. The trucks were over loaded and one looked as though it was about to topple over its load was so lop sided. They carried sheep and chooks, all crammed in so tightly the animal liberationists would have had a fit.

Clusters of wind farms dotted the landscape. This time they were working.

On our way in to town we visited the Astana Ancient Tombs dating from the Tang Dynasty for our lunch stop. This was probably the least visited tourist place we have been in China. The guards and staff were asleep when we arrived. The graves contained mummified bodies (in Perspex cases) and some well preserved paintings.

Turphan is thought of as a laid back town. Maybe it’s the heat that gives it a relaxed, torpid feel. Its also known as the grape capital of China. They are dried for sultanas and also sold fresh. Unfortunately its early in the season. The vines are everywhere, even down the main streets of town, as are the open irrigation channels to water them.

We have been in so many hotels now and changing every day it’s a challenge to try and remember where the car is parked, let alone where our room is. All have big marble foyers and then go downhill from there. Invariably everything works, although the internet has deteriorated significantly since entering Xinjiang. But we never forget what day it is because the lifts always have a carpet in them with the day, but unfortunately not the date.  

Day 51 - Monday 22nd May - Dunhuang to Hami

We were sharing our hotel with a bunch of students from business schools around China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. They were there for their annual university games. We had had a beer with some of them the night before at the markets. Today they were off for a couple for days in the desert. With the amount of gear they were loading into the trucks, either they were in for some serious glamping or heading out for a couple of years.

We were continuing westward along the G30 to Hami. The countryside was starting to look like a Mad Max set an the truck stops we pulled into for morning tea and lunch consolidated the point. Gone were the marble tiled flushing toilets to be replaced by some excavated ditches that made a long drop dunny seem glamorous. Tony thought he had seen something in Tibet which was more basic, but was not sure. The girls were challenged to believe that it was possible.

While there were piles of old tyres, trucks and other assorted rubbish adorning the sites, we managed to have a delicious spicy meal of local handmade fresh noodles with lamb at out lunch stop. I had the expensive $4 option. Lunch took a bit longer than we anticipated as the cook was not used to catering for so many. Appears they don’t usually get 7 people wanting to eat at once. But we are all still alive and no one was sick. Surprise!

We crossed into Xinjiang Provence during the drive. The full name is Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. There were police checks on the border and all the following toll gates. At the petrol station, cars had to register to get petrol (Passport and rego check), before w

Each time we came to a police check point, half the team would reach for their phones to take photos, while the others would be checking our documents. Then once they had done this they would line up with us for more photos with their cameras. It was special.

On entering Hami, the road was blocked by another police check and we were pulled aside. This of course caused chaos as every car that pulled past stopped in their tracks to take photos or packed in the middle of the road while the drivers exited to have photos taken with each of the cars. Eventually the police solved whatever the issue was and escorted us to our hotel (just lights, no sirens). Then they took their photos with all the cars.

Chinese security with be able to put together an encyclopaedic book of our travels through China with the number of photos of us they must have.

Hami is hot, dry and laid back. As usual the streets are all lush and tree lined with manicured gardens. It’s a small town with a population of about 500k. Like all places we have seen its modern. The old parts have long gone.

My new mates.

There were some tombs to see of the Hami Moslem Kings who ruled a large chunk of Xinjiang for 4 centuries until the 1920’s. from what I can glean it appears they were little more than local war lords who relied on the Qing Dynasty for support and power. The Qing on the other hand were happy to have them keep these western regions under control and not have problems on their western border. When the Qing Dynasty collapsed, and the Peoples Republic formed, it would appear that they were not interested in supporting the war lords anymore and took over. The Uygurs have not been happy since.

The cultural mix of people in the towns is changing dramatically. These are the Han Chinese. There are others with very white skin, some even have red hair and blue eyes. Others look middle eastern. But by and large from what we see, everyone seems to co-exist and get on with life.  

The biggest change is that the Uygur restaurants don’t serve beer. It could be the start of a dry section of our travels. Luckily the tea is always plentiful and interesting. A quick lesson on tea in China. We think of tea as short black leaves in hot water and green tea as stuff we get at the local Chinese restaurant. Over here tea can be any type of vegetable matter that is mixed with hot water. In the markets, I have lost count of the varieties and then there are all the flowers that get chucked in. Not to mention grains like Buckwheat that make the brew.

Day 50 - Sunday 21st May - Dunhuang

The numbers to visit the Mogao Grottoes are strictly limited and there are only two sessions each day. We were to visit in the afternoon. Unfortunately photography inside the caves is strictly banned.

While I had intentions of catching up on blogs, the morning was spent on the terrace of our hotel overlooking the Whistling Dunes discussing the technical issues with the Overdrive unit with the other mechanical people. Then emails and phone calls back to Australia to try to get clarity on whether we could easily fix the problem or if not fixed, would it continue to deteriorate until the whole OD unit failed.

The messages we were getting back were that the OD unit could not be fixed on the road. Pulling it our requires the motor and gearbox to be removed. A big task. We also got the message that previous experience was that the whole OD unit would not fail, but that I should drive in a way that does not cause further wear.

Modifying driving habits is not a big issue. Once we are on the highway, the overdrive is switched on and it drives normally. The problems really only manifest when in stop start traffic when de-accelerating and running against the motor. To avoid this I need to put the clutch in and use the brakes, rather than use the motor as a brake. Hopefully all will hold.

The Mogao Grottos were first occupied by Buddhist monks in the 4th century. At its peak, the site housed 18 monasteries and more than 1400 monks. Today it is known as one of the greatest repositories of Buddhist art in the world.    

The caves fell into disuse after the collapse of the Yuan Dynasty in the 14th century and were largely forgotten about until they were rediscovered by Auriel Stein in the early 20th century (the Chinese had not actually lost them, but rather he brought the treasurers they contained to the attention of the West). At the time that Stein arrived they were being cared for by a Taoist monk Abbot Wang.

Stein not only carved some of the paintings off the walls, but his greatest find was the Library Cave containing 50,000 manuscripts. Some were Buddhist scrolls brought back from India by Xuanzhang, others were more mundane official records of the times. But one of the most famous is a copy of the Diamond Sutra which proved that the Chinese were printing documents by the 8th century.

Stein was followed by a queue of French, German, Japanese and American visitors who also helped themselves to the art and the scrolls.

Needless to say the Dunhuang Research Centre which now manages the site only has 400 scrolls in its possession. There are over 10,000 in the British Museum in London and a similar number I Paris. Beijing also made a late grab for their share and some of those have ended up in the Beijing Museum, but only a few. A lot have disappeared in transit.

The “Foreigner Devils” as they are referred to, are not kindly thought of locally. Abbot Wang does not get a great wrap either. Needless to say the foreign museums are reluctant to return their treasures and would claim that they have protected these priceless treasures over the past century of turbulent times in China.    

Day 49 - Saturday 20th May - Jiayuguan to Dunhuang

We felt that the day was off to a bit of an unusual start when a group of 18 year olds in army uniform wandered into breakfast with machine guns tucked under their arms. The Chinese kept eating their breakfast and did not blink. Our group had a second look before checking whether any of the pastries were edible.

We left town on the Provincial S312. The bitumen quickly evaporated and the then the dirt road. Teams were rebuilding the road and we resorted to using their construction tracks and parts of the road that were newly constructed, but unfinished. I think we did this to view an old mud walled caravansari, rather than drive along the new G30 and watch cars speed by at 120kph while we wallowed in the dust at 30kph.

The ruins were interesting. So was the old mosque built in the 12th century with a pagoda style monument to some important Arab cleric who had died here at that time. It was also interesting to drive through the traditional farming villages, rather than just speed by on the highway.

It was hard to tell which of the single story, flat roofed, dun coloured, mud brick buildings were still inhabited and which had been deserted. They were all dilapidated. Farming was all on a small scale. The inhabitants a mixture of Hui and Han, Moslem and Buddhist. They were all very poor and being left behind by the rest of China. You wondered about the futures of the kids we saw playing by the roadside as we passed.

We eventually made our way back on to the G30 to continue our journey west with a little less dust and some more comfort.

Remnants of old walls and watch towers were scattered at intervals along the roadside. These made us question whether Jiayuguan was the end of the wall. The explanations were unclear. These were the remnants of old fortifications to protect from the marauding masses, but these were not the Great Wall.

The stark desert landscape continued to dry and flatten. Soon, the only farming that was being done here was for wind. Turbines seemed to stretch from one horizon to the next. There were also a couple of solar panel farms as well. The turbines were not spinning as we drove past. Somewhere between 5 and 10,000 turbines have been installed. The pace of growth has exceeded the capacity to absorb them into the electricity grid. While China is the largest emitter of green house gasses, it is also the largest producer of renewable energy.

I was keen to visit Dunhuang as it had featured in a number of the books I had read on China. From the travels of 7th century travelling Buddhist monk, Xuanzhang through to the adventures of the 20th century British explorer Ariel Stein.

Situated on the edge of the Taklamakan Desert, the 2nd biggest desert in the world, Dunhuang is dry. It’s home to the Mogao Grottos and also the Whistling Sand Dunes which are trying to envelope the town.

While driving during the day the gearbox issues in the car still persisted. Reverse gear would not engage at all when it was hot. I was not sure these were separate tuning and gear selector issues. David (one of the 3 very technical people on the trip and a maths/science teacher in a past life) decided to read the car manual while we drove through the desert to see if he could understand how the Overdrive unit worked. By lunch he had a theory that the problem was in the Overdrive unit. By evening he had done a web search and confirmed that the two symptoms we had of engine speed dropping in overrun (not increasing) and failure to engage reverse gear were related and due to glazing of the overrun linings. Unfortunately while the articles were eloquent in describing the problem, they did not advise how to fix, or whether the problems would further deteriorate and mean that the car would not drive forward.

Day 48 - Friday 19th May - Zhangye to Jiayuguan

The morning oil check revealed that the oil was over full. The concerns of the previous day that It had suddenly started burning oil was unfounded. I think the car must have been on a slope when I checked.  

The land around Zhangye was dry. Farming was isolated to those areas that had access to irrigation. As we passed a number of plots, the fields were being tilled by farmers with donkey drawn ploughs. In the background fast trains shot past.

The areas without irrigation were a desolate grey brown plain.

To the south the snow-capped mountains of the Qilian Shan followed us all the way to Jiayuguan.

We were told that Jiayuguan was the western end of the Great Wall. We visited the now restored / rebuilt fort with its western gate. Supposedly in times gone by this was the end of known civilisation. Travelers heading through it were venturing into the uncivilised and unknown. As the Silk Road developed, this point became a major taxing point for the Chinese. This was the end of old China.

We were in the narrow pan handle of Gansu. This corridor, bordered by the mountains to the north and south is called the Hexi Corridor. The Great Wall was built to the north to stop the hordes invading. It was supposedly impregnable. At least that was until Ghengis Khan came along.

The Western Gate was the point that travellers both entered or departed China. It was a major taxing point and provided security for those who had crossed the mountains and deserts to the west.

There were ways around the gate, but to do so meant aclimb of 4500m over the Tibetan Plateau or walk through the Gobi desert, neither of which seemed attractive to travellers in the past.  

At our morning tea stop, the car engaged reverse gear, but went at a ¼ speed. The diagnosis was that we think it’s a selector problem. Again no oil was used.    

Day 47 - Thursday 18th May - Xining to Zhangye

Started the day with a surprise at the morning check over the car. It needed an additional 1 ltr of oil. Up to this point it had not needed any since our service in Shanghai. A double check confirmed. This added to our worries about the mechanical issues.

At our briefing the night before Green advised to expect that the temperature would climb to 30c later in the day. However we did glean that before then we would be climbing further from our current altitude of 2200m to over 3000m. She was not quite sure how high.

Some of the team climbed into their cars dressed for 30c in shorts and T shirts, others were a bit more rugged up. It was a cool start in the morning, so both Loris and I had a few layers on.

The drive for the day was on the S227. S roads are the second tier Provincial roads that vary from 2 lane paved to goat tracks. The G roads are the 4 -6-8 lane divided National highways.

Not far out of Xining we were skirting around Datong another large industrial city, full of the now recurring power stations and petro-chemical plants  billowing steam and smoke into the crisp blue sky. However,  the industrial China was soon left behind and we started to climb through mountain villages. The landscape was decidedly rural. Kids absent, old farmers and labourers riding their bikes, trikes, and other farm vehicles. We were enveloped in the mountains we had been skirting along for the past day and the snow capped peaks were in our direct view as the road twisted, turned and climbed up the Daban Shan.

The tilled fields gave way to grazing country. Yaks and sheep wandering around the steep mountain sides. It was starting to get cool as the road continued in a series of seemingly never-ending switch backs climbing the mountains. The few on bikes who shared the road were rugged up in multiple layers of clothing and thick gloves.

We eventually reached the saddle at just under 3900m. The cars managed to climb well, but like their crews, were a bit short of breath. We were surrounded by snow at the summit.

The descent was much like the climb, a series of switchbacks. Unlike our Lao experience, the grades here were manageable and the teams were loving the driving.

We pulled into a lookout for an expansive view of the valley ahead and the next range of mountains to be enveloped by the other sightseers and the hoard of local vendors selling Tibetan Buddhist prayer beads and necklaces. The men were dressed like cowboys with wide brimmed straw hats. The women wore Hui Moslem headscarves. It’s a strange mix here. They draped themselves over the cars, they climbed in and even all lined up next to their chosen car and took a multitude of selfies. That finished they decided that they had better try to sell us something.      

The 900m descent down into a ragged town with a decidedly frontier feel. No high rise buildings insight. The single story flat roofed houses had both living quarters for the family and place for the animals. Some had herds of Yaks penned up inside, while others had long haired sheep and a few cattle grazed across the wide valley floor.

On leaving town it was a long steadyclimb up the Leng Long Shan all part of the Qilian ranges. Cars, and bikes were parked in groups all along the roadside and soon clusters of tents and other makeshift shelters occupied the protected spots. Groups of people were wandering the hillsides looking for a particular medicinal plant (some reports said it was a grub) that grew in the region and when dried could be sold for good profit in the traditional medicine markets.

The next pass, at 3857m, was adorned with Tibetan prayer flags. A long dragon like structure seethed with a million multi-coloured streamers flying in the wind.

We lunched in a small local restaurant in Obo with a group of construction workers and some other travellers. Not sure that the owners had seen so many white people before, nor were they geared up for the crowd of 10 people, so the women in our group helped out in the kitchen as the cook hand made and stretched our noodles and chopped up the Yak.

Obo was a quaint town with more of the Xi’an style monuments to Silk Route and with remnants of the old city walls and caravanseri still in tact. While an effort was being made to try to stimulate some tourism business, they had a long way to go judging by the number of passing vehicles. As we pulled out of town we were stopped by armed police driving a serious armoured vehicle. We were told that security along the Tibetan border was high for some reason which was not made clear to us.

We descended nearly 2400m into Zhangye back onto a flat plain backed by the snow capped mountains. Cropping, dry air, irrigation, some rice, vegetables and wheat, and the promised 30c.

We were back in Gansu province, to the north Inner Mongolia and to the south, the Tibetan plateau.

Day 46 - Wednesday 17th May - Lanzhou to Xining

Roses grow in the middle of the street

The drive out of Lanzhou in the morning was the usual bun fight of people, cars and bikes all over the place. This means:

Cars will not stop for pedestrians on the crossings, so they end up stranded between the lanes until they find a break. Even if we stop, they stand there, presumably assuming that we will mow them down once in front of our cars.

Crossing the Yellow River

Cars pulling out from a side lane or street, don’t wait for a break and drive perpendicular to the oncoming traffic and then turn into their lane. They will generally turn left immediately into the oncoming traffic and then work their way across the lanes facing the on coming traffic headon. No one seems in the least bothered by this manoeuvre.

Bike, trikes and anything else on two or three wheels also follow the same manoeuvers as the cars, but are less inclined to work their way across the traffic. Rather they will just continue on their way riding into the oncoming traffic. Interesting when it’s a whole group of them.

I had been assuming that once we were in the remote regions of China, the sky would start to clear up as we would have left the industrial east of China behind. This was not the case. Once we were out of Lanzhou we started running into very large industrial complexes, some manufacturing, but most looking like some sort of petrochemical plant. All billowing stuff into the air.

The frightening, and not entirely obvious part of this scene was the cabbage and other vegetable gardens that were neatly tended right up to the front gates of the plant and generally surrounding the complexes, so that anything that spewed out the chimneys, would invariably settle over the crops and be absorbed back into the food chain.  

In amongst the cabbages and the petrochemical plants we came across, what I presume was a dairy. There were thousands of black and white Friesian cows in lots and in a large shed, which looked like a milking shed. 

As we wound our way through the mountains, we had our first glimpses of snow capped mountains to the south. Although each range seems to have its own name, they are all part to the northern edge of the Tibetan Plateau and form the southern boundary of what is known as the Hexi corridor, a narrow strip of land between the plateau and the mountains and then desert of Inner Mongolia to the north.

For thousands of years the Hexi corridor has provided protection to China as invariably invaders were forced to enter China down it as the mountains to the north and south were too rugged or cold to bring armies over, except if you were Ghengis Khan. From an internal perspective, it also provided a taxing point for all goods entering and leaving China as all transport routes funnelled down the corridor. While the Silk Route had many branches, they all funnelled down this passage as well. Today, the highways and rail routes also all converge down the corridor. 

We arrived in Xining before lunch although we had been tempted to take a detour. While we exited the G6 tollway at Xining, the road continued on to Lasha in Tibet. But our actual plan was a little more mundane. Our visit was a little more local to the The Kumbum Tibetan Buddhist Monastery for the afternoon just outside of Xining, before heading back to the hotel.

As we passed through Xining on our way to the temple, the car started to do weird things. It was as though there was a disconnect between the engine and the drive train, even though the clutch was holding. When we were running against the motor (not accelerating), we might have been doing 70kph but the engine revs would drop away to say 1500, instead of something like 2500, and as we dropped gears the engine revs did not increase. Lengthy discussions and Mike thought a it was a tuning issue, I was a little more circumspect. When accelerating and driving on the highway, there was no problem.

We could have been in Tibet for all we knew as it was bitterly cold at the Monastery as the winds blew down from the plateau.

Tibetan Buddhist Monasteries are different to the traditional Chinese and for that matter other Asian. The statues of the Buddhas are similar, but the shrines are draped with cloth, like multicoloured flags. Yak fat candles burn before the Buddhas and prayer wheels adorn the temples. The devoted also prostrate themselves, full length, on the ground. The very devout walk around the temple or complex, prostrate themselves, stand, take a step sideways, prostrate and so it goes on until they have circumnavigated the temple. At a large temple this may take days. To protect themselves, they wear pads on their knees, a heavy full front apron and wooded paddles on their hands (like the handboard I used for surfing), to allow them to slide out to full length. The Kumbum temple complex was still fully operational and housed 800 monks as it had done for nearly 1000 years.

On our way back to the hotel we were stopped by a random police road check. The first time a patrol car had pulled us over. They stopped in the middle of the road halting us and all other traffic. Documents were inspected. Green as other Chinese tend to be, was very robust in her discussions with them and TV Tony (the cameraman) had his camera out and stuck under the noses of the police. All our paperwork was in order, the police cameras then came out to take the obligatory selfies, we waved them good bye and traffic started moving again.

Xining, is like most of the other towns we have visited. Large and modern. There is always a central square where the locals congregate in the evenings, a food street and lots of modern malls and designer shops.

We ate in the food street and then wandered in the park after dinner to watch various groups dance, from modern to the classic, three groups competed for attention. And ofcourse there was the light show.

As we head west the ethnic melting pot is changing. Han Chinese are still predominant, but we are starting to see lots of other minorities.      

Day 45 - Tuesday 16th May - Tianshui to Lanzhou

The usual 0800 start timed us well with the peak hour traffic in Tianshui. Luckily it was not too heavy and the route out of town was relatively direct. Once out of town and on the expressway, the transition from green hills to a dry landscape unfolded.

The hills were still terraced, although a lot unused. Many had newly planted Cyprus pines. This task of greening China is mammoth.

In the valleys, cropping was intense, although we rarely saw a person in the fields. A wide variety of vegetables and wheat were the staples. The farm villages we very traditional. Similar in some aspects to the hutongs in Beijing. A surrounding wall enclosing a court yard with a number of buildings opening into it. Low, flat roofed, generally made from mud brick and unpainted.

Our destination for lunch was the Shui Lian Dong Buddha grotto and monastery. The Buddhas in this case were carved into the cliff face during the Qin dynasty in the 6th century. Off the beaten track and rarely visited. It was a change to visit a destination and not be swamped by other tourists. In the main the visitors who were there came to worship at the Temple in the Water Curtin Cave.

The surrounding countryside reminded us of the Bungle Bungles. High domed brown conglomerate peaks. Somehow we managed to convince the staff that it would be a good idea to be able to drive our cars up to the grotto, instead of catching the bus. This would provide a great photo opportunity for the management of the site with our cars.

The track up to the Water Curtin Cave was paved and lined with flowering trees. The sky was blue, the air cool as we were at around 1500m and we heard birds chirping for a change. The monastery in the cave is still operational housing a number of monks and a group of very aged helpers who were engaged in keeping the place spotlessly clean. One of the old monks or female helpers (communication was a bit of a problem) brought out a old silk scroll for Loris to look and proceeded to explain its meaning. Although the temple was predominantly Buddhist, it also had a number of Taoist elements and symbols. Apparently, this merging of the religions is not uncommon in China. 

We had lunch under the trees at the base of the grotto. A small stall was selling what looked and tasted very much like Cornish pasties. Chilli flavoured potato wrapped in pastry.

Although it was reported that Lanzhou was once the most polluted city on Earth, we did not experience this extreme. The sky hazed, but it did not seem much different to what we experienced in other places. Needless to say there is a significant amount of industry in the area. This, I understand is as a result of a policy to move it out west to create employment and also push the Han population into the western regions.

Lanzhou is a city of around 3.5m. It’s the capital of Gansu Provence. Its also the only city on the Yellow River. Like the other cities we had visited, it was brightly lit at night and had a night market where we headed for dinner after some work on the car.  

I had noticed some traces of water seepage down the side of the engine block, below the head, so we tightened the head bolts and will monitor the situation. The good news was that the glued bolts holding the exhaust flange bracket had held.

The Lanzhou night market was a smaller version of Xi’an. Crowded, noisy and a mixture of muslim and other ethnic groups lining the alleyway, with tables and chairs in behind the vendors cooking stalls. The range of food was wide. Lots of lamb including the heads and tails, seafood was also surprisingly plentiful. Noodles and fresh fruit. We settled for a bowls (as opposed to a “bowel” which is commonly used in local signage) of what looked like meat and vegetable ravioli in a broth, chilli added separately. AU$6.50 for the two.

As it was now dark we then headed off to the Yellow River and light show, a very mini version of the Bund. Still plenty of people. Although the river is not wide, it was rushing and lived up to its name.

PS: have added new images to 11th May post. Its a bit of a challenge at present getting the time to edit and then the bandwidth to upload.

Day 44 - Monday 15th May - Xi'an to Tianshui

We were back to the old pattern of driving a bit over 300 kilometers for the day, but an early start was planned as Tony had found a monument marking the start of the Silk Road. I don’t think it had any historical significance, but was there as a marker. So it was that the Silk Road marker was the first stop for a photo shoot.

The blown exhaust flange gasket had been repaired and the car was running much quieter, to everyone’s relief. The problem was that the bracket that holds the exhaust pipe to the exhaust manifold had come completely undone. When we tried to reattach it we discovered that a couple of the studs that held everything in place were pretty dodgy.

Once on the road, a range of mountains appeared on our distant left hand side. By morning tea we were off the flat land and wheat fields, gaining altitude and immersed in the Qilian Shan, a large range of east – west running mountains. Tunnels and winding road became the norm once again. One tunnel followed the next, the longest was 13k long.

The Qilian Shan is an important range in China’s geography. The south side is the watershed for the Yangtze, while the north side is the watershed for the Yellow River. On the south, the climate is warm and humid. They grow (and eat) rice there. On the north, its dry, warm in summer and cold in winter. They grow wheat and eat noodles. The mountains are over 4000m high.

The backbone of the range is a series of National Parks and is the home to a wide range of animals including Golden Monkeys and Pandas, we are told.

Our lunch destination was the Maijishan Grottos. There are 4 lots of grottos in China that get a 5 star rating. These are one of them. The grottoes consist of a couple of sets of large Buddha figures carved into the cliff face and a series of caves and galleries carved into the cliff face which are lined with Buddha figures. They date from the 7th century. To view them you climb this amazing scaffolding that hangs off the side of the cliff face. First class Chinese engineering, steel and concrete (it used to be timber wedged into the cliff face), it shook if you stepped too heavily. The top gallery was over 100m high. Those who suffered vertigo, were most uncomfortable.

While countryside in the first part of the run through the mountains was lush, but by afternoon it was starting to dry out significantly.

It was then a shortish run into Tianshui, (a small city of some 3m people) for the night. Before leaving the cars for the night we checked the exhaust flange repairs and found that one of the 3 nuts had already fallen off. We wanted to fix it that night, but had to wait and hour or so for the exhaust to cool down. We then glued a new nut on with a metal epoxy compound and left it over night to set.

Day 43 - Sunday 14th May - Xi'an

In stark contrast to the previous day, it was cool and wet when we rose in the morning. We were off to see the Big Wild Goose Pagoda.

This place holds a special interest for us as I have followed with interest the story of Xuanzang in our research for the trip.

In the 7th century a Chinese Buddhist priest, Xuanzang travelled to India to get a better understanding of Buddhism. He documented his travels in a book called “Journey to the West”. The book was and is ground breaking as it not only documented in detail his journey, but also the geographic, economic and social aspects of the lands he travelled through. It is a marvellous historical record of the time. I have not read it, but in recent years a Chinese girl retraced his journey and wrote “10,000 days without a Cloud”. It’s a beautifully written book about 3 generations of her family, the current state of Buddhism in China and of course a record of her journey following in the footsteps of Xuanzang.

When he eventually returned to China the Emperor built the Big Wild Goose Pagoda to house both Xuanzang and some of the manuscripts he returned with.

Xuanzang also left a load of manuscripts and sutras at the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, where we are also headed in a few days. More about that then.

Like most of these old buildings, the original Pagoda had been destroyed by fire and earthquake several times over the centuries, so that the current one dates from the Ming times – 14th century.

We jumped on the bus to take us to the Pagoda to find out we had a new member of the team. Tony (now called T2, so as not to be confused with Tony Wheeler) is a garrulous and very confident young kid from CCTV (China Central – the local equivalent to the ABC or BBC). He has been assigned to cover our trip from Xi’an to London. He found out about his assignment yesterday.

Apparently there was strong interest on the news bits that T2 filmed in Beijing and a decision has been made to follow the journey and expand it into a longer documentary. Tony W is the central figure as there is a lot of interest in him. The Chinese see him as the “father of modern tourism”. The Lonely Planet books sell very strongly in China and independent international travel is growing strongly now that the restrictions on movement have been removed (the government has no worries about people scarpering off once abroad, they are of the view that there is only one place in the world for the young, educated and ambitious). 

T2 was not prepared for the journey to London. He basically has a small bag with a change of knickers, nor has he explained his extended absence to his wife and son. They thought he was off to Beijing on a photo shoot for a couple of days, not to London.

As you may appreciate, we have a lot of questions about this. Most of which are unanswered. A couple of fundamental ones like how is he going to travel and what about visas get answered with “head office is working on it”. Then there are the issues that affect us – starting with do we want this – but that line of questioning sort of ends with: when in China do as the Chinese government wants. Needless to say that most of the group is comfortable with the new addition and are taking a very Confucian attitude – we will just see how this unfolds. It does help that T2, speaks good English, is very personable, and regales us with the stories he has filmed that have been rejected for screening by the mandarins. 

After the Pagoda we wandered off to the North West City Antique market looking for more Mao tat, but other than a few motley posters could not find much. Loris vocalised the “we should have bought those plates in Jingdejang when we saw them line” a number of times.

Somehow when we went searching for a late lunch we got lost in the back alleys, just outside the old city walls. Firstly we came across a large group of guys sitting on a corner with paint rollers on extensions. A few were on bikes and many had little signs. All were earnestly examining their mobile phones. Seemed to be that if you wanted a painter in Xi’an you came to this corner.

A little further down the road, we noticed that the glitz had well and truly disappeared. Were had wandered into the recycling station. Or to put is more accurately recycling street. Vacant yards and shop houses were all full of rubbish being sorted for recycling. Seemed like every shop had a specialisation: glass, plastic bottles, polystyrene etc. We were hungry, so we kept walking.

Pre-dinner we gathered for beers around our cars. Tony had been given a case of beer in Beijing and was keen to offload it. It was lucky that the coffee and vanilla flavoured stout was very cold, as it was not really something I would have gone out and paid good money for.      

I understand that there was an article in Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald and also in the Age about the Chinese Belt andRoad strategy. For those that did not see it, the Chinese are spending huge amounts to build a railway to the west along the old Silk Road corridor, upgrading ports in neighbouring countries, building oil and gas pipelines from the middle east and also spending on roads to help truck traffic. Its all directed to upgrading transport links for the export of Chinese goods and import of raw materials.

A meeting was planned in Beijing last Sunday to discuss with regional leaders including Putin.

When we were there, security in Beijing had been choking. Not sure if this iwasthe normal state of affairs, or it had been stepped up for the summit. The place was awash with Belt & Road posters and every pole has a banner fluttering from it.

The initiative is huge as you will appreciate from the dollars, but its not new. It has been around for some time. I allude to it on the front page of my web site. From the Silk Road perspective it is 2 fold. An upgrade of the physical road through to Istanbul and an upgrade of the rail link through to Eastern Europe. As the article says, it also includes port infrastructure and also pipelines for gas and oil.

At this stage as we have only just reached Xi’an, we have not seen the impact (although we are currently driving on toll ways as the alternative is unbearably slow). However once we get to Horgas in the north west and cross the border in Kazakhstan it will be interesting to see the impact. I understand that a couple of years ago Horgas was a sleepy border town with a few thousand people, but now its got a couple of million.