Hotan Jude

I had a near spiritual experience in Hotan. Nothing to do with Hotan itself, as upon arrival it seemed to be just like many of the other Chinese towns we have visited. Dirty, noisy and chaotic. Now, while Rich seems to enjoy being part of the madness of the thoroughfare I have more difficulty appreciating the finer points. Especially when you have just disembarked a 25 hour bus journey. I don’t feel the need to expand on this too much, as I am sure even the most laid back of travellers would empathise that this is a trying experience at best. A well known fact amongst my family and close friends is that I don’t ‘do’ lack of sleep very graciously. On these occasions my sense of humour has bolted leaving nothing but dust in it’s wake. So it is fair to say that I met Hotan in less than my best mood. After a good old cry and a morsel of sleep we awoke with plans to see some carpets and silk. 

After a few dead ends we stumbled upon the Atlas silk factory which was nestled serenely amongst an avenue of poplars on the outskirts of town. The setting was idyllic, it was quiet, the sun was shining and, it was a silk factory.

I have had textiles and all things fabric coursing through my veins since a tender age. My earliest, and possibly slightly rose tinted memory, is of my dad showing me how to knit when I was about five. My mum was in the hospital and for whatever reason my dad thought knitting a good distraction for me. Kudos dad, by the way. Mum had me on the sewing machine making outfits for Barbie not long after that, they were the coolest looking Barbies going, actually I think I had Sindy dolls as the folks thought Barbie a bit grown up. I wasn’t allowed a Ken doll until much later, but I digress. I have several people in my life, you know who you are, that have at crucial points helped navigate my path to reach my potential. If I believed in fate then mine would be a good example of things going swimmingly. I don’t actually, but I do believe my passion for textiles was too strong to ignore or deny. The level of excitement I feel when faced with a fabric shop, balls of yarn, haberdashery etc is off the scale. In fact if I was hooked up to a an ECG at these moments I know it would be flashing and beeping furiously. Fabrics float my boat, make me tick, get my juices going and flick my hair back. Got the picture? 

The Atlas silk factory would be enough to make any self respecting textile student sell their granny to have a look. It is one of those experiences that money really can’t buy. It is such a hidden gem, and as Rich pointed out before it should be a huge tourist deal, but thankfully for us, it is not. The Chinese tourists like BIG affairs you know? Lots of flash and pazzaz, wear the cap and buy the T-shirt. The Atlas ‘factory’ has probably no more than a dozen workers. Their average age I guess at around 70. We saunter in casually, there was no ticket desk, and are met by two young friendly Uighur girls. One of them has very good English and she begins our ‘tour’. The first stop is a shady corner where an old couple work together, almost telepathically, extruding the silk filament from the cocoons having been softened in a boiling vat of water to release the thread. This in itself let me tell you is no mean feat, to see it done with such ease and speed was a treat. The old lady would pull up the fibres and feed them through an eyelet onto the spinning wheel the old gent on her right was working. Goodness knows how many years they have been doing this together. It was like watching Fred and Ginger work the dance floor. Seamless. 

Next stop was the dyeing process, again a couple of old chaps sitting under the shade of the vine trellis having a natter and tying up sections of the yarn to begin the tie dye effect. The Atlas method is a sort of dye by resist method, you build up the colours and patterns by covering specific sections so as they will not pick up all of the colours. This is done at the thread stage as opposed to the usual finished fabric stage. Although unlike the tie dye look often sported by hippies and folks stuck in the 1970’s it is a much more graphic and sophisticated result. It wouldn’t look out of place on a Marni or Prada catwalk. 

Lastly we enter the weaving shed (shed being the official term for the room housing the hand looms the fabric is made on). There are about 8 hand looms, and about 5 of them in use. In contrast to the other stages of the process, the weavers are mostly younger folk. However, working away contentedly in the far corner was who I will call the Seifu (Chinese term for Master). No joke, I think he must have been about 100 years old given his multitude of wrinkles and the few teeth he had left in his mouth. 

A brief explanation on the weaving process. This is how we get what most of us know of as cloth/fabric, what your shirts, trousers and skirts are made of, and so on. The ‘cloth’ is made up of interlocking vertical and horizontal threads. These are called the Warp (the vertical backbone of the fabric) and the Weft (horizontal). The Warp threads are laboriously threaded through the hand loom to achieve the correct tension and end up sitting in what look like fine toothed metal combs in front of the worker. The fabric pattern is made by positioning pegs of wood in a rotating cylinder which determine the sequence with which these combs move with the aid of foot pedals and firing the Weft thread in between using what is called a shuttle. 

Anyway, I hope that rough explanation is a help, apologies to weave experts for any inaccurate terminology...it has been many years since I have handled a loom. Back to the Seifu. I wandered over to spectate while he artfully communicated with his loom. There was something about him that drew me to him. Thankfully for me he seemed just as curious by my presence and welcomed my interest warmly. Immediately he handed me the shuttle encouraging me wordlessly to have a go. He was keen to nurture my interest. As far as tutors go he was something special. Although his fingers were knarly with age, he was a bit nifty with the apparatus. During my time at college our weave tutor was a friendly chap called Jim Marshall. He had one glass eye, so it was difficult to know where to look when you spoke with him, you know the way. He was always more than helpful and as most geeks are, genuinely enthusiastic about his subject. I find myself wondering what it would be like to sit for hours with this old Seifu just soaking up his experience. I was reluctant to make the move and leave his world behind. 

We finish the tour off with a trip to the shop. Incredibly restrained, I leave with only one scarf. But what a scarf it is. We exit the factory and cross the road to wait in the shade of the poplars for the next bus back to town. Briefly we contemplate visiting the next factory in the guidebook which boasts 2000 plus workers and the silks made by power machines. No, we could not improve on our morning. My mood has lifted, my weary soul nourished by the treasure of the experience. I am speechlessly content. Hotan wasn’t so bad after all. 

Turpan Jude

We are not in Kansas anymore Toto. We are now in Xinjiang province having left Gansu behind. It feels remarkably different, excitingly so. Although still in China it doesn’t feel like it due to the high population of the Uighur people. The Uighur are a Turkic-speaking people living almost exclusively in Xinjiang having been forced out of their Mongolian homelands in the mid-9th century by Kirghiz raiders. Ethnically they come from early nomadic Turkic tribes, looking far more Mediterranean than East Asian. Abandoning Shamanism they had brief flings with both Manichaeism and then Buddhism before finally converting to Islam in the 10th Century. Their music, textiles and cuisine have a Central Asian feel to it, most speak little Chinese. There is little love lost between the Uighur and the Chinese, the latter viewing the former as knife wielding barbarians and the Uighur thinking the Chinese despicable atheists or Buddhist heathens.

We are in the town of Turpan having traveled west from Dunhuang, via Liuyuan which was a toilet but that was the nearest train station, for about 14 hours by mini bus and sleeper train.  Turpan is 154 metres below sea level, making it the second lowest depression in the world, after the dead sea. It is an oasis in the middle of the desert, the highest temperature having been recorded at 49.6 degrees! You could be forgiven for momentarily thinking you were in Southern France as the white grape vineyards stretch as far as the eye can see. The guidebook strongly recommends to sample the Dry White, we make a note.

What I am loving more than anything is the Uighur sense of style. The men all sport dapper hats, be it a flat cap, trilby or what seems to be the local speciality which looks like a densely embroidered pill box. They love their big shades too, can’t say I blame them. The women have such flair, be they old or young. There is something almost Romany in their look, the key accessory being their headscarf. While this a requirement of their Muslim faith in preserving modesty, they have not let it hinder their style. I am dying to ask one of them how to do it, the scarf is wrapped around the head then twisted and tied in an almost 70‘s style turban worthy of a Prada Ad campaign or a Vogue spread. The ladies here are taking no back seat, they are seen and heard. Walking down the main street is a feast for the eyes in colour and fabric. 

We have only one day in Turpan, but what a peach of a day it turns out to be. We arrive early from the sleeper train and find a place for the night. One of the things that makes our day so lovely is that we have made some friends. Whilst in Dunhuang we started chatting to a chap following a similar route to us. Travis is a musician from New York. It was with a little caution that we started our relationship with him, and no doubt he was treading as carefully as we were. Let me briefly explain.  

It is a precarious thing starting conversations with fellow travellers, it could go one of two ways. Have you ever been on a long haul plane journey with a ‘chatty’ neighbour? I for one always seem to attract the drunks on the buses in Glasgow. Once engaged it can be quite impossible to rid yourself of your new ‘friend’. During our trip to the Terracotta Army in Xian we met a German chap on the bus. What started out as a casual chat and exchange of particulars went rapidly downhill as he talked AT us about, well, anything he could think of. We got a barrage of data, prices, times...everything in minute and exact detail of his day to day existence relayed as only a German could. It was a tiresome journey. We finally managed to give him the slip amongst the clay warriors, there are quite a few of them, feeling a wee bit guilty we had not endured  his inane chat and kept him company. 

Thankfully Travis turns out to be a kindred spirit and we find ourselves hoping we bump into him again along the way, not least because Rich needs a chum with whom to share his sheep’s head. We did not have to hope for long, as Travis’ sleeper bus was cancelled and he had to re-route following the same path as us. Meanwhile he had picked up some other new friends, the Maor family from Israel. Now wait for this, the Maor family have taken a year out to travel China, of which they are in month 10, with their 3 young children…….eldest 5 and ½ and youngest 2 and ½. That’s the truth. We thought we had taken on a challenge! Until I met the Maors I had indulged several moments of self pity at having to slog it out, schleping from place to place with heavy bags etc. Can you imagine doing all this with 3 wee people in tow? That they manage to check out of each hotel without leaving one of them behind is, I think, quite an achievement. Amazing. What is even better is that they seem to be having a blast, and no, they are not hippies, they are ordinary joes like you and I just keeping it real. 

After a lazy breakfast under the shade of some grapevines with our new bevy of chums, Travis, Rich and I set off to explore on our trusty steads, or single gear bikes. We head first to see the ruins of the Ancient city of Jiaohe, built during the Han dynasty. Our hopes are not set too high as we have been promised some amazing sights before in the guidebook, yet been disappointed by the ‘amusement park’ that has been built around often sacred sites. Instead we are pleasantly surprised by the lack of bells and whistles, what we find is breath taking. Once we shake off the bus loads of tour groups we spend a serene hour or two snaking our way through the giant maze that once was the garrison town of Jiaohe. It must have been pulsing with life back in the day and we find ourselves imagining what it would have been like to live here. There are 3 temples in the heart of the town and under close inspection it is possible to make out the remnants of the Buddhas at the centre of each temple. The ruins are in remarkable condition given their age and that they were constructed of mud and straw. We make a brief pit stop for an ice lolly and some shade from the mid day sun before jumping back on our bikes to see what we can see. 

We take the back roads to see what glimpses of real life we can steal, it is a blissful way to get from A to B. Wind in your hair and just the right pace to soak up the sights and smells without panes of glass to keep you safe and quarantined. We are stopped in our tracks, tempted by the lure of a watermelon seller, his truck weighed down by the most delicious and juicy fruit I have had in ages. Venturing further onwards and feeling like a childish trio from an Enid Blyton tale, we head towards the Emin minaret and adjoining mosque. Built in 1777 by Emin Hoja the Turpan ruler, the Afghan style minaret stands at 44m high and is really rather beautiful. One of the guidebooks also tells that a wander through the graveyard at the rear will have you stumbling across ancient sun bleached bones. I was gutted to find that most of these said bones have been dutifully tidied away, possibly in a grand spring clean before the 2008 Olympics. What a disappointment. We did find a few fragments after a rummage amongst the pebbles, but not quite what I was hoping for. Rich thinks I have a grizzly appetite for the macabre, I think my enthusiasm for the goat slaughter in Nepal had him shocked. This from the man that wants to eat a sheeps head…..

Many miles of cycle tourism had us parched and frankly ready for a sit down and a good old chin wag about our groovy day. What better way to enjoy the late sunset than tasting a glass or six of Turpans finest Dry White. And enjoy it we did, it was served ice cold and had a lovely golden colour and smelled rather like a desert wine, although it was not sweet. Three bottles later we can definitely report that should you happen to see a 3 for 2 offer in your local Tescos,  pop them in your basket, you wouldn’t be disappointed.

Xian Jude

We’re on the road again. If I’m honest I was a little reticent to leave Hong Kong behind. What was supposed to be a 2 week stop over grew into almost 2 months. Note to any would be Silk Road travelers, visas and paperwork for these lands are not a piece of cake to obtain, leave enough time! It was a wonderful 2 months though. Being back in our ‘home’ with friends that are as good as family, without the stresses and strains of a work life...what’s not to love? I became very comfortable, too comfortable. Thanks to our long suffering friends we had a luxurious place to call our temporary home. I started to wonder if we were doing the right thing, panicking even, at what we would be leaving behind, and this time seemed all the more final as we have no definite plans to return. What were we doing?! My anxiety was fed by the wild ramblings of my imagination, we are off into China for a start, then practically into the desert through countries that are not well trod by the western tourists foot……...and so my mind went into a downward spiral. After several teary goodbyes we were off.

The most immediate of my concerns was our impending departure by train from Hong Kong to Xian. Rich and I had discussed which classes of travel were available. The top was ‘Soft Sleeper’, a private cabin with four bunk beds, we would of course have to share with two others, but this seemed like our best (read my favourite) option. The second option was ‘Hard Sleeper’, where by the entire carriage is split into cubicle sections that hold 6 bunks each, these are open to the corridor and general thoroughfare. In total each train carriage would sleep 60 folks in this class. There are other classes but these involve sitting upright on hard seats for the entire journey. It is a 25 hour journey. No need to expand on that. Initially after a brief think about it, and I really did, I asked Rich if we could go for ‘Soft Sleeper’. We agreed on this, however after a look at our budget we decided that ‘Hard Sleeper’ was the only option we could justify. Hmmm. So, after buying some pot noodles and fruit as sustenance for our journey we waited in the station for about 3 hours until a friendly gent practicing his English advised us it was time to board. We could have worked this out however as the 1000 or so folks waiting with us rose en masse and made their way to claim their seats. We headed for carriage number 16 to find our bunks, I was trying to remain upbeat and optimistic.

How much of our lives are wasted fearing the unknown I wonder? My fears were not justified. The carriage was clean and bright and our bunks were even made up with fresh coordinating sheets, it had the feel of a giant caravan. We put our bags away minus the bits and bobs we wanted to keep us company. Settling into our top 2 bunks, which are not hard as the name would suggest by the way, rather firm which is the way I like my mattress should anyone care to know. What is nice about being in China is the lack of staring, even though where we are our white faces are not as common as in some parts, it is nice not to be a complete spectacle. Indeed if you do catch someone looking they offer a shy smile before turning away quick smart. In fact I would go as far as to say there was a gentle feeling of camaraderie between our immediate bunk neighbours. As the train slowly chugged out of the station I was starting to feel a real flush of excitement. 

There is something really fab about train travel. I am a big fan of plane and bus travel, but the constant gentle chug of the train on its tracks is hard to beat. Watching the scenery flit by as you begin to realise there is nothing else to be done other than sit back and relax. No dishes to wash, no jobs to be done. No, you can get your book out, listen to your tunes, do a bit of knitting (!) anything you please as long as it involves sitting back and letting the world literally go by. And so our 25 hours passed. We watched a movie, read our books and ate pot noodles as and when we felt like them. We drifted off into blissful sleep around midnight and awoke early by the only drawback we found. The music. There was a constant flow of upbeat Chinese tunes blaring through the speaker a couple of yards from our heads. This did stop thankfully from midnight to 7am to allow some sleep, but other than that it kept on pumping! Apparently it is not so long ago that passengers were able to smoke in the carriages…...this would not be pleasant given how strong cheap chinese cigarettes are! Thankful for small mercies this is now limited to the sections between the carriages.

And so here we are in Xian. It is hot, but not the humid kind of stick and sweat of Hong Kong, more like a summers day in Tuscany. We are settled into a very modest hotel/youth hostel. It seems quite a prosperous city, since having had a wander today we have stumbled upon a few Starbucks and I did see a Louis Vuitton store. We have had a couple of tasty dinners of spicy soup noodles and dumplings, although lunch today was an food experience I would rather not repeat. I can only describe it as what looked and tasted like a bowl of flem. Rich managed a few stellar bites, but I left a little hungry and figured I’d burn off some of my pounds gained in Hong Kong in relative luxury instead. We are off to see the Terra cotta Army tomorrow and then we leave on another 20 hour train further west. I honestly can say I am glad I hauled myself out of my comfort zone in Honkers, love it and miss it as I do, I can always go back. Bring on the adventure!

Kashgar

Kashgar! What to say about a place as synonymous with the Silk Road as this? The name alone conjures up images of remote and exotic travel without need of further explanation. For those of you who are, unlike me, not a Silk Road nerd, let me expand.

Kashgar stands at a couple of very important boundaries, one modern and political and one age old and physical. Politics wise this is our last stop in China, when we head west from here our next encounter will be with the border and Kyrgyzstan. Physically it marks the end of so much desert travel, for now at least, and the start of the mountains, the Pamirs and Tian Shan to be precise. As a result of this, in times gone by Kashgar would have been the place where the ships of the desert (camels) would have been replaced by the more surefooted and cold hardy ponies. It may also have seen the switch between one merchant and another. Never would one trader have made the whole journey from west to east. Instead the commodity would have been passed through a succession of middlemen, each taking a cut of the final profit, ensuring that the mark up for silk sold in Rome would have been even more eye-watering than it is today.

What has and continues to make Kashgar so important in terms of trade is its prime location at the nexus of so many important roads. There is the Southern Silk Road from Hotan, on which we arrived, and the Northern Silk Road from Urumqi which most people follow, there are two separate routes into Kyrgyzstan, the Irkeshtam and Torugart Passes, the first of which is our intended route and lastly there is the legendary Karakoram Highway to the Khunjerab Pass and Pakistan, a route currently blocked to road traffic by the mother of all landslides. On the streets of Kashgar this translates into a buzzing cosmopolitan painters palette of Han Chinese, Uighur, Kyrgyz, Tajiks, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Pakistanis and of course western backpackers, the first of which we have seen since Urumqi.

As a Brit Kashgar has other secrets to divulge. The Hotel we have decided to stay in has some interesting accommodation out the back in the shape of the old Russian Embassy, this would not be of all that much interest if it weren’t for the context though. At the end of the 19th and start of the 20th Centuries Russia and Britain tried to outmanoeuvre each other in a diplomatic and military quest to exert political power and influence in Central Asia. Britain, seeking to create a buffer zone between its imperial rival, Russia, and the jewel in its colonial crown, India, also held an embassy here. Funnily enough, also located behind yet another hotel.

And so remote Kashgar came to play host to the crux of what is endearingly if inaccurately referred to as “The Great Game”. The high stakes of this ‘game’ however were often traded in the blood of locals and protagonists alike, making it a more serious affair than most. If your still tuning into this blog when we reach Uzbekistan I’ll share some of the more grizzly stories with you. Nonetheless, life in Kashgar for the diplomats of Russia and Britain would have consisted of a very elaborate charade. In this dusty backwater the ambassadors would certainly have shared each others company in what would have been the smallest of expatriate communities. Over hors d’oeuvres and a G ‘n’ T or Vodka they would have swapped pleasantries and traded tales of consular life. Behind each others backs, and in the interests of their respective governments however, they would have plotted endlessly against each other. 

Our first day in Kashgar is a Friday so we go and see the impressive Id Gah Mosque at prayer time. Despite being able to hold several thousand of the faithful at any one time part of the large square outside is required to soak up the surplus of worshippers. Evident also is the police presence, a definite sign of the unease felt by the Chinese government towards the muslim population. We hang out in a tea shop down the road, order the most expensive tea on the menu, by accident, and enjoy its intense mulled wine flavour nonetheless. From our balcony vantage point above the old town we are able to indulge in some quality people watching.

In terms of hyped up must see, must do experiences along the Silk Road, Kashgar’s Sunday Market appears to be one of the most vaunted, even if it does come with disclaimers regarding how touristy it is becoming.

We arrive early to make best use of good light and hopefully catch a more authentic experience. As we enter the stall holders are beginning to set up although, by the entrance, many of these are of the tourist tack variety. A fur hat seller tries to replace my cap with a dead animal of some sort. I’m in no mood to be hassled this morning so I extend a firm left hand to intercept his furry gambit and stay my course with a pointed “no thanks”.

Leaving the not so interesting covered section behind we amble out into the surrounding alleys cut through with the sunlight of a new dawn. Vendors are busy spreading their wares out on sheets laid upon the ground. We find an old Uighur chap selling tea and spices, we try to identify the brew we had on Friday and come away with a small package wrapped up in a few pages from an old booklet. Next stop is a colourful street side eatery where a bald toothy hawker shouts “Kash ka kash ka” or something to that effect. He likes that Jude is wearing a head scarf, repeatedly pointing, miming and giving the thumbs up. Whether this is in appreciation of her cultural sensitivity or her taste in fashion we shall never know. We breakfast on steamed bread dumplings in a cabbage gravy and continue our discussion with the Uighur mime artist. He looks utterly crushed when he discovers that we have no children and tells us that he has four, although he might be talking about his grandchildren given how old he looks.

Finding nothing much else that takes our fancy on the vast but otherwise overhyped market we head for the Caravan Cafe for a much needed coffee. Both of us slept appallingly the night before as a result of me leaving the window with the broken mosquito net open. Three Navy Seals of the mosquito world plagued us with hit and run attacks all night long. By dawn two of these had been killed in minor blood explosions but a third remained mysteriously at large. Whist at the cafe we watched a showing of the previous days England vs USA match on CCTV 5, my expectations of mediocrity proved to be dazzlingly accurate.

Feeling human again we head to the Sunday Livestock Market and instantly realise we should have come here first, the place is heaving. A large central corral is packed with sheep, goats, cows and donkeys and is overrun with Uighur men buying and selling. Fat tailed sheep get their udders, testicles, bottoms, back and legs pinched and poked to ascertain their worth and large handfuls of notes are exchanged with exaggerated slapping handshakes before mud encrusted Bulls are lead away by their proud new owners. Around the corral are numerous eateries of the strictly carnivorous variety that dispense kebabs and mutton soup to a hungry clientele. The noise is incredible. “Boish, boish” shout drivers coming through with their animals in tow, trying to clear a path through the dense crowd. The baying, mooing, bleating, honking, shouting, clanging, revving and screeching mass is wonderful and the combination of smells, dust clouds and photo opportunities makes for an incredible hour or so before the heat of the day forces us to retire  to a darkened room to catch up on our sleep.

Yarkand

Unable to find bagels we settle for fruit instead, something which the silk road has in mouth watering abundance. The bus journey takes us out of the Oasis town of Hotan and on towards our next stop, Karghilik. The landscape outside of the big Chinese cities is very much like that I have seen on TV of Afghanistan. Sprawling mud walled compounds sit amongst a lattice work of dusty alleyways. Surrounding the homes are green fields of wheat, orchards and vegetable plots. As we pass a tall line of Poplar trees, that I guess are planted as a form of defence against the sandstorms, we burst out of the greenery of the irrigated area close to the river and are plunged back into the bleak yellow brown desolation of the desert.

The in-bus entertainment system plays a ‘so bad it’s funny’ cop drama from Pakistan that has been dubbed, badly too, into Uighur which makes it all the more hysterical. The fight scenes, which need no explanation, are all masterpieces of slow motion bullet strikes and laughable kung fu. The film climaxes with the hero driving a bus containing a bomb off a very high pier. He jumps to safety, landing miraculously unharmed on the beach whilst the bus plunges into deep water and explodes harmlessly. Despite having driven some distance from the busy urban centre where the bomb was supposed to explode, a platoon of smartly dressed cops appear from nowhere seconds later to salute their comrade. I wait, poised for the inevitable, barely able to contain my mirth... and then it happens. A beautiful girl with two kids in tow pushes through the crowd and the aforementioned hero is reunited with his beloved family. I crack up in barely concealed cackles, this film would definitely have won the Oscar for the greatest number of overused film cliches, I suspect however that somebody on the bus is shedding a tear at the emotion of it all and check myself accordingly.

Any kind of distraction from the bus journey itself is sweet relief so the film is welcome nonetheless. The seats on this bus are so narrow it feels like Jude and I are sharing 1 and a half seats rather than the two our tickets show that we have purchased. The road starts off not surfaced at all. This results in our ‘seats’ being turned into one of those vibration weight loss contraptions sold on QVC only I’ll have to wait for the swelling to die down before I can let you know if it has worked or not. When the road does become surfaced it has a long wavelength rippled surface that perfectly matches the natural oscillation of the buses suspension springs, this sets off a nauseating bouncing motion similar to driving a powerboat in big seas that makes reading or playing solitaire on the iPod totally impossible. Then there is the driver who clearly obtained his license from the back of a breakfast cereal packet and is determined to do the full journey without a toilet stop, not a wise move when several passengers are small children and sure enough 4 hours in a distinct sniff of wee cuts through the otherwise musty, muttony, unwashed body odour kind of smell that pervades the bus.

One highlight of the journey is that shortly outside of Hotan we pass a herd of what must be wild camels, and this goes some way to offset the generally awful nature of the five and a half hour endurance fest. I am sure that ‘herd’ is the wrong word for a group of camels. Like a parliament of owls or a constellation of starlings a group of camels deserves a fittingly ostentatious title. Perhaps a Medressa or Jirga of camels would be most fitting in terms of geographical location and cultural identity? Answers on a postcard please.

A railway line and motorway are being built alongside our woefully inadequate road and of these I have mixed feelings. I know they will be of immense financial benefit to the oasis  towns of the southern silk road, not to mention the convenience of shortened journey times and my bum would appreciate the joys of spirit level smooth asphalt or train tracks that’s for sure. The Uighur cultural identity in this part of Xinjiang is almost certainly going to be the victim though. By virtue of it’s inaccessible nature it has, so far, remained largely free from the destructive influences of modernisation. These will inflict upon it the scourge of shopping malls, tour buses, chain stores and hotels that will result in it looking exactly like everywhere else, just another unidentifiable part of the fat homogenous lump that is modern China.

For the time being enough of the old ways of life remain to make this diversion off the easy route direct to Kashgar a worthwhile digression. Karghilik lies at the junction of three roads, one from Hotan that we arrive on, one to Kashgar on which we shall leave and a third that heads south before splitting in two. To the south east lies the backdoor route into Tibet, a road rumoured to be as hard as it is rewarding. To the south west the road goes to the worlds highest battlefield, or it would do if the border to Pakistan wasn’t closed as a result of the ongoing tensions with India in this area. 

In Karghilik we go and see the ‘Friday’ Mosque and adjacent bazaar, other than that there is not much to grab our attention. We are using Karghilik though as a base for visiting the next town on the southern silk road, Yarkand, which lacks sensible accommodation options. The only hotel that allows foreigners to stay does so at substantially inflated prices.

In the past Yarkand was the seat of an ancient Buddhist kingdom and an important stop on the southern silk road. In its heyday it was larger than Kashgar, profiting immensely from its location at the end of the trade route from Ladakh in Pakistan. Next door to the 16th Century mosque is the pretty blue and white tiled tomb of Amannisahan, a former Queen of Yarkand and a distinguished Uighur poet and musician. Her husband, the King, is buried in the peaceful graveyard nearby but it is clear that she is held in much higher regard than her beau by the Uighurs of today, her contribution to their cultural heritage has not gone unnoticed or unrewarded and her tomb has become something of a pilgrimage site for a devoted following.

In the streets close by we find what I really wanted to see most of all, a slice of authentic Uighur life. The old town is everything it should be, full of life and an assault on every sense you posses. First we pass a collection of blacksmiths and metal workers where the loud ringing of hammers on anvils combines with the retina scarring sparks of welders at work. After this comes the noise and dust of carpenters sawing, shaving and sanding away at doors, cots and screens by the side of the road. We look inside a small shack where dozens of beautifully crafted stringed instruments hang from the walls. If we thought we could have got one back to the UK in one piece we may well have bought one but the long thin fret board obviously requires a fairly delicate touch, besides, neither of us can play… Barbecues belch billowing clouds of choking smoke into the air as the vendors furiously fan the coals and advertise their lamb kebabs to passersby with the Uighur equivalent of “six for a pound your gas lighters!”

As we approach a junction the air thickens with the metallic, sickly sweet smell of blood. A line of women sit behind a bench displaying a dozen or more severed goat heads, each perched atop their own four severed feet. The women flick fans back and forth above their produce in a half hearted attempt to keep the flies at bay. The goats’ vacant eyes stare unblinking into the midday sun and their tongues dangle in mock thirst as the heat of the day builds. I enquire as to the price and am surprised to learn that there is significant variation between them, it would seem that there is a scale of goat head quality that I am unaware of. Given the flies and smell I suspect the cheaper ones might not be as fresh, this makes the old adage ‘buy cheap, buy twice’ somewhat inaccurate. I’d certainly shell out the extra cash for a fresh head and feet given the choice. Having now experienced the sight and smell of all this up close though, I am not so sure I would be capable of eating one. The locals don’t seem to mind though as they casually fill plastic carrier bags with their newly acquired dinner.

The old town in Yarkand is one of the best experiences of the trip so far. The predominantly sterile Chinese tourist sights have little to offer in comparison to the raw vitality of life being lived, in many respects, as it has been throughout the ages. It is not hard to make the leap from what Yarkand’s ‘old town’ looks like now to what it would have looked like in Marco Polo’s day for instance.

Back in Karghilik we decide to have a Chinese dinner rather than Uighur, for a change, big mistake. Cold dishes take forever to arrive and fail to deliver in the taste department too. Afterwards we make a beeline to a Uighur restaurant for dessert where we make yet another stunning discovery. We have a couple of small strudel like cakes topped with a walnut and boy do they hit the spot. Sadly, when we return at breakfast, we find that they are awaiting the days delivery of these and as such we are unable to stock up on them for our bus ride to Kashgar, should have bought the whole lot the night before.

The 5 hour journey to Kashgar is yet another example of awful roads and worse driving standards. This drivers erratic behaviour is only matched by his superiority complex. Idly he plucks his nose hair and cleans beneath his nails whilst driving. At one point this almost results in us running off the road entirely but for the most part it just causes us to drift and swerve at random to and fro. It is with relief that we arrive safely into Kashgar bus station although Jude almost instantly becomes the target of a pickpocket attempt. With a set of tongs our would be thief dips into the side pockets of her combats but comes up short and rumbled. He slopes off all casual, still looking at us and lighting a cigarette as if nothing had happened. Alas, carrying three bags each prevents us from exacting our desired wrath and Jude settles instead for flicking him a very scottish finger.

Hotan

Armed with a bag bursting with snacks we board our bus. Three rows of bunk beds seven deep stretch the length of the vehicle. We have two beds on the bottom and towards the front, the best place to be in terms of comfort. The bus leaves at 2pm Beijing time but doesn’t even get out of the bus station before it stops and waits… Eventually it seems they round up all the awol passengers and finally at around 3pm we start to make real progress in the direction of Hotan, a destination we should reach, inshallah, in around 25 hours or so. Despite the sometimes overpowering smell of sweaty feet the bus is very comfortable. The beds are slightly too narrow and not entirely flat but despite this I am pretty sure I’ll sleep well enough, provided the road quality is good, that really is the deciding factor above all else. The only other complaint I’d make is that they should either leave the air-con on or off or better still find a medium setting for it. Instead we are treated to an increasingly stuffy environment where the quilts are a pure nuisance followed by a blast of icy air, imported from Siberia no doubt, that has temperatures plummeting and everyone burying themselves under as many blankets as possible. Still, mustn't grumble.

After an early evening break for noodles at a roadside store night falls and we turn off the main road. Suddenly the glare of street lighting is replaced by a whole lot of darkness. This is the start of the 500Km long trans Taklamakan Highway, an audacious feat of brazen engineering right through the middle of one of the most inhospitable deserts in the world. At 3am the bus halts, the lights are turned on and we all get a chance to empty our bladders. The desert night is so dark it reminds me of caving. A thick blanket of cloud obscures any glimmer of the moon or stars above and not a single vehicle, building or road light can be seen in any direction, save the running lights of our own bus. Stepping off the road into the lines of hardy grass planted to stabilise the desert our feet break through a thin hard crust of sand to a dusty layer beneath. Every 5km a small building houses a lone caretaker who looks after the irrigation system that keeps the grass alive and the road open. After irrigating the grass ourselves everyone is back on the bus and we are off again.

Not long after dawn I am woken by some strange antics. I find the bus appears to be doing a hundred point turn on an unsurfaced road. With bed head hair invariably sticking out in random directions and a perplexed look on my face I join the rest of the passengers all trying to figure out what on earth is going on. After a while the pieces of the jigsaw fall into place. The actual road is being upgraded and is currently blocked by a very wide resurfacing machine. To avoid this we have taken a dirt road running parallel to the main road. During the night however, and oddly I thought for a desert, there has been a fair amount of rain, it seems that this is pretty normal for the season. This has caused a small but dramatic flash flood that has washed away several sections of our dirt road. Most of these we manage to bypass by judicious use of the currently unsurfaced main road with its unfinished bridges sprouting rebar like a concrete hedgehog. At one point however we are forced to wait whilst JCB’s are brought forward in order to temporarily repair the temporary road long enough for us to get through. Meanwhile the muddy brown water backs up behind the road/dam making it obvious that before long this repair will indeed be washed away as well. It all looks slightly suspicious and I am relieved when we find ourselves back on a surfaced road once more. It is clear that keeping the desert highway open is far from easy and requires a significant amount of round the clock effort.

Once the desert is traversed we hit one of the oldest routes of the silk road and turn west on to it. This old southern section of the silk road is little used and far removed, in several respects, from it’s modern superhighway equivalent on the northern edge of the desert. There is little to see in terms of sights along this route but it is the authenticity of this road combined with its numerous Uighur Oasis towns that draws us to it. First stop, Hotan. We complete our journey in the expected 25 hours and check into the “Happy Hotel” which is clean-ish, cheap and comes with an interesting variety of smells both inside and outside the room. Despite dozing plenty on the bus we are both exhausted and crash out early.

In the morning we try to take local buses to the Atlas Silk Factory but this doesn’t work out. Bus routes have obviously changed since the guidebook was written and at times it seems I speak better Mandarin than some of the locals, my Uighur is certainly as good as their English which means that communication is hilariously unproductive. I am regretting not buying the Central Asian phrasebook now, things could get interesting at this rate. Good job I like playing charades. We decide to jump a taxi instead and third time lucky we find one that knows what we are talking about.

The Atlas Silk Factory is a traditional workshop in a small village about 10Km outside of Hotan. It turns out to be so good it deserves to have busloads of tourists waving 100 Yuan notes at the ticket office but fortunately for us it has neither tourists nor an entrance fee. We pay 5 Yuan each for the privilege of taking photos. I’d happily pay much more as the subjects are about as good as it gets. Grizzled old mama’s pull and spin fresh silk filament out of boiling cauldrons full of cocoons whilst toothy old men with skull caps and wispy white beards work ramshackle looms with dazzlingly dyed threads. It is a gem.

In search of the carpet factory we end up at a Jade market on the banks of the Yurungkash River. Here the swirling brown river courses between great braids of gigantic river cobbles on it’s journey from the high mountains of the Kunlun Shan to the sands of the Taklamakan. On it’s way the waters deposit their precious cargo of Jade into the river bed, a commodity that has provided Hotan with it’s most reliable form of income for the past 7000 years, yes, 7000! Long before silk became fashionable and even to this day numerous people dig up the river bed with picks and shovels in search of it. Behind the endless stalls of Jade merchants though is something that takes our fancy, a restaurant. Redolent of luxurious caravanserai the decor and tableware sweep us back in time to another life and the food is equally as good.

Continuing our search for the carpet factory we get distracted again, by a barber shop. My beard by this stage has gone untamed for some time and is starting to provide suitable nesting facilities for small birds. I try to explain what I want to the well manicured chap brandishing scissors but he isn’t interested. I get ushered into a chair where he starts combing and clipping with scant regard for my protestations. I give up on trying to get my point across, he is the one holding the sharp implement after all and my barber is chomping at the bit like an artist with a blank canvas, he seems determined to give me a Hotan special. Once the preliminaries are over I am asked to lie down on a bed so the razor work can begin. Very deftly I get what Jude describes as a “biblical” beard sculpted like topiary out of the ragged mess that once ruled the lower half of my face. Twenty Yuan is a steal in my book for what I think might well be the best shave of the trip so far, not as much pampering as the shaves of southern asia but I like the look of this more, sharp. There will be just enough time to let it get raggedy again before Kygyzstan and my next barbers visit.

Fed and shaved we eventually find the carpet factory where not only is there no charge for a tour but there isn’t even a tour. We wander in and wander round taking pictures as we like of the women at work on a dozen or more vast carpets expecting to get stopped at any time. As we leave we contemplate going to the show room but decide against it, we have already bought one carpet on this trip…

My deep appreciation for Uighur food research just keeps getting better. For dinner I order ‘Suoman’ which are fried noodles with a similar sauce to Laghman but instead of noodle threads they are small pasta like squares. There is a generous quantity of pepper added to the dish and the result is divine. For dessert we head back onto the street to a vendor we spotted on the way in. With the point and pay method of food ordering in effect we take our seats at a bench. A small portion of sweet sticky rice is unwrapped from a pyramid shaped leaf bundle and squashed flat onto a saucer, over this is drizzled some dark syrup followed by a large blob of yoghurt followed by another drizzling of syrup. Do I really need to tell you how good it was? Oh alright, sharp yoghurt tanginess bursts through thick layers of fruity christmas cake like sweetness to create an orchestral movement of delight on the taste buds, and that from somebody who is not generally sold on desserts as a rule. Magnificent. I ask what it is called and the answer was something like “Soza”. The fella next to me asks me if we have “Soza” in America, I take an educated guess at the answer and reply “Mei you” (Not have). More’s the pity…

Uighur Bagels are on the agenda for breakfast, I look forward to telling you about those later.

Turpan

On our final day in Dunhuang, whilst lounging at John’s Information Cafe, we meet a jazz musician from New York called Travis. He has until recently be playing upright bass in a multinational group based out of Chiang Mai in Thailand. His story is as large as his desire for travel and he seems to have found a way to unite his passion for freeform yet accessible jazz with the opportunity to experience much of south east Asia as part of a tour. Before that all starts however he is heading west, like us along the silk road. After the usual who are you, where you from stuff the clincher is when he asks how far west we are heading, I reply with a nervous laugh ‘Glasgow’. When we realise we are both attempting the same thing the conversation mutates into a discussion about the viability of different routes, visa options and time frames. It is a relief to me to find somebody else who knows so much about this part of the world yet has also never been there. We laugh at our shared nightmare visa application stories and swap tit bits about the latest news. I have unfortunately become deeply suspicious of interacting with other travellers over the years. I say unfortunately because I have met some fantastic people on the road who would no doubt, like Travis, be good buddies if we lived in the same city. For every kindred spirit however there are an equal, yet usually more proactive, number of people who combine to form the Russian Roulette of the social melting pot that is ‘the backpackers hangout’.

During my time in Africa I lost count of the number of people who talked at me about their own journey. They would always have been to better places than I, ones that I must go to; they had always got better deals on stuff they bought, stayed with more locals, had better plans etc, etc. I remember one chap asking me what hobbies I was into and after finding out that I was into caves proceeded to lecture me on his speleological prowess, how he had been down the deepest cave in the world which was in his home state in the USA, if only I’d known... Then there was the 18 year old girl who wandered around in bare feet despite repeated warnings about Chiggers yet lectured everyone else on Africa. I can only hope that she got an equally strong lecture from the doctor that ended up extracting the borrowing insects out of the soles of her feet. Worst of all though were the ‘overlanders’ (sorry Ben). These guys would rock up in their converted trucks like some 18-30s holiday in the bush, proceed to get inappropriately wasted and then do reckless and embarrassing things, like swim in the crocodile infested Zambezi River during a sundowner cruise. Perhaps I am just a mean spirited person incapable of accommodating other peoples differences but encounters like this made me reluctant to interact with other backpackers.

Only recently we had had a similar experience in China. A German solo traveller had sat next to us on the bus from Xian to the terracotta army. Solo travellers have the highest propensity for annoyingness in my opinion and this is for two reasons. One, the reason they are travelling alone might be that nobody wants to travel with them and two, they are so deprived of social interaction because they are travelling alone that when they do find and corner a potential target, as I am now, you get both barrels of their pent up conversation and this usually takes the form of a lengthy spoken essay of their travel experiences.

Solo German continues to rattle on with only the occasional pause for breath. I try to be accommodating and even attempt to humour him with a little conversation of my own. He doesn’t seem interested in what I have to say however and continues talking about himself. I find travel to be one of the most interesting and pleasurable activities available in this world but not today and today is my 32nd birthday. I realise with growing horror that my ‘special’ day might be memorable for all the wrong reasons. Fortunately for me Jude comes to the rescue and with Jason Bourne precision we loose our verbal assailant in the crowds of tourists.

All this is, of course, a terrible shame because meeting cool people is one of the highlights of travel, be they locals or fellow wanderers.

For a while at least Travis’s journey and our own dovetails so we take advantage. In Turpan we hire bikes and set off to see some of the local sights together. “Bikes are a brilliant way to experience the world”, Travis explains, “You travel slow enough to appreciate the scenery as it passes but it isn’t as slow and boring as walking. There are so many other reasons why it is great though. There is the freedom to head down interesting side streets that take your fancy and it is in actions like this that journeys become true adventures. The exposure of yourself to the world and the world to yourself on a bicycle also comes highly recommended (and I don’t mean the naked type of exposure). The smell of fresh donkey poop, from the humble beasts still used to pull carts in this region, being scattered along the road by each passing car is overpowering but poo this stinky is funny and makes me laugh. I’d have missed out on that chuckle had I been in a taxi. Then of course there are the kids, although some adults join in too, shouting and waving from the side of the road with big toothy grins. Going up hills isn’t so pleasant on a heavy and rickety single gear bike but screaming down them with feet spread out is always fun wherever you are in the world.

Dripping with sweat but energised by the exercise we arrive at Jiaohe, an ancient city proudly claimed as the best preserved, oldest, earthen city in the world. Yet another claim made meaningless by its numerous qualifications. Coughing up the usual entrance fee I find myself, again, annoyed. The decision by the Chinese authorities to make so much money out of their national heritage has effectively put it out of the price range of so much of their population. Entrance to the Magao Caves, we are informed by Travis, is 180 yuan. At current exchange rates that is about 15 quid but considering that you can buy a hearty breakfast in China for 20p the relative cost is more akin to asking Londoners for 150 pounds to enter St Paul's Cathedral. A scandalous robbery from the people of China by their own government.

Fortunately for us however Jiaohe, once clear of the flag waving, megaphone toting, baseball cap wearing tour groups, turns out to be an absolute gem. For once it has not been rebuilt to its former glory but has been left as a vast, dusty, ruined city and all the better for it. The winding maze of back alleys are full of ghosts that ignite the imagination. A donkey bays in the distance and my mental picture is complete. This may have been a far flung garrison town in the middle of some rough bad lands but at the same time it was no doubt full of life. The wide main-street would have been thronged with handbag wielding fashionistas in pursuit of the Tang dynasty equivalent of a Louis Vuitton and the large Buddhist monasteries would have reverberated with the guttural drone of the abbot and his monks. Out on the gates steely eyed soldiers would have scanned the horizon for signs of trouble and an endless stream of caravans would have been passing through to take their rest and re-provision for their on going journey. As we ourselves are realising water would have been perhaps the most valuable commodity of all on this part of the silk road, after all without oasis towns like Turpan and it’s predecessor Jiaohe, the silk road would never have been able to come through this way. The bright afternoon sun is intense off the bleached earth and the heat lays like a sleep inducing blanket upon us. Hiding in the shade we guzzle ice cold coke and eat ice-cream, hoping that a chilled sugar and caffeine fix will fuel our return to town.

Back in town we overshoot our next stop, the Emin Minaret, and end up cycling a couple of kilometres too far. A pleasant ride though it is we are relieved to be back under the shade with bottles of cold water in our hands. Despite all the heat and exertion however I am not uncomfortably damp, as I would be in Hong Kong. Much of my clothing is bone dry, yet I am desperately thirsty. I wipe a hand across my neck and it rasps over a patch of crystallised salt that clings to my skin like sandpaper. Turpan lies over 150 m below sea level, is surrounded by desert and is pretty much as far away from the ocean as you can get, they don’t do humidity here and as a result sweat evaporates from your body almost as fast as you can produce it. The Minaret is beautiful to look at but is more interesting in that, like the rest of Turpan, it is distinctly unchinese. The Central Asian architecture in the building is as obvious as the Central Asian culture in the people. The Uighur (pronounced wee-gur) share the same ancestors as the residents of Istanbul, and that is not the only thing they share. Physically they are very different from the Chinese being large and stocky with pronounced noses and round eyes they would not look out of place on the shores of the Mediterranean. Their language is Turkic in origin too, enabling them to be understood in Istanbul if not Beijing and in it’s written form has more in common with Arabic than it does with Putonghua. All this is perhaps not surprising when you consider how far away from Beijing we are. Two whole time zones to be exact and as the crow flies we are as far from Beijing as we are from Istanbul.

The effects of the cultural revolution on China should not be underestimated. The word “Revolution” puts a glossy spin on what was really cultural decimation. Religion, the arts, books, traditions and customs were all brutally repressed as being the preserve of a bourgeois elite. The sad result is that much of modern China is lacking in any real soul and that which you can find is usually a state sponsored reconstruction of something and feels false as a result. It is with some relief then that the ethnic minorities have kept hold of their age old ways of life. One of the reasons why Yunnan Province is so colourful is the presence of 14 recognised minorities including the fire-walking and sword-ladder climbing Lisu and the Naxi-Tibetans whose magnificent wooden architecture defines Lijiang old town. In Xinjiang the Uighur keep the flame alive with vibrant dress, jewellery and wonderful food, more on that later. Perhaps most noticeable however is their behaviour which seems less inhibited than that of the Chinese. More exuberant and extravagant in their gestures, a greater willingness to display emotion and despite what I have read in one guide book I would suggest that perhaps their nomadic history keeps a soft spot for travellers alive and well today.

Right, food! Uighur food is regarded as the finest of all Central Asian flavours as a result of its fusion with Chinese cooking. All the more reason then to appreciate it whilst we can then. Lamb forms the basis of pretty much everything, indeed we have eaten no other meat at any of the Uighur places we have dined at so far. The kebabs are of course de rigour and heavily spiced. Flat bread, called Nan, although here it is tougher or chewier than the Nans you might be familiar with are common and slightly sacred, dropping them on the floor and not picking them up is considered almost blasphemous. They are also heavily flavoured with garlic and spices too making them enjoyable even without meat. Pullao is fried rice which this morning came with Pumpkin shreds through it and a big dripping hunk of fatty lamb also. There are tasty lamb dumplings which are similar to greasy Cornish pasties and fried spiced chicken which remains on the to do list. Best of all tried so far is Laghman or Pull Noodles. The dough is pulled into ever longer and thiner strips by repeatedly stretching it and then doubling it up before stretching it again. To really work the stretch the strands are held apart in the hands and then flicked up and down and whacked with great force and flair against a table. The wonder at watching this spectacle of freshly prepared noodles is eclipsed however by the first bite. A thick tomato based sauce with garlic, peppers, chillies, green beans, onions and of course lamb is slapped onto the steaming hot noodles and then consumed with much smacking of lips and slurping of dangling threads. If you’ve had a night on the equally fantastic Turpan dry white wine which deserves to be exported more widely if indeed it is exported at all then I can wholeheartedly recommend Laghman as the best hangover cure this side of the Pamirs, it may even persuade some of you to give up on Irnbru altogether!

After we bid Travis farewell we make our way north. He already has his Kyrgyz visa courtesy of the embassy in Beijing, we need to obtain ours from the last chance saloon in Urumqi. Parting ways he agrees to send us an email with advice about crossing the border and I can’t help but feel that we will surely bump into him again in the future.

Urumqi is a typical Chinese city only slightly alleviated by the Uighur presence. Nothing really to recommend it as a place to stay so we get our visa and get on our way again when we can. As I write this we are on our first sleeper bus. We left Urumqi six hours ago and we might well have another twenty hours on board before we arrive at Hotan on the Southern Silk Road. The bus is comfortable of sorts but the smell of stinky feet is a bit much at times. My main hope is that we hit the Taklamakan desert before nightfall. To pass something so feared and revered in the dead of night and not see it would be a shame. My hope that I get some sleep is a close second.

Dunhuang

I imagine Dunguang to be a dusty frontier town with a wild west feel, instead I am surprised by wide tree lined boulevards, fancy shops and immaculately kept streets. It is one of the most pleasant Chinese cities I have visited, yet for three months of every year according to one cafe owner, it is wracked by sand storms making it a hard place to live. After our arrival we head for the much vaunted night market for dinner. Despite a disturbing touristy feel to it the selection of food options is large and authentic. Donkey meat and noodles are the Dunhuang speciality but we are already sold on the Kashgari Kebabs. Despite asking for only a little chilli, the barbecued mutton pieces, cauliflower and bread all come liberally covered in the stuff. Once again we are victims of the relativity of perspective, the amount of chilli the chain smoking chef must normally have on his kebabs has me in total awe. On the menu I notice a sheep’s head for 25 Yuan. Jude is very keen to watch me eat one but point blank refuses to join in. On my own I feel reluctant, times like this call for partners in crime, after all there are two eyeballs in every sheep’s head… I defer for now but feel sure I will not escape China without following through, like some desperately hard caving trip I feel it is something I would like to have done even though I might not actually enjoy it at the time.

By taxi we head in the opposite direction to the tourist treadmill of the Mogao Caves and pass through yet more bleak desert on our way towards the Western Buddhist Caves. As we pull into the car park, which is nothing more than a specially flattened area of rock and dust, I feel my hopes rising, there is only one other car. A set of stairs descends to the bottom of a river gorge carved out of the soft conglomerate of river cobbles and dust that form the desert floor. In a pretty stand of rustling poplar trees a small port-a-cabin stands empty, behind a man sits on a park bench whilst talking into his mobile phone. He gestures for us to wait. A puppy bounds playfully in a small ditch to our right, it appears to be the only other living thing here. We are sold two tickets and a guide appears from deeper within the trees.

I am no connoisseur of Buddhist art and have not visited Mogao Caves so can not compare the qualities of the two side by side. I have been to a lot of Buddhist Monasteries in Tibet and the artwork was definitely better, if not older, there. A few sculptures of Buddha and his mates and a bunch of murals is no longer and unfamiliar site. As a connoisseur of caves I can tell you that these caves are definitely more than rock shelters but really only consist of one or two rooms and being man made they don’t qualify for my full appreciation. I am very glad that we didn’t pay through the nose then to visit Mogao, if the artwork and caves do not do it for you then only one thing remains and that is the atmosphere of the place as a whole. There is not a single souvenir stall here, we are the only visitors and after the short tour finishes we are allowed to wander unaccompanied up the gorge. With nothing but the sound of the wind rustling through the trees and a lone cuckoos call it is easy to contemplate the history of this place. The monks that lived here as early as 300AD must have led a brutally austere life. One made possible only by their devout beliefs and pious work carving and painting caves. This sense remains today with the caves current guardians. A small group of government workers and their wives live here semi-permenantly as the caretakers and guardians of the past. Their sacrifices in living such a lonely existence out here in the desert are analogous to those who went before them. The circle is complete, the tranquility and isolation perfect, how can Mogao Caves be a patch on a place this wholly evocative. With it’s souvenir supermarkets and and conveyor belt tour I doubt you’d get the same sense of place as is found here.

Later in the day we go to the Singing Dunes to the south of the city. These are the largest sand dunes in China and they are huge, proper Lawrence of Arabia stuff. Sadly the Chinese authorities have been busy here too and no it is the site of a grotesque “adrenalin park” where you can ride camels or go quad-biking, dune surfing and paragliding, all for an additional fee of course and never too far from another tacky souvenir stall. Giddy tourists wander about in ridiculous orange overboots intended to keep the sand out, I’m positive hiring those must come at an extra charge and sadly it prevents that most childish of pleasures, what is the point of playing on sand dunes if you are not going to get sand in your shoes, where is the fun in that? The 120 yuan entrance fee has me gobsmacked and we follow the guide books advice and go in search of the end of the fence instead. A twenty minute walk later and we are standing at the bottom of a very large, very unfenced and very untouristed mountain of sand. The climb is hard, three steps up two steps back. We persevere for a good hour, perhaps more. Walk for a bit then rest some. When the wind blows it sends great clouds of biting sand swirling around us forcing us to turn away and bury our faces in our scarves. After an age we stand above the “Adrenalin Park”, above Dunhuang and the surrounding desert, victorious in our ascent and in the avoidance of scandalous entrance fees. Only one last thing remains… We charge like lunatics down the side of the dune covering several metres with each bound. Plumes of sand erupt as my feet plunge deep into the soft slope and then flick out and forwards to catch my next leap down. “Woooohooooo!” I drop to my knees and slide the final couple of metres to the bottom, panting heavily with the effort. What took us over an hour to climb takes us less the twenty seconds to descend. I savour the rush of endorphins triggered by such a puerile act, if only they had a dune lift to take us back to the top, perhaps they do inside the “Adrenalin Park”?

Jiayuguan

Leaving Xian and Shaanxi Province behind the train heads North West through the Hexi Corridor. A natural passageway between the snow-capped peaks of the Qilian Shan mountain range to the South and the Ala Shan mountains and Gobi Desert to the North. This line of least resistance has been the main road to Central Asia since time immemorial. We reach and pass Lanzhou, Gansu Province’s capital, just as dusk is consuming the last warmth of the day. It is ten hours since we left Xian, in the days of the Silk Road however it would have taken a colossal 20 days to cover the same ground. Food for thought.

At four in the morning we are woken by the conductor, at five we disembark to a notably cool desert morning. We have arrived in Jiayuguan. The whole purpose for coming to this industrial wart of a city is to visit Jiayuguan Fort, a place that holds an important historical significance for the Chinese. For many years the gates of this fort were essentially the gates of China. Beyond lay the vast hostile wastes of the Gobi Desert, to compound the environmental dangers were the Xiongnu and a whole host of other nasty barbarian raiders who were willing to slaughter their grannies for a nickel or a dime.

There were three reasons for venturing beyond the West Gate, retrospectively referred to as “The Gate Of Sighs”. Merchants did it for the money, People like Zhang Qian (the Indiana Jones of the diplomat’s world) did it because it was their job and some, the unfortunates, did so because they were exiled. Any departure involved a substantial amount of risk. Zhang Qian for instance was sent out by Emperor Wu Di in 131BC to try and establish a military alliance with the Yuehzhi against the Xiongnu. On his way he was captured by the Xiongnu and spent the next 10 years as their “guest”. After escaping he, amazingly, carried on with his mission only to find that the Yuehzhi were not interested in an alliance. On his way home he was recaptured spending a further two years in captivity before escaping once more. Arriving home thirteen years later it is understandable that Wu Di was surprised to see him. It would be easy to see Zhang Qian’s mission as a failure but his records help prove otherwise. Not only was it the first recorded crossing of the Pamir/Tian Shan Mountain ranges, providing the crucial link between two existing trade routes out of the Pamirs, one heading East towards Europe and the other heading West towards China. They also contain the first Chinese references to a magical land called “Lijian” where people ate pizza and ice cream, wore tight trousers and rode around on scooters saying “Ciao” a lot.

Today Jiayuguan Fort pushes my imagination to the limits. If I am able to ignore the flag waving tour guides long enough I can just about recapture something of the essence of this place. Fleetingly I get the sense of what it must have been like to leave the security of China behind and venture out, risking all on the possibilities of making a fortune selling silk to a bunch of Sogdian middlemen. Standing atop the fortifications it still feels like a lonely outpost at the limits of the known world and it must have been with an enormous sense of relief that caravans saw the towers and silk banners of the fort rising above the dusty earth of the desert on their return.

Much of this insane country is strangely endearing but recently I am discovering something that I am less enthusiastic about. In our quest to relive the Silk Road we have had to shell out some significant wads of cash on the classic silk road sights. China cottoned onto the value of the tourist dollar a long time ago so high entrance fees are par for the course. Jiayuguan Fort, rebuilt from a bunch of crumbling ruins into an immaculately restored piece of history is amazing but it doesn’t stop there. They went on to build a lake, a souvenir village selling the usual tourist rubbish, a local culture village, a museum, a selection of overpriced hotels and a large carpark. Next they threw in an electric buggy service to ferry you around all these places, a bunch of camels, horses and quadbikes to ride around on, a deer to feed and a range of historical costumes to have your photographs taken in, giving them a multitude of ways of extracting every last Yuan from their punters. Not bad when it all started life as a bunch of crumbling mud ruins in the middle of a desert.

The worst thing however is that the local Chinese tourists love this ‘Theme Park’ approach to it all. Just south of Jiayuguan Fort the original ruins of the Great Wall end dramatically at a deep river gorge. A magical combination of wild scenery and thought provoking history combine to produce a spot worthy of an SSSI, AONB, UNESCO World Heritage award and half a dozen other protective orders. A place so perfect in its isolation that you could sit for hours drinking in the age and wonder of the natural and human world. Sadly not anymore. “What this place needs is some improvements” I hear The Party’s head of tourism say. “Yes, a recreation of a Dung Dynasty military encampment would be wonderful here. I went to Frontierland on Morecambe Promenade once and that is just what we need”. To top it all off they didn’t put this blasphemous theme park creation off to one side, that of course would be flinching away from making the killer move. Instead it is plonked on both sides of the gorge right next to the Great Wall with a suspension bridge linking the two. The previously inspiring view and postcard quality photo opportunity is now polluted in the most bizzarely ridiculous way by tourists playing, child like, on the idiotic amusements completely oblivious to the reason they decided to build it here in the first place. Our taxi driver seems genuinely surprised when we return from this ‘wonderful’ new facility looking like we have just been informed that out pet hamster has died. Talk about culture clash.

I also get a sense in China that the country operates on a policy similar to that asked of Kevin Costner in the film ‘Field Of Dreams’, “Build it and they will come”. So much of this country is a building site as it rampages headlong into a 21st century chock full of capitalistic money making opportunities. The result is six lane super highways and grandiose tourist facilities that are all but deserted. Perhaps in years to come the party chiefs will be proved right and glasses of rice wine will be raised to their brilliant foresight. In the meantime however I have moments when I feel like a character in the film ‘28 Days Later’, “Hello, hello, is there anyone here?”

Driving back to our hotel an aroma wafts in through the open windows of our cab. Smell is such an evocative sense, it has that strange ability to put you back into a particular time and place that sight and sound are rarely capable of. For me the one smell that reminds me of China is the one I breathe in now, that of stale urine. I am not deliberately trying to demean China, I really do love this place, it is without doubt my favourite travel destination. The fact is that budget travel in China exposes you to countless wash room facilities that you wouldn’t dream of washing in. Whether it is Chinese bus stations, hotels or trains I will be brought vividly back to all of them as soon as I enter any multistory car park stairwell in Europe. Thinking on this, as I do during long bus journeys, it occurs to me there is a very good reason for it. Bare with me and my crude mathematics, I have used approximate figures that allow easier calculations, none of what follows may bare any resemblance to reality.

Approximately 1.5 billion Chinese peeing, conservatively speaking, 1 litre per day.

There are 1000 litres in one cubic metre so that equals 1.5 million cubic metres of pee per day.

or… 60,000 per hour or 1,000 per minute.

In other words approximately 16 cubic metres of pee is produced in China every second.

16 cumecs! That is the size of a very scary white-water river, or yellow-water river in this case.

I’d like to know how many dog ends are stubbed out each second too, I imagine that is yet another disturbing statistic.

As merchants exited the West Gate of Jiayuguan Fort they would apparently turn and throw a pebble against the wall of the fort. Depending on whether the pebble fell straight to the floor or bounced back would indicate whether or not they would have a safe return. My source didn’t identify which result predicted which outcome so I decided to avoid any superstitious actions. Besides, we were leaving on a air conditioned bus traveling on a metaled road and showing Jackie Chan movies with bad Mandarin dubbing, I think our chances were substantially better than those of the aforementioned merchant.

The Gashtun Gobi desert spreads out in front of us like a blanket of rock and dust. The tendrils of humanity reach out into the wilderness, electricity pylons, telegraph poles, roads and railways, all attempting to tame and control the these bad lands.

The wick of asphalt burns ever onwards through the hot wax of the desert. We pass through dusty oasis towns where a lattice of green cultivation is sheltered beneath tall lines of poplar trees. Outside of these settlements there is not an ounce of shade to be found. The endless tarmac and dust devils to the side of the road reminding me of Mad Max. Speeding along in such a way makes it desperately hard to appreciate just how tough it would have been for the ancient silk road adventurers. The scenery out here is as uniform as it is dangerous. At a camels plod that would have meant pretty much the same view day after day for many days. There would have been little evidence of the slow but steady progress being made, I imagine the demoralising monotony of it all and perhaps even the insanity that would come to those not cut out for such hardship and privation.

At the far western edge of the Gashtun Gobi lies the major oasis town of Dunhuang. Beyond this is a desert so fierce it was literally called the “go in and you won’t come out” desert or Taklamakan. Here traders had a three choices as the route splits. The original Silk Road goes South to where the Taklamakan borders the Kunlun Shan mountains. A route difficult to access these days and to begin with one that passes through a less than pretty asbestos mining area. Then there was a central route going via a place by the name of Lop Nur. Today the desert is even more hostile than in years gone by and with the addition of China’s nuclear weapons programme using Lop Nur as a test area this route is all but impossible for silk road tourists these days. The northern route is the most recent and easiest route out of the three and the one we will take to the next major stopping point at Turpan. Conversely silk road traders in the past would perhaps have chosen the most difficult route rather than the easiest, the harsher and more unforgiving the route, the less likely it was to find bandits there. They certainly were a breed apart from the rest. I’d like to see a few of todays merchant bankers run the kind of risks these chaps took.

Before we press on however we have another tourist hell hole to avoid. The Magao Caves are the finest repository of Buddhist art anywhere in the world, at least they were until French and British ‘archaeologists’ (read thieves) came and carted away armfuls of the stuff so that it could live in dusty museum vaults in Europe instead… By all accounts the artwork that remains is still something to behold but for three reasons we are going to pass. First, the entry fee is something of a legend in itself, next you aren’t allowed to take photos and lastly, I don’t think I could survive a buddhist artwork theme park. Instead we are going to visit a similar but lesser sight in the opposite direction. We hope that less tourists will allow us a slightly more ‘authentic’ experience, my hopes are only partially raised...