Hi from China 来自中国的问候
those long roads plays a guy out
Driving into China from Kyrgyzstan was at least 120 to 150 kms border crossing. I believe the largest no- man’s land between countries and with what the roads were like, it almost took all day just getting over the border. All our gear had to come off the truck and get X-rayed. So when they found a banana on the truck we were actually fined a minimal amount(we thought it was just meat and vegetable matter we couldn’t bring in). No worries we said as they didn’t confiscate the beer or alcohol .We have now left the red Russian bear behind for the China Dragon. Our first stop was Kashgar – a fairly large city – very vibrant with motor scooters everywhere. What surprised us they were all electric and drive anywhere. As you walk down the sidewalks they try to pass you and as you didn’t even hear them, one had to be quite careful!! I had to quit talking so much so I wouldn’t get run over!!!
old town of Kashgar, Musslim section
still have statues of the caravaners
Kashgar market where they are making pasta
can't wait to try this at home - might take practice - anyone up for it??
Kashgar market buying spices
Keith trying on a fur hat at the market
Calypso needed a new windshield and a MOT testing to make sure we were road worthy in China. But we had a restaurant at the hotel called Johnny’s that had wifi. You’ll never guess where we all went for supper the first night. After quite a spell without it – we were all busy checking it out.
Jim servicing Calypso so that we don't have any breakdowns
Next we were off to Turpan – the second lowest city in the world. Of course it was very hot again. The area is well known for growing grapes but mainly for making raisins here. I just didn’t know how many types of raisins there are! Also another main crop is melons. They have many more types than we do back home and they all taste great. In fact China has grown a watermelon the size of a loonie!! Can’t wash your face with one that small.
grape drying buildings made out of red clay tile
Jiaohe - an ancient village made of mud just outside Turpan
For the first many days we travelled through desert and then very dry rocky area. If a little irrigation was done – the terrain changed drastically and it was amazing what they could grow. The roads are being built quickly – four lane highways everywhere, with dividers and big fence along side. This meant it was pretty tricky to pull off and camp or do washroom breaks.
Desert everywhere except when you have water !
As it was July 1st for us and July 4th for Emily, we got together and did a games night. The number of games actually got shortened drastically as the roads were so bad we didn’t camp till late. The game we played – spin around a shovel with your head down on the handle 5 times then run and pick up 3 peas with a spoon and run back to our team mates with the peas was a blast!! But our fellow travelers didn’t fair too well on the quiz of Canadian and American trivia – and yet they don’t understand that we don’t always get theirs!! Back to the roads we were driving the one section of 100 kms of bare bones dirt just scraped up to start a road – the dust was so bad one couldn’t see out the windshield and there was 4 trucks- all passing each other – coming towards us – horns blaring – I closed my eyes – didn’t feel any bumps so it must have all got sorted out – don’t know where they all went as the track was only two lanes wide if that. The infrastructure is taking a bit to catch up ie. The gas stations are there with some having a restaurant and small store but the washrooms aren’t.
The one I was grossed out the most - had behind the restaurant a 2 foot ledge that was full of human waste all plopped up along the whole ledge!!! YUCK!!!!! Car / truck / bus horns are blaring constantly – we think it’s a case of who has the loudest horn, instead of who has the biggest …. . The horns are also used instead of blinkers or if they are just saying hi to us ( we are still quite the novelty)and they are also waving away plus they are also used instead of brakes!!! Can’t believe we haven’t seen more accidents.
Some of the roadside cafes that we have been trying out are surprisingly clean in the kitchen although not so much at the table area. But as they all proudly show off their kitchen you get a good feeling about the place. Then we point at what we want in our soup or noodle dish. What is surprising is that there are hardly any rice dishes so far. That must come in another area of China. One restaurant I just pointed at a the Chinese word on the menu and said that one – the owner shook his finger and pointed at one lower down on the page and basically said this one – which tasted great but I kinda wonder what I would have gotten!
town square at night
We stopped in a city called Dunhuang where our beds were sheets of plywood on top of the mattress – we all got out our camping matts so that we could get to sleep. But here is where we visited the Caves of a 1000 Buddha’s. Not all of them are open but we did visit at least 10. Many were sculptured in the 10th & 11th century. All the painting is still the original color – the deep blue coming from Afghanistan. They are actually monitoring them quite closely with CO2 monitors checking for damage as there are so many visitors.
we weren't aloud to take any pictures inside
Next we stopped in Jia Yu Guan, the west end of the Great Wall of China. This part isn’t as wide as near Beijing but it sure was spectacular non the less. It was to be our last camp night and we were all ready to enjoy ourselves as we think we are really going to miss this part of the trip when we only have hotels. We hiked up the wall to some look- out towers after supper to catch the sunset with our glass of wine. It was just so neat we didn’t want to come down. But when we finally did, maybe a little while after many others, there were police cars with their lights flashing away and our mates were busy packing up the tents!. They had decided in their great wisdom that no we couldn’t camp there after all and escorted us to a 4 star hotel. With lots of bartering we were settled in the room by midnight. The next day we visited a new museum, just finished in the last year - dedicated to the Great Wall and I must say it was very impressive. Visiting the wall and the museum turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip so far.
great wall walkers
Inside a newly opened museum of the great wall
We'll say bye for now but will give you the next installment of our saga from the rest of China in about two weeks and for the Spot followers hopefully we will continue posting everynight. We are staying in more hotels now and getting trickier in some places to remember to pull the spot out (so bear with us)
No comments:
Post a Comment