Archive for October, 2007

The train arrived in Datong early, about 6am, maybe slightly earlier; all I remember is thinking that it was dark and I was still very tired.

We sleepily walked round the station towards the ticket office, where we aimed to purchase our bed and transport for the coming evening. On the way round though we were stopped by a guy clutching a flyer, he asked us in very broken English if we were looking to book a trip to the Caves and the Hanging Monastery, which is exactly the reason why we were there.

The place we’d been recommended to use by other travellers wasn’t yet open, and wouldn’t be for hours. So we agreed to go with this guy who took us to the fifth floor of a nearby hotel and sat us in a rather anonymous room, telling us to wait for him as he’d return at 7:30 with two other people for the trip.

We wondered if we’d done the right thing, and if this guy was going to return at all. But it was far too early to look for an alternative and the hotel at least offered us somewhere to sit and clean up till it got light at least. We were also given some steamed bread rolls to eat (Which has to be amongst the blandest of foods every devised).

At 7:30 the guy returned and beckoned us to follow him to his car where we met his brother sat waiting. So we climbed aboard and waited a few minutes for the other pair of travellers to arrive. An Austrian called Valerie and German called Matias.

We first went to the Yungang Caves at Wuzhou Mountain, a collection of man made caves holding 51,000 stone carved statues.

The caves and statues date back to the year 450, during the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534). Many of the more exposed statues have long since perished through weathering, but the more inner protected examples still look almost perfect, even down to their paint work.

The central caves are protected by wooden pagoda structures built onto the face of the mountain.

It wasn’t just the statues that were impressive, some of the wall carvings were so detailed and vast it was hard to think how long had been spent developing each cave, and also, we had to ask the question, Why? I suppose religion never has been the easiest thing to understand.

Towards the end of our cave trip, we started to attract the attention of a Chinese tour group, who proceeded to ask us to pose in their photographs; not something I’m normally against, but having spent the past few days sleeping on a train, I don’t think we felt overly comfortable appearing on camera. Still, they seemed to enjoy it, which attracted so many more little tour groups to ask the same of us; I think we felt like tired celebrities by the end of it all.

So after we shook off the rabid fans, we made our escape to the next location, the Hanging Monastery.

The drive to the Monastery took a little over an hour (I think, I was sat up front listening to His Dark Materials on the MP3 player drifting in and out of consciousness).

It’s an impressive sight from the very outset, a wooden building wedged midway up a shear cliff face, with only a few strangely looking wooden struts for support.

My memory of this place from images I’d seen long ago, was more of a building standing over a river. Now there was water near the base, but no where near the amount that I’d imagined it to be… Then as we neared the site we found out the reason for this discrepancy.

A Large dam has been erected just before the temple. I’ve not had any luck in finding out any info regarding when the dam was built or it’s effects on the area, so if someone with better net access (i.e. Not behind the Great Firewall of China) can find out some info, that would be great.

So we joined the army of tourists and climbed aboard the Monastery to test out it’s stability for ourselves… Although there’s always one person that wants to push things.

The many rooms contained religious statues and prayer points (Maybe they’re for people to pray that the place doesn’t just fall down).

So once we’d completed our walk around and tested the strength of the place, we gave it the tick of approval and got a lift back to Datong centre, were we’d have 7 hours to kill till our train journey back to Beijing.

The secret to killing 7 hours is something we’ve worked hard and I’m glad to say accomplished, in the form of World of Warcraft Trading Card Game. It’s a wonderful time killer and as long as there’s some light and a table to use (or improvised table as it was at the footings of Mount Huashan). So we found a restaurant, grabbed a beer each and sat down to play. The hours whizzed by and the beer managed to thankfully go down slowly, which meant for a very cheap afternoon.

We finally boarded the train, went to sleep, and then woke up back in Beijing, at 5:30am desperate for a shower.

After a day of pure lazing and watching DVD’s in the common room of the Bell Tower Hostel, in the fine company of a few other travellers; we picked ourselves up, slapped on our bags and jumped a taxi to the train station. This was to be the start of our three nights of train sleeping (Not the most hygienic way of living).

Our first destination was Pingyao (And not any of the other variants I’ve called it over the past week to people) a small walled town that resembles a more traditional style of Chinese architecture, albeit a more updated and touristy version.

We were met at the train-station by a woman from a local hostel, and although we weren’t staying for the night, she still helped us buy our onward train tickets and allowed us to store our backpacks at her place for the day.

We received a bit of a shock when we arrived at the hostel, and this had nothing to do with the decor or the squat-toilets (The decor was very nice, and the toilets were western style). No sooner had we stepped up to the door, when we spotted two other travellers that we’ve been randomly bumping into since Irkutsk (Russia). I suppose we should get used to the fact that many of us are going in the same direction now, but these two, Alex and Mareike seem to show their faces time after time; it’s a good job they’re such great people.

So after doing a bit of catching up, and having some breakfast, we set off around the old Chinese town, to do the tourist thing.

There are many museums and sites around the town and although some didn’t interest us that much we had to buy a universal ticket that granted us access to them all, so we aimed to get our moneys worth out of the trip.

First stop was at some bank museum, it seems that Pingyao was one of the first locations in China to start using a banking system due to the amount of silver and gold being brought into the country, with its aim to be used in other provinces. So banks were started to help quickly pass over the silver to other locations. It’s clear that the town is very proud of it’s banking heritage (It should put more effort in to the current banking system though as there’s only one ATM in the whole place) because we quickly found out that there wasn’t just one bank museum, there were lots.

We soon found some excitement in the town, in the form of a Martial Arts Museum, and to be more specific, the weapons in the Martial Arts Museum. So turning all geeky, and utilising the fact that there were no other people or staff around, we began to mess about with the weapons, posing in various stances with varied looks of crazed aggression mixed with child-like joy on our faces.

Maybe you just had to have been there to understand the moment, or maybe you’ll just accept that we’re a pair of sad nerds.

The weapons kinda set the tone for the day as we soon discovered that even the many otherwise dull banking museums held some sort of weapon stash within their halls (Yes, there was geeky fun to be had everywhere).

We also found that Pingyao held some of the best examples of Chinglish we’ve read so far.

Getting away from the banks, and also the many escort museums (which had nothing to do with the Ford model of car, nor the ladies that are paid to be friendly) we decided to take a trip to the temple, which sticking with the weapon and combat theme held some fantastic statues of battle ready minions and deities.

After some lunch we continued around the town, making sure we let not one bank museum escape our grasp… We simply couldn’t pass up the chance of seeing yet more weaponry (I hope the same thing catches on in the UK, It would certainly make visits to the Natwest a great deal more interesting).

So after the final scoot round, we hi-fived Chairman Mao…

…grabbed some food back at the hostel and set off to get the train to Datong, the next stop on our tour.

Zzzzzzz

After doing all the touristy stuff around Xian we decided it was time to rough it again. We knew there was an old Taoist holy site on a mountain nearby so we decided to get a bus out to it and to camp over there. The mountain is called Hua Shan and has 5 peaks joined at the top at a height of 5000 feet by Green Dragon ridge. There are 3 ways up to the north peak, a quick path that starts half way up, a cable-car, and a 6km+ path that is very old and is mainly a staircase, a 6 kilometre staircase. Imagine going upstairs for 6 clicks, in the midday sun, with full backpacks. It was Deans idea and I justified it to myself as a good way to keep fit and help get rid of my paunch.

However when the bus arrived at the town it was pitch black. We knew the path was at the other side of the train track so we looked for a way to cross it, we found this…

Spooky.

Then we followed a dirt-track with our torches until we found a decent place to pitch a tent and get a brew going.

The next morning we packed up and were thinking of trying to follow the path up, but in the end decided to go back to the town and follow the proper path, that was the last sensible thing we were to do that day.

We found the entrance to the path, a national park with an entrance fee, and began to follow it up, it followed a stream and was pretty steep from the start, there were a lot of Chinese tourists following the path, most were coming down it and all of them stopped to check the weight of our packs, take pictures of us and tell us we were crazy. I was inclined to agree. But the views were breathtaking.

Some houses were built into shear cliffs with stairways to them carved into the rock face. Of course we had to climb up.

The Taoists have the right idea as religious buildings go, keep it open and full of greenery. And the idea of loving every leaf and finding balance strikes me as a bit better than what a lot of the other ones preach. Plus the Yin and Yang is a pretty cool symbol. It definitely appealed to me anyway.

By the way, at the half way up point we had a sit down and played cards, we were exhausted already and the sun was beating down. My lips tasted salty and i dreaded to think what my back was like I’d sweat that much, and Dean didn’t look much better. Still, onwards and upwards.

The stairs we were following became steeper, about 4 inches across at the top and about 10 high, good job there were chains to hold on to. Oh and at one point a little brook decided to follow the path just to add to the fun.

We were resting a lot and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt but at the 5km stone we were feeling tough.

We pulled ourselves up the last stretch and arrived at the base near the North peak where the cable-car lands and there were suddenly loads of people (cheats). We both collapsed, exhausted in pools of sweat.

All we had left to do was a short trek to the actual peak to take a few vista shots, and then get the cable-car down.

We agreed to spend the next day doing nothing but vegging in the hostel. All in all it took us about 4 hours to climb greater than Ben Nevis on a staircase.

After lingering in the luxury of civilisation for too long we decided to get our boots and packs back on and hit the road. We had had enough of big cities so we grabbed a sleeper train to the countrysides of Shaansi and Shansi (It’s all in the tones apparently), for a bit of Chinese history and respite from the big city. So Xi’an (Population 5 million) here we came.

We were met at the train station by a guy from one of the local hostels (this would become a feature of the trip) and haggled with him for a room price. We got a good deal so we went back to their Hostel, the Bell Tower, which was really nice if a bit big. We booked a tour with them for the next day too and met a couple of girls from the UK who were sharing our dorm. One of them was from Saltaire where I used to live and knew a few of my mates, small world. So we obviously decided to go out on the razz to a nightclub.

At the club 2 Chinese DJs were having a rap off, and when we bought a bottle of Vodka from the shop in the discotheque (really) two guys brought us to a table, and along with the vodka brought 6 bottles of Orange, some popcorn, a bowl of fruit and a seafood platter. It would have been surreal had it not been for the several beers each we had had before going to the club.

The next morning at 8.30 we were up for a pre-organised full tour, ouch and whoops! Still we made it, and were only a little late. On the tour with us were a Thai, a middle aged Spanish Couple and an Ecuadorian so I got to speak Spanish, in fact English pretty much came second there so that was novel.

Firstly we went to the Banpo museum, which is the archaeological site of a 6000 year old farming culture.

Then we were taken to see “how the terracotta warriors were made”, which was in face to a factory where they make replicas to sell to tourists, needless to say we didn’t buy any, but I did manage to throw up in the toilets instead. It also meant I could get this picture of what Dean would look like as an eternal guardian of the first Chinese Emperor made out of porcelain.

Apparently the hairstyle is how you determine the rank. As you can see Dean is an inside half.

We then went to see the Hot Springs where many Emperors exclusively went to bathe, it is now a huge touristy place, but it has a fantastic statue of the first emperors concubine, who’s heroic proportions we attempted to grope.

Incidentally, not only were the plethora of Chinese tourists there not offended by this, they were in fact taking photos of us and laughing along.

Next we were taken to “see how silk was made”, in fact we were taken to a Silk shop, but we did get to see how it was made, and it really was fascinating. One cocoon of a silk moth can produce over a kilometre of silk too. And it was discovered over 2500 years ago by a lady; Hsi-Sin-li (although lady is stretching it, she was 14). We got to see silkworms too.

Then we finally got to travel to See the Terracotta Warriors. These were all made 2200 years ago to guard the tomb of the first Chinese Emperor. However, after he died there was a huge uprising and the mausoleum was caved in, forgotten about and undisturbed until 1974. Either that of the gigantic soldier/horse potters in the area made them in the 60s to create an almighty hoax and generate a few tourist dollars. The excavation was impressive as is the fact that each soldier had a unique face. All of the Warriors are man sized by the way.

Finally we went to the actual tomb of the guy, but as it’s buried beneath a pyramidal hill and has mercury in it, it’s not open to the public so we walked up to the top, took a few pictures, and back down again.

All in all it was a fun day out.

I’m gonna ruin something for you now, so be prepared for a little upset. There’s no Great Wall of China. There are Great Walls of China, loads of the buggers; but there isn’t one singular wall, and there never was. Oh and you do know that it was a myth about being able to see it from space don’t you? And there’s no Easter Bunny!

Ok, so now you’re all miserable I’ll try my best to make it up to you.

The Great Wall we got the chance to hike along was amazing, a real find, and thankfully, unlike so many other things in this new age of Chinese Tourism, it hasn’t been rebuilt in the past few years.

We were invited by two of Nick’s (Tom’s Cousin to those out of the loop) friends, Maya and Jeremy to visit this particular part of the wall just out side of Beijing (Inside Beijing it’s illegal to walk on any unrestored parts of the wall).

So after a 90 minute journey that took us comfortably passed the more popular sections of the wall, which even at that early hour looked like the worlds most longest and pointless queue, we arrived at the base of a rather broken and jagged bit of ruin.

Maya informed us that the interesting story behind this section of the wall was that it was built by two very different teams; the first section mainly used uneven rock pieces, crudely put together to build up the main part of the construction, whilst the second section used a much more sturdy brick, applying an overall more impressive and stable job. The difference was striking.

As you can see from the above photo, there’s not much left apart from rubble and a base. This meant the hike was a little hairy as the occasional step could dislodge a loose brick.

The hike overall was fairly tough going due to the way the builders followed the flow of the mountain range. It’s not uncommon to be climbing up and down some fairly steep angles. I’d hate to think what it must have been like for the soldiers that were defending the wall, especially during wet weather as some of the steps up and down were treacherous.

To help pace ourselves, we used the look out towers (or what was left of many of them) to stop and have a drink and a bite (of a rotten apple in Tom’s case).

Reaching the newer section of the wall it was easy to spot which of the two teams were the better workers.

This section of the wall didn’t require much imagination to see how it used to be, as it’s still standing pretty well on it’s own (apart from a few sections). The walls still have their carved out arrow slots, the typical castle wall style brick work and in most places the steps.

Oh, and the occasional guard that’s not been told that he’s no longer required to defend the wall

It was nice to walk through such a scenic piece of land without having to constantly move around other tourists (Such a snob I know), which is amazing when you think that we were so close to Beijing still. In fact the only other people we saw all day was one other Chinese hiker doing a solo trip and a TV camera crew, as you do, filming a news article about trying to protect unrestored sections of the wall from being damaged by hikers (or something like that). I totally agree, bloody hooligans coming round and walking over everything.

The hike was amazing, spectacular views from start to finish; and speaking of finishing, Maya and Jeremy organised for us to have food and drink at a villagers house just at the footings of the wall. A fine way to finish a good hike. The woman grew all the food on her land, and as far as I know the animals (Rabbit and Chicken) also came fresh from the local area.

The feast was fantastic a great selection of dishes all washed down with some fine beer.

Tom even got to eat the prize part of the Chicken (No not the leg!)