I'd been home for about three weeks and was feeling that I was definitely in the wrong latitude for the time of year, because it was so darn COLD. I've become much more used to a tropical climate; although, we were heading for our driest winter on record. Perth hosts an event each year down the Avon River with hundreds of competitors in small powerboats, or canoes; this year the event had to be shortened because some sections of the river lacked a vital element - water. The main dam was only around 30 percent full near the end of winter....not a good trend.
And so....to a place I rarely go these days: Perth DOMESTIC airport for the first flight, 2,723 kms (1,627 miles) east to then head north to Beijing! Landed at Melbourne domestic terminal at 06.00 - next flight to Singapore was not until 11.00. It was a strange feeling to land at an airport and then to not negotiate customs and immigration.
I had another interesting conversation with a taxi driver. We were talking about travel and I'd told him about my business volunteer assignments and he started asking for advice. He proudly told me that he'd saved $20,000 to put toward buying a franchise and was thinking of a pizza business or a video rental outlet. I think that I talked him out of those two particular options; as we approached the airport, he wanted a business card to seek further advice.
This time I was not on a volunteer assignment, ultimately paid for by the Aussie government and consequently travelling 'cattle-class'. I had ‘paid’ for Business Class all the way using 199,000 accumulated frequent flyer points (plus $559 in taxes, etc) for an airfare valued at around $7,000. It sure makes a difference on long flights with a flat bed and little perks like an express lane past queues at immigration and tasty meals served as separate courses; oh, and metal cutlery...
Business class on Qantas was good with seats that laid flat. BUT the next two legs from Melbourne to Singapore and then Singapore to Beijing were on the Qantas budget airline, Jetstar. The seats, while comfortable, only reclined like the usual economy class. Like most budget airlines, the passengers down the back had to pay extra for everything....food, entertainment, etc. Up the front we were given comfort packs, served individual meals of a reasonable standard, followed by extras like a range of cheeses with a good quality port or Bailey's Irish Cream. We were issued with good quality headsets. Presenting the movies and videos was different - they handed out iPads with a range of options...I watched the new Aussie movie: The Sapphires; a good flick!
The Jetstar crew placed blanket, flash headphones and comfort pack on the seat for every business class passenger - on the first leg, there was no one sitting next to me (in fact, just over half of the seats were occupied - down the back seemed to be packed). When I embarked for the second leg, there was, again, no pack next to my seat, and I thought 'great'. BUT it transpired that they had overbooked and had to allow 18 economy passengers to sit in business class, but: they were not provided with meals or entertainment without paying extra. It was rather embarrassing enjoying a nice meal, then served dessert, then cheese and port, and watching a movie, but sitting next to someone who could not have any of that. He was a Singaporean guy and he was rather annoyed as he'd booked his extended family of 8 people with a travel agent, but the airline claimed that only 3 were in business-class, the rest were in economy, he was only in business class because economy was overbooked.
The flight out of Singapore was delayed half an hour due to a faulty smoke detector. I was the first person off the full aircraft in Beijing and thought that I could breeze quickly through immigration. After a very long and convoluted walk through a deserted terminal (thank goodness for signs also being in English), arrived at immigration to see long queues from previous flights; it took about 45 minutes to clear immigration, then customs. After nearly 30 hours of travel - arrived in Beijing; I left home at 22.30 on Friday night, arrived at the hotel in Beijing at 03.00 on Sunday morning. I had travelled in and out of time zones to finish up with Beijing being the same time and Perth. The 'joys' of travel!
You rather quickly learn in China that you never stand politely in a queue to be served or board an aircraft (or whatever) or you will be there until Doomsday. You stick out your elbows and shuffle forward to get to the head of the mob. Elevator rides are also interesting, when you are standing cramped among bodies and think the conveyance is full, several more people will still squeeze in.
The first day of the excursion was not too auspicious ... There were only five us on this trip (two separate guys from California [Franklin and George], a couple from South Africa who had moved to New Zealand [Bob and Sharon], and me). As arranged, we met for the first time in the lobby of the hotel at 05.30 to be taken to the airport. We could not find the driver and discussions with the hotel staff ultimately resulted on a small SUV zooming up to the hotel entrance, squeezing us and luggage into the vehicle and then a wild ride to the airport, where he left us at the main bustling Beijing airport. We did not have tickets or know what airline we were to travel with, or what flight time or number. We knew where we were supposed to fly TO and swam through the crowds to what we thought was the correct check-in counter. SOMEHOW the travel agent's representative eventually found us and took us to the correct desk to check-in. The guy then guided us to the departure gate and demanded a tip - he didn't get one from most of us.
The flight out of Beijing was through mist so we could not see the ground; after the mist cleared, we were flying over endless dessert (it looked like outback Australia, except that there were snow-capped mountains on the horizon).
We checked into an amazing-looking hotel in Dunhuang, had lunch and a short rest before heading to the huge sand dunes that dominate the terrain and mounted camels to ride along and then up the face of the nearest dune. Those of you who have ridden a camel will appreciate the way they unfold their back legs to stand up which nearly throws you over their neck, then the front legs extend (then the reverse happens when they sit so you can disembark). A guy was leading our little group of camels, including a couple of Chinese girls; he told them that he would take their photograph for Y10, and added that it would be Y20 for the foreigners (us) not realising that our Aussie archaeologist spoke fluent Chinese, who caught him out.
Next morning we were back on the road to visit a couple of gateways that were all that remained of a 10,000km section of the several 'Great Walls' of China.
OK, short clarification pause here....
Some of you (including myself before I did a little research) may consider that there was one huge Great Wall of China looking like the traditional photographs. In fact, there were several constructed over hundreds of years, and not just one long wall, several walls were built to protect different areas. They were constructed of different materials, not all looking like the usual impressive traditional Great Wall in Beijing. Some were rammed earth or mud interspersed with layers of straw.
Similarly, there was not just ONE Silk Road, there were three primary routes thousands of kilometres apart, plus a variety of options.
ANYWAY ... We headed off into the Gobi Desert and visited a few sites that are all that is left of some 10,000 kilometres of wall. We saw two huge gateways made of rammed earth and a few hundred meters of a section of wall that was constructed of, basically, mud; interspersed with layers of straw.
Next day we drove to visit the truly remarkable Mogao Caves, an amazing insight into the effect of the Silk Road over hundreds of years as they encompass a huge variety of cultures, religions, traditions and fables. They are not natural but carved out of the cliff face. No one is permitted to take photographs in the caves or grottos. Each one usually had a statue (or statues) to Buddha and they are painted with amazing murals, if all the murals in these caves were placed side by side and a meter deep, they would stretch for 35 kilometres. The caves were originated in the fourth century, and by the Tang Dynasty (610-907) there were some 1,000 caves. They are numbered and in cave 17 they discovered a room behind a false wall that was packed to the ceiling with ancient documents, dating from 406.
We subsequently visited caves in other areas (that had also been plundered). Gold leaf on the walls had been stripped by locals, the faces of the Buddhist murals had been defaced by subsequent Islamists; all the statues had been stolen, prized murals had been cut away from the walls and removed. The caves were tributes the Buddhism, and the complex murals had been painted on a layer of mud applied to the hacked out cave wall, making them subject to prying away and stealing, but also (in one instance) revealing murals from a pre-Buddhist era.
The murals are a testament to the wide range of influences, cultures and traditions that have permeated the region for over 2,000 years.
A sad element of much of the impressive antiquities of China is that so many were looted by foreign explorers and many are now in museums in Germany, Britain, Russia, etc. Some in Berlin were destroyed when bombed in WWII.
We had each made a donation to the work at the Magao Caves and were taken to places where Chinese tourists are not allowed; we had what could only be called a banquet with the director and were each presented with a beautiful book about the caves.
That afternoon we flew for two hours to Urumqi. A huge but isolated town of 3 million people, it was 38C, 100F, in the town but there were snow-capped mountainside on the horizon. They also have an interesting concept of time....because of the distance from Beijing; there should be a two hour time difference. The government decreed that they adhere to Beijing time; however, some work to local time. Consequently, depending on whom you ask the time of day, it could be 9am or 11am. We were upgraded to suites at the hotel here - massive rooms incorporating a huge lounge with bar, two bathrooms and a large bedroom normally at around $800 per night each.
This area is also renowned for its jade of various colours, it is mostly found along the river and the banks look like the remnants of a huge mining site over several kilometres.
Next morning we took a couple of hours to drive into the Taklimakan desert and mounted camels for an hour's ride through pristine sand dunes to the remains of the smallest Buddhist temple in the world that was unearthed in the desert and they built a museum around it, leaving the temple in situ.
The roads were lined with poplar trees, up to ten trees deep. Every adult male is obliged to plant a tree a year - that's a few trees in a population of millions; the rights to poplar trees would be a good business. We also passed through acres of walnut trees. Other areas specialised in cotton, and then there were acres and acres of grapevines. In the grape-growing regions there were hundreds of ‘houses’ with ventilated walls on most properties where they hung thousands of grapes to let them dry naturally in the desert dry heat to make sultanas.
The little bus took us 520 kms across desert for an 11 hour drive, through a few towns based on a nearby oasis. At one stage we were just 150km from Tibet. Driving through the desert, the radiator boiled a couple of times. The driver would ease off the cap and fill the radiator with bottled water. The second time, he removed the radiator cap and there was a fountain of boiling water showering about a third of the interior of the bus; luckily, we had all disembarked. We saw several small twisters (or 'willy willy' as we call them in Australia) running across the desert.
Some areas were predominantly Moslem. Wandering through the back streets we saw traditional medicine shops with dried snakes and assorted animals hanging outside; there were open 'bins' seething with scorpions, even a live squirrel I thought was as a pet but was destined to be included in a medicine. I saw a sign on a restaurant for 'Mustafa's Muslim Hamburgers', many people are wandering the streets dressed in traditional Muslim attire, older men had the traditional beard, most women had their hair covered, but only a few were wearing a burqa, some were driving motor scooters and cars.
We travelled on aircraft, small buses, camels, donkey cart and a train. One driver on a short trip to an airport fell asleep; luckily, Bob was sitting up front and saw him nod off. On the train, we had ‘soft sleeper’ class with four bunks with mattresses. Well, they were ‘soft’ but not much ‘sleeper’ as two women and two kids were also in the ‘booth’ with Lyndon and me.
My daughter had played with my new iPad for a few minutes and reckoned that I had to have a game called 'Angry Birds'. At one stage on the long train ride I had three little Chinese kids on my lap pushing each other to play the game. When I tried to move them on by playing solitaire, they were trying to move cards to places the cards would not go! I had one ear piece from my iPod in my ear, so a kid crawled on up my lap and stuck the loose one in my other ear.
There were times when it was a good option to be a male, due to the practicalities of ablutions. We could, of course, utilise a tree or a wall; but when travelling long distances, the bus would take designated toilet stops. Some of the 'toilets' were really in disgusting condition, most were squat toilets, some had no water, some were just a hole hacked in the concrete floor with previous contributions on display. The facilities on the train were basically a squat toilet where you could see the sleepers zipping past and all contributions were disbursed between the railway tracks. The sole female on our trip (Sharon) would often walk into a toilet facility, take one look (or smell), execute a brisk about turn and march straight out again,
The antiquity of the region is mind blowing, we visited mosques that had been built before Christopher Columbus set sail, and they were almost 'modern'. One morning we visited the Sunday Livestock Market in Kashgar...what a madhouse! Vendors were selling cattle, sheep, donkeys and horses. Donkey carts, scooters and huge trucks were driving through the hundreds of milling people. We were walking past a large truck when a guy grabbed the halter on a bull and just pulled it off the back of the truck a meter drop to the ground, the animal's feet were slipping on the truck bed and showered us with 'bull shit'!
In the horse market area a guy seemed to be test driving a horse to purchase and was ridding it flat out, back-and-forth through the crowd. The extent of basic treatment of animals would keep any Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals fully occupied.
The extent of security was invasive throughout China - hundreds of kilometres from borders with Tibet or Pakistan, the bus would be stopped in remote locales for checks (usually just some sweet words from our versatile guide, Askar, or the driver's identification was enough). In several hotels a contingent of four or so armed army or police were stationed in the lobby. At airports, even for domestic travel, there were ID checks and luggage was x-rayed up to three times. I just kept thinking that it was a way to employ a few more thousand people out of billions. We were told, rather 'tongue-in-cheek', that there was officially no 'unemployment' in China!
We visited the second deepest geographical depression in the world, with over 4,000 km2 of land below sea level; we were some 155m BELOW sea level in the desert. We marvelled at the Karez irrigation system - starting some 2,000 years ago, they dug horizontal holes up to 60 meters deep in the slopes from the mountains to the desert until they hit the water table, then dug long vertical tunnels connecting other bores to channel the water to their crops, this made the area a vital component of the early Silk Road.
There was a range of dining experiences with subtle differences in regional and ethnic dishes and, while we usually dined using chopsticks, we rarely had dishes that may be served by your local Chinese restaurants.
There was significant construction going on in cities we visited. We saw a huge area of new housing built to relocate people, but they refused to move and the houses are empty. There was considerable construction and infrastructure (such as sewage) going on in ancient towns, but some inhabitants were reluctant to abandon their current slum abode because it would disconnect them from their ancestors.
On some of the territory we traversed, I’d look around and wonder just what country we were in, it often did not seem like China. We were regularly travelling through predominantly Muslim country, but just 1.5% (20 million) of the Chinese population is Islamic. China officially recognises a staggering 55 minority peoples and ten groups are predominantly Muslim. There are thought to be some 40 million Christians. The diversification of the country’s influences over thousands of years is truly mind-blowing.
On the way home, I thought it rather incongruous, wandering the bustling Beijing airport with the sound system emitting Strauss waltzes. Even relaxing in the Cathay Pacific lounge, Strauss was serenading....
The meals in business class on Cathay Pacific from Beijing to Hong Kong and then to Singapore were wonderful; in fact, on the next flight on Qantas to Perth, I skipped dinner, laid the seat flat and went to sleep.
I left the hotel in Beijing at 06.45 on Monday and arrived home at 05.30 on Tuesday.
Back to the mundane for a while…..
Bunch of photos pruned down from over 600. Thanks to Sharon for some she took of me!
https://picasaweb.google.com/116314286847914749962/SilkRoad?authkey=Gv1sRgCKugscD5tI71qAE