Gansu Province Silk Road: Zhangye, Jiayuguan, Dunhuang.

MOUNTAINS:


While in Zhangye, Gansu province, we took a day trip to Mati Temple in the mountains. We were told before we left to take lots of warm clothes as it is "no hot, too cold" there. As we don't really have any warm clothes, we had to make do. Martin wore 2-shirts, a short sleeved shirt, a long sleeved shirt and his new fleece that we'd managed to buy the day before. I wore my pajama top, my t-shirt and my light long-sleeved jumper - yes, I know, not so much of the warm stuff! But I did take along my sarong thinking I could use it as a scarf or something.

We took a minibus there, which was full of local people just trying to get out into the lands nearby. Once we were 9km out, we were unceremoniously dropped out of the bus and left on the side of the road to find a taxi. We don't like taxis, but eventually had to succum to taking one with 2 other Chinese people. We bargained fiercely but the taxi man wouldn't budge so we decided to be just as stubborn and headed off down the road without looking back... after a few minutes, the taxi came crawling along side us and said that our price was ok! Yeah, one up to the foreigners!

Once we were there, it wasn't so much the temple that amazed us, but rather the surrounding Qilian Mountain range. The mountains were stunning, and we spent most of our time getting neckache from straining to look up at them. The temple looked wonderful but we were disappointed because it was all locked up and there was no way to get inside. The only thing we could do was stand outside and get frustrated.

The temple built into the side of the mountain.


While we were there we went for a walk in the valley trying to find the waterfall. We followed a little stream all the way to the top, where it ended in a crude man-made dam thing, not a waterfall. Martin then had a very 'bright idea' and said we should climb up the side of the hill (through dense vegetation I must add!) and from there we'd be able to see better. This we did, getting thoroughly scratched and ripped apart by thorn trees and the like. When we got to the 'top' we discovered that it wasn't actually the top, and we had more scrambling to do. The problem was it was really cold and I was getting grumpy. It was so cold in fact, that it had started snowing!! Crazy. We eventually thought better of Martin's little short cut and made our way back down the hill again, thinking that we didn't really have the correct gear for a snow-filled adventure up the mountainside!!

The further we got down the valley the colder we felt, and then it started raining! We had to run all the way back down and hide in a yurt until it stopped. We were soaked, cold, hungry and tired. Luckily for us, the yurt was full of a gang of Chinese people just finishing their lunch, which they offered to us. Horray for hot soup and tea. I misheard the man when he first presented us with a big plate of meat, thinking he had said "gourou" (meaning DOG meat)... I timidly tried a tiny bite (after much persuasion from Martin) only to later discover, thankfully, that it was actually just mutton.

Once the rain stopped we went outside and were met with a gorgeous sight, the mountains behind us were covered in snow. The sun came out and was shining off them, it was seriously beautiful.

When it came to about 4pm we realised we'd better be off catching the taxi back to the non-descript bus stop. This we did, and after about 30 minutes of waiting in the lovely sunshine (drying all our clothes and warming us up good and proper!), along came the bus. OH MY!! This was my first real 'how can you possibly fit more people in this bus' moment! We were squished in to a minivan (supposed to carry a max of 12 people) that already had about 22 people in it (plus people's luggage and machines on the roof). All along that road we kept picking more and more people up until the bus was literally bursting... I counted 35 people!!!!! What madness. When we eventually reached Zhangye, I was so grateful to get off and breathe fresh air again!!




GLACIERS:


When we were in Jiayuguan (north of Zhangye and further up the silk road) we took what was supposed to be a 'day trip' to the July 1st Glacier. According to our ever-so-helpful guide book, this glacier is gorgeous to behold and therefore a must-see if one is staying in the area for a while. We decided that we'd love to see it, but wanted to go independantly and not fork out hundreds of yuan for a taxi ride there and back.

We discovered to our delight that there was a train line running almost to the glacier, which took a winding three hours through the mountains. I have lots of time for mountains so we duly got on this train at 8:10am. The ride was lovely, the mountains beautiful, and the people friendly and interested in us (and thought it was hilarious that I made a guy go and smoke outside our carriage... I don't think they expect attitude from a woman!!).

When we arrived at the last stop on the line, in a small mining town called Jingtieshan, we thought finding a taxi or a ride to the glacier (a further 20km or something like that) would be easy. Think again!!! We found a few taxi-like cars that were driving by, but they clearly saw an opportunity and asked us for way too much money. So we refused.

This meant that we spent the day sitting around on the dusty roadside watching trucks go by and sometimes chatting to other miners while they too waited for lifts. It was actually a gorgeous day, the wind was bitterly cold but the sun was out and shining nicely to keep us warm. We weren't too worried as we'd checked at the train station and the last train back to Jiayuguan was at 5:30pm.

Our view while waiting...


The real kick-in-the-pants of the day arrived later at about 5pm. We'd wandered over to the train station, expecting many people there for the last train. There was not a single person in sight... strange. Eventually a lady came out and shouted at us to get away, she said there was no train back to Jiayuguan until the next day so would we please go to the nearest town and stay the night in a hotel there. What??? I was so mad, couldn't believe that we'd been told only a few hours before that there was another train going. Martin eventually calmed me down and we realised that this would actually be a cool adventure. Annoying, as we'd already paid for our nice hotel back in the town, but an adventure none the less.

After a little wait, we were picked up by a huge bus taking the mining boys back to the nearest village. The bus driver was a gem, and he said he would help us find the "hotel". The little village was lovely, built mainly to house and keep the miners, with a little river that ran along the bottom of the valley too. We found a nice room to stay in (cheap too!) and had supper with our bus driver friend in the restaurant next door. Delicious beef and noodles, yum.

The next day we wandered by the river, enjoying the sunshine (phew-y was it cold at night!!) and then made our way back with the same bus to the train station. Our bus driver man wasn't driving the bus this time, he was all spruced up looking good as he was going home to his wife for 4 days. He sat with us on the bus and we chatted in broken Chinese for the full 3 hour journey. What a great guy!! We found out that he works for 10 days at the mines, then is allowed 4 days to go home, then back on for 10 days etc. Not such a bad life considering some we've seen here in China. We took a photo of him and promised to send him a copy.

Back in Jiayuguan we had a funny time trying to explain our little adventure to the hotel ladies, and pondered over what the beautiful glacier might have looked like :)


CAVES AND SANDDUNES:


From Jiayuguan, we headed to Dunhuang, home of the famous Magao Caves. These caves are thousands of years old and absolutely stunning. Similar to the Yungang Grottoes we saw in Datong and considered one of the most important groups of Buddhist caves in the world.



The first day we were there we visited these caves and found them just stunning. The strict Chinese rules apply though, and you can't just wander around on your own - you must be in a tour group and are only allowed to see about 10 caves. These 10 they rotate every now and again to better preserve them.

The day afterwards we went on a rather wild tour of places outside of Dunhuang. We'd met a nice Chinese lady who was looking for other people to share a taxi for the day. We hadn't planned on visiting these places but they sounded cool and it was a good price. We left at 7am and spend a good 10 hours in the car, driving through the desert on looooong straight roads.

Our first stop was the Yadan Landforms, 200km northwest of Dunhuang. They were gorgeous, formed from wind and water erosion since the time when dinosaurs roamed the lands! We spent over and hour there, enjoying the silence of the desert and the fact that the 7 of us (we joined with 4 others from another taxi doing the same thing) were the only ones there! Lovely.



After that we drove to many other places, taking lots of pictures and getting thoroughly hot and sweaty in the sun.

When we arrived back in Dunhuang that evening, we met up with our Israeli friend who was staying in the same dorm as us, and went for dinner. We had planned on cycling to the sand dunes that evening but were far too hungry and tired, so we put it off another day.

So yes, the sanddunes, we did eventually make it to them... on Sept 19th. We rented rickety old bikes for Y1 an hour and rode the 6km out to the dunes. When we arrived we did what 'everyone does' and ignored the big entrance way charging Y80. We cycled around to the right, intending to cycle until the fence around the dunes stops. We'd been told by our guide book, various travel advice papers in cafe's and by people we'd met in the town that most people do this and manage to climb the dunes free from the hoardes that surround the entrance area.

When we reached a spot in the trees where we thought we could hide our bikes convincingly we stopped. Martin bravely broke his way through brambles and bushes to find a good bike-hiding area and we left them there. We walked the rest of the way, slipping through the sand along the fence. After a while we found the place where the fence stops and made our way toward it. But then... I heard a sound.... I looked up and there was a Chinese man running down the sanddune toward us yelling. Oh dear.
He reached us and started saying that we couldn't climb the dunes here and we had to go all the way back and pay the fee like everyone else, blah blah blah. Martin did a great job of pretending to not understand a word of Chinese and after some time we grinned pleasantly and carried on. He followed us for a while, but then gave up thinking we were just going to fetch our bikes.

Once he'd turned his back on us, we were off... we ran around the bottom of the sanddune to an area where the trees would cover us for a while and we started to climb up (bloody hard work!!). I was constantly looking over my shoulder in case the guard was following us, not being a fan of confrontation with officials. We took ages climbing the dune, it was so huge and it was really hard to walk in the soft sand. We reached the top (ish) just as the sun was setting and the views were gorgeous.

Once the sun had set, the temperature got cold pretty quickly and it was really windy at the top so we decided to head back town. As we turned around and faced the direction we'd come in, we suddenly saw our guard and he'd found a buddy. Yikes!! We didn't want to be fined so we ran down the dune as fast as we could. I found it hilarious as Martin was screaming at me to keep up and running as if a pack of wild dogs were behind him. It was so much more fun running down the dune than climbing up it, we were at the bottom in about 3 minutes!

From the bottom, we rushed to get under the cover of the trees... but after about 20 minutes of watching and waiting in the dark, we realised those guys had probably just gone home not bothered with 2 naughty foreigners... so we walked safely back to our bikes. Finding our bikes was a whole other story, but with the help of my cell phone torch we eventually did. From there, we cycled back to Dunhuang and had a lovely cold shower to get rid of the sand :)