Blogs from TianShui, Gansu, China, Asia

Day 31: Exploring Tian Shui At 7.30 we were, to some extent, roused by music being played in the street via a public address system, followed by 30 minutes of possibly stirring speech, mostly by a woman. Over an excellent Jinjiang Inn breakfast (including hard-boiled eggs, boiled in tea), Maghnus revealed that he had hit the town last night and gave us an account of his revels. The plan for today was to visit the Buddhist grottoes at Maijishan (Wheat Stack Mountain), so named because the caves have been carved into an isolated geological feature that looks like a stook. It is 35 km southeast of Tianshui, is the 4th most important such complex in China and 194 caves plus extensive artwork survive. Maghnus had a cunning plan – to go by taxi to the “old” ... read more

Travels with my Xiong di...Maiji Shan...the carved mountain the Cultural Revolution forgot. On a movie set...one is captured by two dimensional landscapes, urbanity or whatever from past or present on picture boards...setting the scenes the camera dwells on to carry you away with the script. But when one looks behind the picture boards there is a different world. China to me is like that...the glitz of the well known sites teeming with tourists and souvenirs...so beautifully and grandly presented...the backstreets oh so different. Then there is Gansu...a province like no other. One feels you are well behind the picture boards...in a world that time forgot. There is a dryness...a silence...a feeling of isolation...the old Silk Road long gone...yet solitary reminders of an exotically spiritual past...like Maiji Shan. When the barbarians.... read more

The MaijiShan Grottoes are the only reason to come to TianShui, but they're a good enough reason to make the journey. For the first time on this trip we're getting the feeling of being a bit off the beaten track. Nobody speaks English, there are no English menus, though Atsuko can read enough for us to have a guess at what we're getting. As has nearly always been the case wherever we've been people go out of their way to help. We're also a bit of an attraction and get people staring and quite a few students wanting to have their photo taken with us.... read more

25 juli: Bezoek aan de Maijishan. Om kwart na 6 ging de wekker, na een lange en frisse nacht. Na het ontbijt vertrokken we zo snel mogelijk naar de Maijishan site, want we wilden zoveel mogelijk zien vooraleer de bussen met bezoekers zouden toekomen. Tussen het hotel en de site lag een wandeling van 15 minuten door een mooi bos van het Arboretum. Toen we rond 8h30 bij de site toekwamen, was er nog bijna niemand. Na een paar foto’s in het ochtendlicht, begonnen we aan het bezoek. De Maijishan is een alleenstaande berg, die zoals zijn naam (Tarwebaal) het aangeeft, de vorm heeft van een baal tarwe. Hij ligt op ongeveer 1.700 meter boven de zeespiegel, en steekt zo’n 130 meter boven het landschap uit. Het is het 4de grootste complex van Boeddhistische grotten in ... read more

Tianshui City is the second largest city in Gansu Province of China, and is located about 4 hours S.E. of Lanzhou, the capitol of Gansu, the largest city in Gansu. Tianshui City, a smaller community of some 5 Million inhabitants, is continuing to develop into a more modern city, but still retains much of the flavor of an older Chinese city along the Yellow River. As one of the main settlements along the important routes of the Ancient Silk Road, I found Tianshui more interesting than Lanzhou. Here commerce and religions, traditions and customs have a long history, as all were transported by traders and pilgrims from East to West and from West to East. Tianshui City is a mix of ancient influences and modern development, and the two live side by side. Buddhist Temples, Taoist ... read more