China Tour 2013

The small bus was scheduled to drive for 4 hours, but after one hour we stopped at a fuel station and a big verbal fight between the bus drivers wife and another truck driver started who would be the first filling up his tank. Actually an useless discussion as the station seemed to have run out of fuel and only after 45 minutes waiting we finally got fuel and continued our journey.



In the beginning a well developed highway, later smaller streets following a river which was running through this great looking area.



We arrived about 19.45 in Tongren, which is famous for its Longwu Monastery 隆务寺. The town itself was disappointing, one of these remote towns in nowhere in China and now being strongly developed by the government in adding high rise residential buildings, sports arenas and so on... does not really fit, but thats how it is.
We found an acceptable hotel (bargaining worked!) and grabbed some food in a shabby restaurant (there are only shabby restaurants!) and went to bed early after enjoying to watch the dancing of the locals on the main square.
The next morning we were lucky and got again fantastic weather with amazingly blue sky. We went to the monastery which is located at the end of the town and were surprized. Some pilgrims making their way around the monastery and also around every single temple, turning the countless prayer wheels at this place.
More than 150 monks are living here, among them a lot of younger guys and we could watch one of their debating hours (looked actually very strange to us).
The good thing here is: No tourists, no crowds of people around so we could take great pictures about the monastery, monks and pilgrims. A really great place and we enjoyed our time here.









Afterwards we took a cab to another monastery about 6 km outside of town, called Wutong 五屯寺, famous to be an artist place for buddist thangka paintings. After paying a small entrance fee one of the monks guided us through the monastery, opened the doors to the holiest temples (only no photographing) and also here we have been the only guys around.





A bit chitchat with the monk (his Chinese is really not much better than mine) and he showed us some of the paintings. Extremely nice, very detailed and also very expensive (20x20 cm starts at 800 RMB). We left without any purchases and walked the way back to Tongren. On the way back we could visit another small monastery, but not very spectacular.
The afternoon and evening in town were not very special, as there is honestly nothing to do. No bars, cafes, what a healty (and cheap!) lifestyle.
We got the tickets for the bus on next morning at 8 am which will bring us to Xiahe in Gansu Province.
Today was a great day, a lot of impressions of Tibetan culture in the middle of China.

After another almost 12 hours train ride in the sleeper wagon we arrived Friday morning at Xining, the capital of Qinghai Province. As the main railway station is closed for construction for the new high speed railway Lanzhou-Xining-Urumqi (even to these remote areas the bullet trains will run soon), the train ended at the West railway station and we had to make our way to the city (10 km). A friendly guy at the station warned us in very good english about the rude and overcharging taxi drivers and recommended bus line nr. 2 which will bring us to the bus station inside the city. So we squeezed in one of the city busses, packed with people and a driver who loved to hear his techno music while driving and while sitting inside his self made circle of teddy bears...
We were already wondering where we have get into, all people around us looked more like being from Turkey or Pakistan, not China.
Anyhow, after more than one hour in this funny bus we arrived, managed to deposit our luggage at the bus station and went for a walking tour through the city.
Xining is on about 2200 m altitude and the temperature was much colder than before. A big part of the population are Muslims and as it was Friday a lot of people were coming out of the famous Dunghuang Mosque and swept to the local markets around.





We felt even more strange if still in China, people have not much in common with the ones I saw before and





also the presentation of goods and food would not always match the standard criteria of Food and Drug Administration in China :-)



Only after a short moment of thinking to become a vegetarian we took our brunch, beef noodle soup in a local shop for 6 RMB! Afterwards strolling through the Tibetan Market, where I could not decide wether to buy a blue or a red cowboy head and afterwards getting on a small bus bringing us to our next destination: Tongren
It really feels that our adventure started from here, now really depending on my Chinese skills and not sure what to expect from the remoter mountain areas between here and Sichuan.

We arrived in the morning with the train in Xi'An



and went directly to a hostel. Luckily we could get the room already at 8 am, which was nice and clean, good value for the money.
We headed to the Bell Tower and to the Muslim street,



visited the old Mosque of Xi'An (which looked more like a chinese temple).
In the afternoon the weather cleared up a bit after the rain in the morning so we decided to be a bit more sportive and rented some bikes for a quick race on top of the city wall, which is almost 14 km long.



Was quite fun and some good excercise befroe we met my friends Thomas and Lisa for another Tepanyaki dinner. The evening ended in Soho bar, seems this club is everywhere in China.



The second day we took the bus to the Terracotta army, for me now the 4th time to be there (and this time really the last visit!). Packed with people as usual, Markus took the pictures, I already have many from the last
visits.



After being back to Xi'An we visited the Big Wild Goose Pagoda



and walked through the streets of Xi'An back to the Muslim Street to grab a quick dinner



and than further on for our next night train trip to the western part of China.
Up to here the trip was pretty easy, next stop is Xining, the adventure will start there...

Today afternoon we hired a car to drive us the 40 kilometers from Pingyao to Zhang Bi ancient castle.
Again a bumpy ride and an unbelievable number of trucks transporting coal to nearby power plants. Forget the word air pollution in Shanghai, here the air has been so full of smog...
After an hour ride we arrived and were more than surprised that we could find an english speaking tour lady. English was not perfect but with her enthusiasm of guiding us she made up for it and always tested my Chinese skills by checking how many characters I could understand on these old stones (honestly 马马虎虎）。
The whole old town in which only about 600, mainly old, people live is stretched with underground tunnels, originally a total length of 10 km, of which about 1 km is open to the public.
The orientation and name of the town is related to the 28 Chinese Astronomical constellations (28 舍), where Zhang is the fifth constellation among the seven Southern Constellations and Bi is the seventh constellation among the the seven Northern Constellations. We learned much more about this topic today, also feng-shui, but lets keep it like this and enjoy the pictures :-)









Tonight another night train to Xi'An where we will spend the next two days.

The guesthouse in Pingyao was amazingly nice: Located in a small alley in old town in a courtyard. At night we did not see too much, but the room and the bathroom were spacious and clean. Than in the morning this view:



Pingyao's old town is one of the best preserved one's in
China, old wooden and stone buildings everywhere around and even the city wall is fully intact.
For sure its touristic with many shops, but not too crowded so the feeling is still nice.

So we spend the day with wandering around, have some breaks with cool beer and I also got a new haircut, more aerodynamic :-)



But sure you will be more interested in the city:



And more pretty and romantic (why am I here with Markus and not Maggie???)

After a quick lunch with 炒面 we boarded the train from Datong to Pingyao, still in Shanxi Province. The idea was to really experience China and his people and the idea totally worked out and now after almost 8 hours I understand very well why this cheapest (seat) ticket in Chinese trains is called "hard seater"...



Anyhow, we arrived on schedule on 00.30 and our guesthouse sent a guy to pick us up, all smooth.

Our sleeper train had a 3 hour stop in the middle of nowhere, nobody could explain why (not wondering).
So actually we arrived at 9.30 instead of early morning.
The good thing was we had a quite good sleep but our schedule for visiting the Yungang caves and the Hanging monastery got a bit tight...
Luckily the booked driver was still around and assured us 没有问题 (no problem), so we took the chance for a quick clean up in the toilet of a nearby hotel before we started.
After a short ride we arrived a the caves (5A tourist spot), pretty developed with huge entrance area. A pity we arrived so late so the spot already was packed with people, but the the somehow 51,000 buddha statues of all sizes have been quite amazing.







After 2 to 3 hours strolling around in the area we met our driver again and went for 1.5 hours driving through the suburbs of Datong to the Hanging monastery. Quite dusty, trucks everywhere and a bumpy road.
The monastery was smaller than I expected, but very impressive how the monks have built this into the cliff.





On the way back to Datong we passed endless construction sites of new residential buildings in and around the city. I have seen a lot before, but here is pretty crazy. Price starts from 5,000 RMB/m2 if you are interested :-)