Jiayuguan (10-26)

Thursday was travel to Jiayuguan day. Since I knew it’s a two-hour trip, I had a relaxing morning at the hostel before heading to the train station. I had to wait two hours for the train, which was OK. Since it was a lovely day, I decided to stay outside. I walked around a little and found a long-sleeved shirt at one of the vendors. I thought about buying one that said “Smile,” but I decided on the one that says “Disneps” because seeing that brings a smile to my face. It’s a Calvin Klein shirt, according to the name on the back, that was 30 yuan/$5.

When I arrived at the hotel, the taxi driver suggested that she take me to one of the sites in a brochure she gave me. Since I was ready to see new things, I agreed to return in half an hour. When I registered, it was really nice that one of the women speaks English. I do OK without that, but it is nice to be able to speak to the people. I dropped off my bags in the room and returned to the taxi. I thought she was taking me to the site and back to the hotel, which is how these things usually work. But, when we arrived, she pointed out the entrance and asked for her money. Then she drove off. A man waiting there with his taxi said a few things to her. Then he told me that there are no buses back to the city. He also told me that the site takes two hours, and it was already 4:00. So he suggested that he drive me to the Overhanging Great Wall, which takes only one hour. We agreed that for 50 yuan/$8.30 he would drive me there, wait, and drive me back to the hotel. We also discussed his being my driver on Friday. He speaks broken English, but we communicated OK, and I liked him. Sometimes I enjoy chatting with people who speak broken English but want to learn.

The Overhanging Great Wall is one of the earliest sections that was built. It was built in the 16^th century, but what is now there is pretty much a replica. It was given its name because it looks like it is suspended on the narrow mountaintop. It is also called the “invisible wall” because it cannot be seen from two sides; so approaching enemies were surprised when they got to the top of the mountain and there was the wall. 

The wall goes up the mountain with views on both sides—the high mountains and flat desert on one side and the desert plain on the other. 

From the end, the path down goes along the ridges with no barriers. There are several signs warning people to walk carefully. I did.

At the bottom of the mountain, there are statues of a camel caravan. 

There are also sculptures of men on horses and camels. In addition to the Wall and mountains, I enjoyed the brilliant, yellow-leafed trees. 

There is another section of the wall that starts in a different location and goes the other direction. (See photo above)

When I exited the site, the two people ahead of me were getting into a taxi. I walked toward it, thinking it was my driver and he had agreed to take those people back to the city, but the guard stopped me and told me I couldn’t go with them because they had paid the driver. I realized that it wasn’t my driver and that my driver and his taxi weren’t there. I was too stunned and couldn’t think of what to say as the taxi drove away and I was left standing there. No other cars were there for me to wait to see if those people would drive me back. So I figured I'd walk to the main street (a bit of a distance) and see if I could get a ride. Fortunately, after a few minutes a bus came from the other direction. I pointed back toward the city and asked if he was going there, and the driver motioned for me to get in and motioned that he would turn go back after finishing the route. When we got to the city, he called the hotel for directions. Then he drew a map with water on the console to show me where it is and where he was going and indicated that he'd take me to the hotel after going to his destination. He parked the bus and we got into his car and he drove me to the hotel. He wouldn't accept any money.

I walked into the hotel and then decided to look for a shop where I could buy water. When I walked out, there was my taxi driver, saying “Sorry.” I wasn’t interested in dealing with his broken English and hearing his story. So I just told him in Chinese that he wasn't there, turned around, and walked back into the hotel. The security man must have been watching because he was inside the door and walked me to the elevator. He was probably watching for me since the man had called for directions. Fortunately, I hadn't paid the taxi driver, as you pay upon returning, not arriving. Needless to say, he lost his customer for the next day.

Friday morning I went to the hotel desk and another woman was there who speaks English well. When I told her where I wanted to go, she told me that there is a bus and told me where to get on it. It was really easy.

The destination of the day was Jiayuguan Pass, a fortress along the Great Wall. On the way into the site, there is a rock garden with sculptures made from rocks with petroglyphs. They were fascinating, especially because I have always been fascinated with petroglyphs. I suppose they are original, but maybe not. Later I saw petroglyphs mentioned—with a picture—in a magazine article about things to see in Jiayuguan. And I have read that there are/were original petroglyphs from the 3^rd to 14^th centuries on a cliff near that area.

Another sculpture area has scenes from daily life carved on the rocks. 

A third area has sculptures of famous people on the rocks. I really enjoyed this rock garden. And it was free.

The fortress is huge. I took the long way around to the entrance. 

The walk around the lake wasn’t very interesting other than that the views of the snow-capped mountains were good. 

And I enjoyed the yellow-leafed trees.

Outside the fortress there is an exhibit of the Great Wall Then and Now. It has photos of various sections of the wall in the early 20^th century and then again in recent years. Descriptions are in English as well as Chinese. I enjoyed and reading about these.

Most of the fortress is a reconstruction. It has a number of watch towers, a temple, a stage, and the general’s house. 

You can walk on the top of the walls. The ramps going up were riding paths. Now they have stairs on one half.
























An interesting feature of the buildings is the “evil eyes” under the roofs. I always think of this name, as that's what they are called in Turkey and they reminded me of that symbol to ward off evil.

From the fortress the Great Wall goes out into the desert to the First Pier and First Beacon of the Great Wall.

In addition to the fortress, the entrance ticket includes the Great Wall Museum. There I learned that Jiayuguan was established in the 1960s; so it’s a very new city. I also learned that the first parts of the Great Wall to be built in 200 BC were in Gansu.

Saturday I headed to the Wei-Jin Brick Mural Tomb, which is also known as the Underground Art Gallery. With its 1400 tombs, it is the largest underground art gallery in the world. They were built between the 3^rd and 5^th centuries. Only one tomb is open to the public. 

Since I knew that no photos are allowed in the tomb, I took many in the museum. 

As soon as I saw the painted bricks, they reminded me of the ones I purchased when I was in China before. I don’t remember why I purchased them other than that I liked them, as we did not go to a tomb on that trip. The paintings depict scenes from life. The tomb has three rooms. One features paintings of daily life in the home, and one has paintings of people working—mostly in the fields. 

The third room has only one wall with painted bricks. The site is out of town in the desert, which made me wonder how so many of the subterranean tombs were discovered.

In the afternoon I went to the Eastern Lake Ecology Scenic Park. It’s huge and has many paths through lovely planted areas as well as two huge lakes. 

The central feature is the meteorology tower that is shaped like a dolphin. The dolphin’s ball is like the “soccer ball” I saw on the building on Huangshan. There was a picture of it on a wall with photos of various meteorology towers. So I guess that’s what it is, not a planetarium as another woman thought and told me. There is an elevator to the top two floors from which there are great views of the park and city. You can easily see how new it is. After visiting the tower, I did my walk and read, walking around one of the lakes and stopping to sit on benches to read. It was a lovely afternoon.

Sunday morning’s quick outing was an example of something that was more than I thought it would be. I’d seen photos of the First Beacon of the Great Wall and knew it is a mound of the remains of an old building. So I hired a taxi to take me there for a quick look before leaving Jiayuguan, thinking it would take no more than an hour. But when we arrived, I saw that there is a whole complex that has been built near the remains of the First Beacon. There is a small museum, mostly in Chinese but with the main information in English. It’s in the cliff on which the First Beacon is located. From the platform, there are good views of the river and the First Beacon on its cliff. 

Then there is a reproduction of the First Pier. I’d seen the name a few times, but it wasn’t listed on the brochure of Jiayuguan sites. It’s the first pier along the Great Wall, as it is on the river. The site has replicas of the tents, which were made of adobe, for the general, officers, and other men. There’s a suspension bridge across the river to the remains of an inn. 






From the other side, there’s a good view of the First Beacon. 

Last we stopped at the First Beacon briefly. I read that it got its name because, when there was danger, a fire was lit on top of the building to warn others. For that reason, is also called the First Fire Tower. 

From the First Beacon there is an unreconstructed section of the Great Wall that goes back to Jiayuguan Pass. Thus I felt like I had experienced how everything was connected.

So, the whole trip took an hour and forty-five minutes instead of half that time as I had anticipated. I arrived back at the hotel just in time to check out and get to the bus station to head to Dunhuang.

Zhangye Part 2 (10-22)

The hostel in Zhangye was a welcome site. It has a lovely sitting area and a lovely area outside the rooms with tables. It is nicely decorated and has lots of natural light through a plastic dome over the courtyard. 

There’s a pet hedgehog in the courtyard. I’d never seen a hedgehog before. It’s cute. I was in a dorm room for 6, but, since this was not the tourist season and only a few other people were there, they put us in different rooms. So I had the room to myself, which was nice. I don’t usually stay in dorm rooms, but this place had caught my eye and I really wanted to stay there. In addition, other hotels were twice the price and I didn’t feel like paying that much. I was very happy to have a hot shower.

After checking in, I went to the Giant Buddha Temple, which is near enough to the hostel to walk. Although the woman doesn’t speak English, she is very friendly and tried hard to help me. She told me how to walk there and gave me a map—in Chinese, but there’s a circle where the hostel is and I could follow her directions on the map.

On the way, I came across the Shanxi Guild house, a lovely, old building with magnificent carved wood.

The Big Buddha in the temple is the largest indoor, clay sculptured sleeping Buddha with a wood core in Asia—34 meters long, 7.5 high at shoulders. This made me wonder how it compares to the Reclining Buddha in Bangkok. I looked it up and that Buddha is 15 meters high and 43 meters long. The Zhangye Buddha is in a dimly lit building—to protect it from light, I suppose. 

I took a few photos before a man told me it’s not allowed, as I hadn’t seen the sign. (I thought it interesting that the guide with his group had walked past me and hadn’t said anything.) But later I found one in a tourist magazine. 

Other buildings in the complex have Buddhist art, sutras, painted Buddhas, and old Buddhas. 

I especially enjoyed the building with painted Buddhas because most of the wall paintings feature women, which is unusual. I learned later that such paintings are probably of family members of donors. 

The halos around the Buddhas are fire, which I hadn’t seen before. Later I was told that that is influence from India.

After walking around for a few hours and walking in the park for 3.5 hours in the morning, I was tired and ready to return to the lovely hostel. I stopped at a supermarket to buy water and yogurt and purchased a very small cooked chicken to take back with me. That solved the problem of what to have for dinner. I enjoyed eating it in the courtyard before my hot shower.

Tuesday turned out to be a day of minor disappointments. First, I had planned to go to Mata Si, as I’d read that buses leave every half hour. When I told the hostel managers, they opened a notebook and showed me the message that buses leave three times a day, the last being at 9:15. It was 9:40; so I missed that. No problem, as I could go there on Wednesday.

The new plan was to go to Black Water State and Tombs Complex from the Han dynasty (around 200-250), which I’d read about on a couple China tour sites online. The managers didn’t understand and called the person who speaks English. I learned that he is their son, and he came to assist as he speaks OK English. Once he understood, he looked up the site online and told me it would cost 10 RMB to enter and I would need a taxi because there are no buses to the site. They contacted a driver and we agreed on a price that seemed reasonable for a half day trip. After half an hour we arrived at a place in the desert where there were remnants of walls. We walked around for about 40 minutes. The driver was very nice and helped me to up the hills and up the inside of a corner building. I enjoyed watching a herd of goats run toward the structure and then move on. There was no admission or place where tickets could be sold and there was nothing that made it look like a cultural site. So I thought this was outside the main site which we would go to next. But when we left, he turned back toward the city. So I was confused. At the hostel, I told Eric that I wasn’t sure I had been taken to the right place. He showed me a photo on the Internet site he had looked at, and it did look like the corner building we had climbed through. And the walls looked like the ones we had stood on. So I finally accepted that we had gone where he had told the driver to take me. With our limited communication, it took about twenty minutes to discuss why I was confused so that he could understand. I was ready to move on, but he wanted to understand. I was also a little disappointed, as the site was interesting but wasn’t really worth the 150 yuan/$25 I had paid to be taken there. And since the trip took a total of two hours, not half a day, I felt like I had paid too much, as I have paid that much for several hours. But that happens sometimes. Fortunately, not often.

Later I looked up the information I had read again and realized that one site’s information had been written 40 years ago; so I’m sure it was outdated in terms of the appearance of the site. Eric had mentioned that things change in the desert as the wind blows the sand. That explained that information. But the other currently offered tour describes seeing decorations on the walls of the tombs. We didn’t see any tombs. It was interesting to see and stand on remnants of walls built in 200 AD. And it was pretty cool to be standing on walls that are about 1800 years old. So, all in all, it was an interesting outing even though I was initially a little disappointed.

Since the outing was much shorter than I’d anticipated, I had the whole afternoon free. I decided to go to the Wooden Pagoda, which I hadn’t planned to visit as I’d read that it wasn’t really special. Eric walked me there, as it’s on his way home. 

The pieces that stick out of the pagoda, giving it the pagoda shape, are wood. I wasn’t sure I wanted to pay the entrance fee to walk to the top, as I knew the city view wouldn’t be great. Since it was a lovely afternoon, I sat on a bench in the square and read for a couple hours. Then I decided to go into the pagoda because they usually have nice altars on each level and sometimes have paintings. 

The first floor has several Buddha images and lovely paintings. The rest have nothing. So that was another small disappointment.

On the way back to the hostel, I passed a place selling cooked food. The broccoli and cauliflower looked good and not spicy. Wrong. They must have been cooked in spicy water that didn’t affect their appearance but permeated them. I washed the pieces, but the spiciness was still there; so I gave it to the managers. The final disappointment of the day.

Some days are like that. When traveling, I can’t always be certain what I’ll see or experience, but I do it anyway. Some are amazingly wonderful; others aren’t. But, fortunately, I have more of the former than the latter. It comes with the territory of traveling.

My adventure Wednesday exceeded anything I had anticipated, balancing the disappointments of Tuesday. At the bus station I was told in English to take the bus and then take a taxi to Mati Si. I’d read that that was the way to get there. The ride went through farm country—corn and potatoes. I saw fields where potatoes had been harvested and put into sacks that were waiting to be picked up. 

For the second half of the trip, we could see the high mountains, some of which were snowcapped. With the blue sky, it was beautiful. When we arrived in the town, the bus attendant told me that for 30 RMB/$5, I could join the four other people going to Mati Si on the bus and then go back to Zhangye. Sounded like a deal to me, as I could stay on the same bus and not have to deal with getting a taxi and then a bus back. So the day was going well.

Mati Si is Tibetan Buddhist cave temples carved into a mountain. We went to two of the main sites. The bluffs have caves at ground level, but most of them are above ground and are connected with tunnels. 

From outside, the upper grottoes look like they are hanging on the side of the bluff. They reminded me of the nunnery we visited in Bhutan that had rooms in the caves in a cliff. 

The main site has grottoes in the form of a pagoda on the side of the bluff. There are five levels, 

and you can walk through the tunnels up to the top one. I met some women from Hong Kong who commented on the fact that because this was not tourist season, it was nice to be able to walk slowly and really look at things because the tunnels were not packed with mainland Chinese tourists. That’s so true.

On the side of the main grottoes there is a huge cave room that has a standing Buddha. 

Another smaller cave has many Buddha statues.

As we walked to the site, the views of the snowcapped mountains and of the grassland hills in the other direction were spectacular. Having some yellow leaves on trees added to the beauty. 

After visiting the grottoes, I walked up to the observation platform, not realizing how far up it was. But the views along the way and the 360 degree view from the top made the walk up worthwhile. 

It was a beautiful day.

I arrived back at the hostel at 3:30, a bit tired and ready to rest. Later I went out to buy vegetables on skewers for dinner. So I enjoyed my non-spicy meal.

I liked Zhangye. It’s not too big, and there aren’t too many cars. Thus it is quiet. The city is clean. The air is good. The sky is blue and the sun shines. People were friendly.