China - but not China

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The second half of my trip through China has been so different from the first part that Its hard to believe its all one country. Just about everything is different except the money - which goes further the further west you go.

After posting the last blog I settled down to some serious travel covering a couple of thousand Km by sleeper train, bus and jeep. The route took me round Tibet (not allowed in!) crossing the lower part of the plateau at around 3000m. Its all desert, not big sand dunes but miles and miles of dusty gravel with ridges of hills that look like they would just turn to mud if it rained. Vegetation is very sparse with some tough grass in small clumps meters apart. I was following the southern silk road route so called because it passes south of the huge Taklamakan Desert. A desert of even more severe desertiness than the desert around it! In the small towns on route donkey carts and camels were normal - foreigners were not! I didn't see another western face for 5 days of traveling until I got to Kashgar (Kashi in Chinese). For this part of my trip I had to get a permit from the local police (Public Security Bureau) and register each night at the local police station. One police officer was very proud to speak some English and wanted to know - if he visited the UK could he get his travel permits and registration in Chinese? I doubt it, but last time I looked a visa check at Heathrow would have been his only normal contact with the police.

The people that I met (and who looked after me) on the way were quite unlike those I met in eastern China. Surprisingly some people even random shepherds spoke a bit of English. I was helped to find the correct bus, taken to dinner and one night even had my "hotel" room paid for! This is the Uighur ethnic group who are of Turkic descent, have their own language, use a Arabic alphabet instead of Kanji and have had a strained relationship with China proper similar to the Tibet story. The touch of English was very useful because when I offered up the mandarin phrases from the Lonely Planet guide book very few people could read them.

Somewhere along the way China was rocked by the Earthquake in Sichuan province. For the first day or so it wasn't big news on the TV here (or at least there were not many pictures). As soon as some rescue teams got going, army mobilised, helicopters flying around the news coverage was total. Standard shots of a big rescue effort using all the latest modern equipment set to stirring music. A couple more days on and President Hu Jintao was on the ground personally supervising efforts while people lined up in the streets to donate blood and cash. From here the rescue and relief effort looks spectacular in its size and effectiveness. It has even displaced the Olympic preparations from top spot. reports that the quake could be felt all over China were over doing it - no shaking where I was.

The towns ringing the desert are amazing, real oasis. Rivers come down from melt water in the high mountains feeding agriculture and trees. All of the towns are planted with tall thin poplars which presumably give shade and shelter from the hot dusty winds. There are also willows pollarded for animal feed, a practice that used to be common in the UK. Local crops include grapes which make the best raisins I have ever tasted. Also apricots and strawberries, tomatoes as well as loads of fruits I have never seen before.

I based myself in Kashgar (for Google maps Kashi, china) for a week. Its a fantastic old town where trade routes have been meeting for thousands of years (That means the locals are very good at selling things so hard bargaining required!). Still plenty of mud brick houses and crazy markets the inevitable modernisation has a long way to go before "sanitising" this place. Kashgar is at one end of the Karakorum Highway which winds over the Khunjerab pass into Pakistan - this is one of the worlds great roads. I organised a trip along the highway (on the Chinese side) to do some trekking on Mt Muztagh Ata. We had one night at Karakul Lake which is a rugged beautiful spot unfortunately a bit spoiled by big business cashing in on tourism. Trekking from there about 30km up to the base camp we stayed that night with a local family in their high pasture summer home. It may be summer but it was snowing heavily with thunder and lightening when we arrived. Our "hotel" was warm and cosy with Yak dung burning in the stove (heating gallons of Chi) and the whole family (plus my guide and I) sleeping on the floor sardine style under huge rugs. At about 4500m up I didn't sleep that well but mostly because of being too hot! The next day we went up higher along the side of one of the glaciers that pour down from the summit. I must be fitter again as climbing at over 5000m was feeling quite easy. The scenery was spectacular - very big. The scale is just more than anything we have in Europe. Fantastic.

Moving on from Kashgar I am now heading into Kazakhstan via yet more overnight buses. Should be leaving China on Thursday morning.

So overall impressions of China? Which China? I only passed through a tiny bit of the country but if I come this way again I would spend time in the west (maybe try for the summit of a big mountain) and if the authorities allow Tibet looks interesting. A great place to travel around and relitively easy I had good fun here and so much to think about. Its an overwhelmingly huge place (prehaps empire is a better description than country), with so much diversity "China" is a difficult thing to pin down. Its going to be fun watching the Olympics - I might even have to buy a (Chinese made) TV just for that!

As for returning to the UK I now have a job lined up. For the first 6 months at least I will be in Thetford - East England working on a new woodfuel project that the FC is starting up there.

Hope you are all having fun
More travel news soon
Matt

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Photos

Hotel on Mt Muztagh Ata
The family that we stayed with in their summer home at high on the mountain. They keep sheep, goats and yaks as well as the occasional tourist. 7546m high at the summit. I got up to about 5400m, wouldnt mind coming back with the right kit to have a go for the top.

Desert taxi
9 people squezed in there for a 7 hour trip. We needed the 4 wheel drive for patches of soft sand.

Man with his new donkey
Proud new owner after a noisy negotiation - Kashgar livestock market

Fat tailed sheep
The sheep have 2 pads of fat on their rear end - the bigger the better. Local food is mutton cooked many different ways but always with plenty of fat!

Test riding a horse
At the livestock market in Kashgar. Prancing over amazingly stony ground!

Comments

[Fi Brown]

Hello from Arch and Fi
Just been catching up on the blogs since end of the Phillipines. Wow, what a trip! you're in the places we didn't make it to...yet, but being ever so much more intrepid and altitudionous than we tend to be. Glad you're having a good time. Looking forward to reading the next instalment. Keep on keeping on. Fi xx

[sarah]

hey i am planning to go tho the xinjiang provinz, too. but since i travel alone I wanted to ask if you met some backbeggers, like international tourists or were there almost noone? did you met some other people? sarah