Advertisement
Published: January 24th 2010
What an incredibly diverse last few weeks here in China! They have taken me hurtling past the halfway point of my journey and towards the end of my time in Asia ... both of which have stirred up incredible sadnesses ... oh to only have 6mths of an adventure left ... anyone feeling sympathy yet? No? I thought not!
If India is incredible as
anything is possible - China is incredible because it seems that everything is not only possible but happening! China is under construction, under development and with it under threat!
As I caught the bus beyond the Tiger Leaping Gorge and towards the Tibetan plateau the temperature in the bus dropped and my ears popped, the scenery changed to vast open land of scorched brown where the racks for drying the wheat sat out in the fields like enormous chairs for giants. The architecture changed to the large Tibetan houses, all uniform in size and construction, concrete exteriors and beautifully carved wooden frontages, more often than not complete with Communist flag - I made a mental note to read more on the question - does Tibet really want to be free?
I entered Shangri La
or Zhongdian as its local name is - ShangriLa is for the tourist trade! The town was half closed up as expected being so far out of season - but, fantastic news my visit would coincide with a Cham - a festival day - at the monastery. The day of the Cham almost all of the hostel and I headed up and the first thing I was struck by was the pink of the local dress. As I climbed the steps though there was far more to absorb the senses - the mist and fragrance of insense, the drum beats of the dancers still out of my view, the bright sunlight occasionally punctuated with a cloud of wind whipped dust and of course lots and lots of children running around with cap guns!
We all individually submitted to the press of the crowd, both for warmth and to try and capture a view of the dancers. Hours later and sore from the shapes I'd stood in I popped out of the back of the throng to explore the temple, find some food and soak up the local people. It was a fantastic atmosphere and, as this visit had been
The various faces of the Cham at Ganden Sumtseling Gompa
This is the 300 year old Tibetan monastery in Shangri La - home to around 600 monks. This celebration was of the harvest and for peacemy reason for going to ShangriLa, I couldn't have asked for more.
Before too long though, and with a terrible cold from the constant extremes of temperature I made it back to Lijiang to fly up to Chengdu. I pulled the covers over my head for my first day in Chengdu with some fantastic medicines that promised that a 'coarsing wind would increase my turbidity'! I don't know if that quite happened but the heavens had conspired to provide me with the most perfect guest house to feel ropey in ... complete with enormous DVD collection!
Feeling improved the next day I headed off to the Wolong Panda Reserve. First thing in the morning these animals are at their most active so I got to see the full range of this - eating and scratching, and then a return to lying around. One of the guys I was with adopted them immediately as his personal role model! I was pleased though, the enclosures were large and clean and the breeding programme seems to be very effective with the numbers, at least in captivity rising nicely. For a mere minimum donation of 1000RMB (around 100GBP) you could even hold
a baby panda! Needless to say that wasn't in budget! The animals were fantastic and if they are too lazy to survive in the wild I can at least believe that they'll survive beyond my generation with the help of breeding programmes like this.
The following day was a completely different experience, off to Leshan to see the largest Buddha in the world. Completed around 1200 years ago after 90 years of work this Buddha seemingly succeeded straight away in fulfilling its purpose. The waters in front of it had been notoriously dangerous. The carved out stone though falling into the water seemingly levelled out the bed of the river and the waters became calmer - a triumph for the devout. Also in the grounds was Wuyou temple, reached via a beautiful bridge and a few hundred steps. It is worth the walk if only for how freaky it is. With no intentional disrespect this is where a grotesque Disneyland meets Buddhism! The hundreds of Buddhas are all slightly freaky caricatures of various attributes. However, the temple has been rebuilt many times over the years with these recent plaster cast statues only dating back to the 1980's thus providing
such modern finish and paint jobs that the old world spirituality is completely lost.
After a leisurely few days based in the very laid back city of Chengdu though it was time to move forward. As I'm moving now between the major 'sights' that I'd anticipated seeing here, and maybe even being on the mainline of the railway I started to feel that I was on the tourist trail and that the pull of Beijing was starting to get stronger. And nowhere was I going to feel more on the tourist trail than at my next stop, Xi'an, the city of the terracotta warriors. This was one of my second major reasons for coming to China (the first being the Wall), and I had to work hard on the night train to Xi'an to give myself a strong talking to in an effort to manage my expectations!
Nobody had told me anything positive about Xi'an as a city in itself so I was impressed to find another modern, clean and generally friendly city as I emerged from the night train. The bus to the guest house was easy to navigate and within no time I was heading out
to explore the major city sights of the bell tower, the drum tower and the Muslim Quarter. Both of these wooden towers were mainly used back around 1300 and both functioned as warning systems against invasion as well as other more ritual purposes. They have been renovated several times over the years so, as most things I've seen so far in China retain almost no sense of age. There were however brief drumming and bell performances which gave me an opportunity to marvel at some of the traditional instruments and costumes of this intriguing nation. The Muslim Street was warmed from the cooking of a thousand woks, street sellers with their chestnuts or toasted walnuts, this was a trip back to real Asia! The traffic was congested and trying to perform impossible feats of passing each other, the stalls kept my eyes peeled back with many thoughts of 'what the hell's that?' the smells in the air were delicious and then there was the litter and seemingly impossibly unhygienic practices of selling fresh fish from a mat on the floor and the like. Oh how I'd missed all this!
The following day was the big one though - the
greatest historical discovery of the modern age ... made only in 1974. I'd booked the tour to the warriors through the hostel. We firstly stopped at a factory, and despite the sales pitch it offered an interesting background into the manufacture of the warriors themselves. I always appreciate this kind of background information, like learning the craft of inlaying marble in India increased my appreciation of the Taj Mahal ... so I don't get dispondent at these touristy stop offs.
The complex that houses the warriors is huge and incredibly polished. I was surprised to see quite how developed these areas are given that there is a general belief that there are a huge number of artefacts and sites that haven't been discovered. The tomb of the emperor himself is quite a distance from the warriors and it's believed there will many discoveries over the kilometre or so between the two. Incredibly the emperors tomb has not yet been opened, the argument given to me is that the Chinese don't yet have the technology or understanding to best preserve the items when it is opened. I was in no doubt that there must be such knowledge internationally but got
the impression that China wanted this for themselves and moved away from the subject.
The first things I saw were not terracotta but bronze. The two bronze chariots were discovered in 1980 only 20m from the emperors tomb and have about 3400 moving parts each representing approximately half size replicas of those from the era. They are stunning and represent the largest bronze artefacts ever discovered.
From there it was finally time to see the warriors. A step back of over 2200 years and I wasn't disappointed. Although still under excavation (and the Chinese don't seem to be rushing at that) the 600m long pit one gave you a impression of what had been discovered and what still lay beneath. The imposing army was magnificent and I stood freezing for as long as I could soaking up the view before I had to go outside and try and soak up some little warmth from the weak winter sun.
My last day in Xi'an was a leisurely, and of course cold, cycle ride round the city walls - a soothing end of my time here and gave me plenty of opportunity to soak up the experiences of the
last week or so - sometimes I really have to pinch myself. In only a little over a week I feel like I've lived a month! I'm still no closer to understanding China although have once again been floored by peoples kindnesses. Maybe this place is just like the ancient Indian story of the five blind men with an elephant - maybe to know how much I don't know is all I can know!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.307s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 12; qc: 81; dbt: 0.0615s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Dad C
non-member comment
Up to your usual high standards!
Love the pictures of the locals - they really shine on top of the narrative. Keep up the work of keeping us enthralled you lucky girl