September 14, Day 24 Arriving in Kazakhstan and Charyn Canyon

 

Sheep and cattle still in their night pens

Still in China and passing fertile land

Wheat crop almost ready to be harvested

After a long night through the mountain passes from Urumqi in the westernmost province of China, we arrived on the eastern edge of Kazakhstan.  In the train arrival lounge, I met a group of young students just returning to study after the holidays. One lovely young woman latched on to me. Her English wasn’t good but 200% better than my Chinese or Kazakh! We chatted as best we could and did the photo thing and finished with hugs.  I think I remind the youngsters of their grandmothers and Australia seems to fascinate many of them. I ran into my young pilot again and it was like we were long lost friends. People have been so friendly and welcoming.

The bustling railway station at Khorgos in far west Xinjiang, China

A little bleak but the rain had stopped as we waited for the bus

Once we unloaded ourselves off the train at Khorgos (Huo'erguosi) near the Kazakh border and were bussed to the border where we spent the next 4-5 hours negotiating our way through two sets of immigration controls points to get out of China and into Kazakhstan. It was extremely slow but incident-free. Then we were finally in Kazakhstan. Callooh callay!

Our local guide met us after we had navigated through the border palaver and took us off to lunch about 2pm (some hadn’t even had breakfast at this stage!). Once fed and watered, we were bundling us into a small sleek bus for a 5-hour journey that would take us to Almaty via the Charyn Canyon  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charyn_Canyon . From the border, we travelled further westward to the eye-popping Charyn Canyon, Kazakhstan. (And importantly once we left China we were able to reconnect with the rest of the world!) We were ultimately bound for Almaty, once the capital of Kazakhstan where we spent a short couple of days.

Approaching the canyon 

After almost 7 hours we arrived at the canyon

Finally we arrived at Charyn Canyon. We were pretty bushed after a long rattly ‘sleep’ so Lindsay and I decided against tackling the 200-odd steps down into the canyon but walked instead along part of the canyon rim - 5 km. After 4 hours ‘sleep’ and hours dealing with border control, we figured we didn’t do too badly!

You can google Charyn Canyon but just briefly. According to our guide ‘Charyn’ means ‘crack’ - formed by an earthquake. It is located close to the current Kazakh–Chinese border and is an ancient land feature with rocks dating back up to 100 million years. There are a number of canyons formed by the Charyn River as well as eroded by wind and ‘atmospheric’ erosion; we were visiting one of them - the ‘Valley of Castles’. The rim walk was really interesting. We saw a Great Gerbil and some of its burrow entrances and a Golden Eagle, but the area is teaming with wildlife – river otters, weasels, foxes, hares, wild boars, Long-horned Ibex, ermine, falcons. Persian gazelles, manuls (a small wild cat). And not far from the canyon is a relic forest of ‘Sogdian Ash’ (Ash Tree). This species is said to have survived since the last ice age.

Far below you can see most of our group in the canyon floor

There were no barriers so woe betide anyone getting too close to the edge

We walked as far as we could on the rim - to a shelter not visible (indicated by the red arrow)

The end of the rim walking track

There are yurts and cabins to stay in overnight

People go out to the canyon to camp and raft through part of the canyon 

The sun had slipped below the horizon before we left the canyon so didn’t get to our hotel in Almaty until 10pm. It had been a long tiring day particularly after our overnight train journey and poor sleep. Nevertheless, we sat down and did justice to quite a banquet at our hotel.

Kazakhstan promised to be a big experience! The next day we were to explore Almaty, Kazakhstan’s former capital. Incidentally Kazakhstan is basically a tribal land with three historic ‘tribes’ which are not distinct ethnic groups but rather three large confederations of Kazakh clans. The history of this region is long, complex and to me almost bordering on mythical.

September 12-13, Days 22-23 Jaiyuguan to Urumqi

 Our last morning in Jaiyuguan was leisurely spent before we were to board a train to take us northwest along the fringes of the Taklamakan desert to reach China’s most northwestern province, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and its capital city, Urumqi. The Taklamakan Desert is the largest desert in China and the world’s second-largest shifting sand desert (by way of comparison Australia’s Simpson Desert of parallel dunes in half this size – awesome nonetheless!).  The Taklamakan Desert is nicknamed the ‘Sea of Death’ because of its temperature extremes and moving dunes. Oh, to be 20-30 years younger so we could explore this hostile place of wonder. However …….

This morning we were taken to an extensive garden, Donghu Lake Park, and let loose to wander as we chose which was perfect for us. The garden was quite a surprise particularly as we were in the Gobi Desert. The main water supply for the city – and these gardens – is from a river sustained by glacial meltwater and precipitation from the Qilian Mountains. It was lovely and obviously something the people are very proud of.  

This tower was designed to resemble a fish, symbolizing prosperity and abundance

Vibrant colour contrasted with the shady paths

We came across a circle of bronze figures representing the Chinese zodiac - Lindsay beside his sign

Of course, we had our eyes on the plants and birds, but it was quite a pleasant place to while away the hours before another banquet lunch! All the food was interesting if not delicious, but it was all becoming a bit of a blur. Many places we have had our own dining room - some expansive others a bit of a tight squeeze like today’s. Some of us may have preferred a simple sandwich, but the local people were eager to show off their local culinary specials – westernised for us of course.

The blue dot and arrow indicate Jaiyuguan

Then we waddled to the station to catch our train to Urumqi in China’s far northwest. After a very noisy, completely packed, 1300km fast train ride from Jiayuguan, we arrived late that night and were greeted by our local guide bearing gifts - ‘silk’ scarves for the women and traditional Muslim caps for the men - before being whisked away to our hotel and a very welcome bed. The hotel is very new and comfortable - and, like a number of Chinese hotels we’ve stayed in, much was automated - lights, curtains, flushing toilet, they even have a robot to deliver ‘Uber Eats’ to your room. What more could you ask for?! 

A quite desoltae landscape but fascinating

Oases of productive land in this desert - fed by snow-melt from the mountains

The Uber person placing an order in the robot who whisked it up to the appropriate room

Next morning, our last day in China we woke to the exotic promises of remote Urumqi the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. It is rather an ‘oasis in the desert’ cradled between the Taklamakan Desert in the south and the Tien Shan and Altai mountains in the north. After a week of altitudes from 3000-5000m, and suffering mildly debilitating altitude sickness, today I feel back to ‘normal’ and able to walk (rather than stagger) even lugging all my luggage and assorted other ‘stuff’! A blessed relief I can tell you.

This morning we visited the Xinjiang Regional Museum. How different it was to what we saw 7 years ago in 2018! It is now a much larger building, everything refurbished, more signage (although not enough in English for ‘need-to-know-everything’ me), and a wonderful and extensive collection of new exhibits including more ancient mummies and artefacts from desert archaeological sites. The exhibits traced forward in time from Palaeolithic to Neolithic periods, around 1000 BC. There was even a small replicate of the Mogao Caves, also known as the Thousand Buddha Grottoes or Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, which form a system of 500 temples 25 km southeast of the centre of Dunhuang, an oasis located at a religious and cultural crossroads on the Silk Road.

The entrace to the Thousand Buddha Grottoes display

Xuanzang a C7 Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveller, and translator.

What was of particular interest to me was what archaeologists had discovered in 1980s when excavating in the desert. They found some significant graves, significant in that they revealed the mummified remains of people of ancient ‘Europoid’ origins (AKA not Chinese or Mongolian) dating back 4000 years. In particular I wanted to see the 'Loulan Beauty', the most famous of the Tarim Basin mummies. Aged 40-45 years old, she was 152 cm tall with long hair. She wore a pinted felt cap and leather shows ans was wrapped in a dark brown woollen cloak. She was a naturally preserved, roughly 3,800-year-old Bronze Age woman discovered in a tomb near the ancient Silk Road.  She was one of many amazing discoveries.

A figure from an ancient Buddhist kingdom located in Taklamakan desert in the Tarim basin

Mummified remains were found perectly preserved in the dessicating dryness of the desert

This mummy of quite a tall man shows evidence of face tattoes

The mummified body of a young infant

Wonderfully preseverd string shoes

Xinjiang is a region where various ethnic groups have coexisted (not always harmoniously), together with their different religions, since ancient times. Around the C1 BC, Buddhism was introduced into Xinjiang and thrived as a culture during a period of great prosperity from C4 to C10. Xinjiang and the surrounding region contains some very early grottoes and Buddhist temples. The Central Plains grottoes such as Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang and Yungang Grottoes in Datong are quite famous. The morning flew by too quickly for me - it was all fascinating and we were fortunate to have a terrific guide (unlike our last visit). There were too many exhibits to show and describe here - and many we had no idea about as the signage was only in Chinese - so I have included only a  handful.

An ancient religious figurine unearthed from Astana Cemetery in Turpen City

Burial pillow in the shape of a two-headed bird

A Tang dynasty clay figurine - the head of a pig and the body of a man 

Our group outside the museum

Our last supper in China before boarding the train to Kazakhstan was a very Porky dinner - pork and vegetable broth, pork belly, pork meatballs, pigs tail yes that’s right! plus chicken and chestnuts, prawns, and loads of vegetables.  A feast to sustain us on our long journey east. 

A blurry pork dish!

Lindsay tried all the local beers!

Travel can be a little tedious at times with border delays, etc, but it has so many unexpected and delightful moments. Tonight for instance, we were finally on our way to Kazakhstan and while waiting to board the train, we got talking to a young man who turned out to be a pilot with a regional airline in the Xinjiang region. He had trained in Canada but many of his colleagues trained in Australia so I think he felt a connection to us Aussies. We learnt a lot about living in the Xinjiang region from this friendly young man who was so keen to talk to us. As luck would have it, I ran into him again at the station in Khorgos next morning (after our overnight train ride) and it was like we were long lost friends. Such friendly people!

Urumqi in red, just an overnight train ride to Khorgos which is close to the border with Kazakhstan

September 9 - 11, Days 19-21 Lhasa to Xining to Jaiyuguan

 Our last morning in Lhasa we packed our bags - with our clean clothes! and had a last high-altitude breakfast before heading for the station. We were returning to Xining before heading further north and west. Our trip was as delightful as it had been a few days ago. And just as long!  We arrived in Xining 22 hours later rather exhausted after a long night on hard bench-beds BUT we had been to the roof of the wall!  A dream come true.

Sadly leaving Lhasa

Fascinating hills 

Much cropping outside Lhasa

Yak herds and the herders camps

Stunning skies and landscapes

Back in Xining, we visited a rather spectacular mosque – the Dongguan Mosque, the largest mosque in the province of Qinghai. It was immense and opened in the rear to what looked like a market. It had a feeling of deep tranquillity and there were few tourists which added to the sense that this was a place of prayer and worship rather than a tourist destination, something that we had felt at many of the temples and monasteries we had visited up to this stage. We walked past a school on the way to and from the mosque and peeked through the fence at the children engaged in some form of sport. They were having a huge amount of fun. Then it was time for lunch, another banquet! before heading once again to the station to catch our train for a relatively short 3-hour ride to Jiayuguan - we were heading for the western frontier of the Great Wall of China.  As Lindsay has noted, everything is timed to the second on most trains in China and this was no different. We were well on our way before our luggage was even stowed. This precision has meant a few mad dashes to board trains after hold ups going through security which is as rigorous, or more, than airport security.

The entrance to the Dongguan Mosque

The tranquil mosque was within the walls 

Lines of ancient bonsai trees

Prayer carpets were piled in many locations withn the grounds of the mosque

But we made the train and arrived in Jiayuguan from Xining later that afternoon and were quite surprised to find a fairly ‘new’ city. Situated on the edge of the Gobi Desert, it was built around the 1950s when iron, zinc, lead and coal were discovered in the vicinity. The city looks rather incongruous beside the ancient Great Wall.  Jiayuguan is in the Gansu Province and is famous as the westernmost terminus of the Ming Dynasty Great Wall. Nicknamed "The First and Mightiest Pass Under Heaven," the 600-odd year old Jiayuguan Fortress once served as a vital, heavily fortified checkpoint along the ancient Silk Road protecting China at the narrowest point of the western (or Hexi) corridor between the Tibetan Plateau and towering Qilian Mountains to the south and the unyielding deserts of the Mongolian Plateau to the north.  The Hexi Corridor (meaning west of the river, the Yellow River) sometimes known as the ‘throat way’, linked China to the West so security and protection was vital for economic security.

The centre piece was a mini farm with cows and cartons of milk 

The next day, after a groaningly large all-you-can-eat breakfast, we headed off to the Wall - along with bundreds of others (mainly Chinese). The fortifications were most impressive but having visited the Mutianyu Wall from Beijing some years earlier, it was a little disappointing. It was a totally different kind of structure set in very different terrain, but the defence equipment and strategic defence structures of the fortress were very impressive.  Something that caught my eye was the "loose brick" on the watchtower wall over the Hui Ji Men gate. According to local Ming Dynasty legend, an architect named Yi Kaizhan calculated he would need exactly 99,999 bricks to build the fortress. When construction finished, one brick was left over. The architect intentionally left the extra brick unmortared and placed it on a ledge above the Hui Ji Men gate. He convinced his supervisors it was a divine, stabilizing brick, and that moving it would cause the entire fortress to collapse. To this day, the loose brick remains in place. Quirky tales like this fascinate me. 

Entrsane to the Fortress much of which has been 'restored'

Within the fortress walls were many traps for invaders 

The crumbling wall can be seen here snaking out intot the inhospitable desert

At each corner of the fortress walls were sentry towers

Our group in front of two-story Wenchang Hall, a wooden pavilion located inside the inner city of the fortress

A devious machine that was rolled down the horse track into the fortress if invaded

Ah thre 'loose brick' - the 99,999th brick 

The Chinese are the masters of 'cute'. These 'carmel' vehicles ferried people around

After wandering hither and yon exploring the Fortress and gazing out across the desert at the Wall, which looked rather worn down, our group eventually regathered to walk down the hill to the quite newly-built Great Wall museum.  Of course, by this time we, at least Lindsay and I, were a bit walked out but the museum housed some spectacular exhibits tracing the history of the Wall, and of the history of the region.  It was excellent and our guide provided a wealth of information, but many of us suffered with a touch of fatigue and information overload.  Outside the museum were a couple of imposing statues. One Lindsay thinks was a Lionicorn or qilin, a benevolent, chimera-like creature from Chinese mythology. And opposite this mythical creature is a ‘flying’ horse and rider with something in his hand. Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty (206 BCE to 220 CE), created roads and a postal service between the western regions and the interior. These afforded vital communication and trade networks that passed through the Jiayu Pass and we think this was one of those riders. 

Top: A 'courier' depictions found in archeaological sites. Bottom: a mythological Lionocorn or 'quilin'

Then it was back to the hotel and - you guessed it - another gargantuan lunch after which Lindsay and I took the rest of the afternoon off to relax – and like fat cats we fell asleep!  Most of the rest of the group went climbing to a Buddhist temple high in a cliff. Evidently it proved very challenging so we were pleased we had opted out. That evening after a simple self-catered meal of noodles, we collapsed.   But how glorious to have comfortable beds and bathrooms you could turn around in, etc.  With all the walking we’ve been doing Lindsay’s hips are quite troublesome, so he is popping painkillers, poor darling. All I can say is thank goodness for our hiking sticks - and pain killers. We are walking considerably more, in fact orders of magnitude more, than we usually do at home – and feeling it.

On the dining front, our hotel had a number of separate dining areas in each of the ‘east’ and ‘west’ wings (which were separate buildings). At each we had a huge private dining room with elaborate, heavily-laden, Lazy Susans featuring some aspect of the local produce. Wine was rarely available, but beer was popular – even I drank beer to quench thirst and to avoid the sweet soft drinks on offer. One shouldn’t complain – we ate extremely well in most places.