from nepal i flew to beijing, china, pausing in bangkok (my 5th time now) for just long enough to eat one last red curry and catch a few hours of sweaty humid sleep in a concrete cell. as i was arriving beijing airport, at night, i felt myself getting nervous for the first time in almost 7 months, due to the horror stories ive heard about china from other travellers (no one speaks english, everything is filthy, everyone hates you and wont help you and you cant even get around if you dont speak chinese).
but, perhaps because its getting ready for the olympics and is therefore on its absolute best behavior, beijing proved to be anything but the strange planet that i was expecting. i was shocked to find an atm at the airport, hopped on a cheap airport bus with an english sign, then when it ditched me in the middle of the city, wandered around until i found a subway station, hand gestured my way into a ticket, found another english sign that told me when to get off, and walked south until i bumped into the hotel i had randomly picked out of a guidebook i borrowed for 5 minutes in nepal. smooth. the hotel was actually a hostel, enormous and immaculately clean, felt like the Plaza Hotel. i was immediately blown away by the sheer size of the city and its urban modern feel. back to the developed world. or was i?
howard met me soon after and we spent a day or two wandering through the streets and "hutong" alleys of beijing. this was a perfect initiation into the world of incredible rapid growth and change that IS china. the city, famous for its mazes of hutong alleyways and old-fashioned urban life, is being completely destroyed and rebuilt, not only in preparation for the olympics, but also, it seems to me, in preparation for world domination. everything is a construction site.
we walked through bright red streets filled with Vegas-style neon lights, young chinese with funny hairstyles, blaring music and screaming advertisements. we perused menus for dishes like "fire dragon burns the fungus mountain" and "snowy chicken explosion," eating peanuts with chopsticks in restaurants where statues and photos of Mao Zedong watched us carefully from every wall. we wandered through the alleyways and snacked on street food, watched a crazy acrobatics show, went shopping in the 4-story supermarkets, and
i then convinced howard that we should head immediately to the far western part of China, to an enormous province called Xinjiang, which is actually not really China but, for all practical purposes, part of Central Asia, inhabited by a Muslim ethnic minority - the Uigurs - who maintain an Eastern Turkish language and culture and have far more in common with their neighbors in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, than they do with anyone in the Far East. we flew to Urumqi (in chinese, wooloomoochee), a bustling and sprawling industrial mess of a city in the middle of this massive desert, and since then we have been exploring this desolate area.
the province of Xinjiang contains many of the strategic points on the historic Silk Road (the path that connected the Chinese empires with the indian subcontinent, the middle east, and europe, not only as one of the world's most significant trading routes but also connecting the different regions ideologically and spreading the world's major religions). we have followed this route somewhat, exploring the awe-inspiring deserts, plateaus, and mountain ranges that made it such a ruthlessly inhospitable place to survive, and therefore such an incredible journey for the traders and monks and kings that spent years travelling through it.
immersing ourselves in the Uigur culture, and therefore in the traditional lifestyle of Central Asia, has certainly been the highlight. the people here are Muslim, with the correspodingly beautiful and meticulous Islamic architecture, funny hats, birkhas, arabic script, middle-eastern music and dance, and sense of inherently valuable aesthetic beauty. they eat tons of mutton (sheep) and handmade fresh noodles and you cant walk 10 feet without running into a big clay oven (made out of an old oil drum in most cases) thats churning out 5 different types of fresh bread. they are a peaceful and friendly people with lots of smiles, despite their love of big beautiful knives and furry hats. the men are very dirty but wear nothing but dark suits and keep their shoes finely polished.
the other fascinating part of this area is the contrast between uigur and chinese cultures, as well as the blending of the 2. chinese people are a remarkably homogenous people (Han) and their isolation as the world's largest and longest-surviving continuous civilization has left them horribly ethnocentric and cruel to their minorities. they see them as barbaric and backwards savages, worthy of exploitation and perhaps a funny show for the tourists from inside their cages, but nothing more. so, the cities here present a fascinating mix and separation between the ethnicies as they both participate in china's blinded frenzy of economic growth. urumqi is the biggest city out here and therefore the best example of this - you can walk from among the skyscrapers and bright-light expensive shopping districts, to the Uigur neighborhood on the other side of the tracks where women in full birkhas are eating grilled lamb kebabs and old men are pointing their prayer rugs towards mecca.
from urumqi we headed 200km through the desert - nothing but fields of windmills and dunes full of rock and sand for as far as the eye can see. our destination was Turpan, a historic oasis town famous for its grapes. silk road traders have been stopping here for millenia to stock up on raisins and other staples for the long journey across the Tien Shan mountain range (which, for those of you with a map out, runs east to west into Kyrgyzstan) into another desert basin and then to modern day pakistan. here, over a bowl of fresh yogurt in the street, we met a really nice German girl (Rebecka) who lives in China and got the unfortunate task of translating for us as we checked out the ruins of an ancient city perched on a tall river plateau - a desert fortress for the early kingdoms - ate raisins and walked through enormous grape trellises to explore the mosques and busy Uigur markets.
then the 3 of us headed into the mountains, which we had only seen so far from the plane. looked like the himalayas to me, only jumping out of true desert rather than fertile rice-paddy fields. we found ourselves a yurt to sleep in on the edge of the frozen solid Tian Chi (heavenly lake), and a Kazakh family to cook us delicious meals. we hiked around the high altitude lake and the range of white and green mountains that surrounded it, with snow under our feet and eagles overhead. howard stopped for some meditation and napping while rebecka and i scrambled to the top of a high ridgeline with panoramic views over the distant desert mountains and fir tree oasis near the lake. at night we huddled around the wood stove in the yurt, dipped homemade bread into sheep's milk tea, and talked with the Kazakh's with the help of Rebecka's stoic translation skills. fantastic time.
the next day we went back to the big city, Urumqi, and drank very strange chinese rice liquor in a russian discotech in the basement of our hotel, the Central Asian. howard and rebecka danced among the bright neon lights to iranian rap music and indian techno while i did my best to avoid the homosexual advances of the young Uigur bartender. the kazakhs and russians and tajiks only watched.
next morning a sad goodbye to rebecka who had a law career to attend to and a plane to catch back to germany, though she plans on spending the next 5 years or so in china. howard and i flew to Kashgar, an ancient silk road city in the far far west of china, shockingly close to the borders of Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, India, and Tibet.
kashgar is a fascinating city. a desert oasis, and the trading post and transportation crossroads of the silk road for millenia, connecting the civilizations of the far east with europe, the middle east, and the indian subcontinent. it's another Uigur city, and has an authentic central asian feel, beautiful architecture, traditional lifestyle, mosques, carpets, blacksmiths, woodcarvers, handmade knives, men with huge beards and muslim hats, women in birkhas. believe it or not, ive been eating a lot of mutton (sheep) lately.
we timed our visit to see the world-famous Kashgar Sunday Bazaar (market) where more than 100,000 central asians flock from the surrounding areas on their donkey carts to trade livestock and goods. for hundreds of miles in any direction, there is nothing but desert, but these oasis towns have been the centers of life here for longer than i can even fathom, and life is still going on here today much as it was in ancient times. the bazaar proved to be one of my favorite days of the whole asia trip, and without question the most authentic and fascinating cultural experience i have ever had. bearded old men squeezing sheep's butts and checking out the gums of horses and donkeys may not sound like much, but i guess my tastes have changed somewhat in the past 8 months.
final highlight of this leg of the journey, apart from the hours and hours that howard and i spent wandering the dusty brick-paved streets of kashgar and watching the uigur people live, was a trip to another high-altitude glacial lake. this one was called lake karakul, and was a 4 hour drive straight through what i am convinced must be the most desolate and extreme part of the earth. i was looking for bin laden around every corner.
but even though it looked just like the brutally inhospitable desert mountains that afghanistan is now famous for, we maintained a safe 20 mile distance from the border, and hung out with the Kyrgyz people instead. theyre much more friendly to americans than the Pashtuns, i think.
stayed in another yurt on the edge of the lake, this time in a 1300 person Kyrgyz village. hard to imagine anyone actually surviving in this area, but they seem pretty comfortable living off their sheep and yaks. the lake is on the Pamir Plateau, which even at 13,000 feet feels like a flat desert valley, surrounded by some of the highest mountains in the world. we hiked around the sand dunes with the camels and furry yaks and drank lots of tea cooked on dung fires. pretty stunning. i think howard was convinced at one point that i was trying to kill him but the 8 hour walk through the desert drew no complaints and even a few smiles. if i ever do become a mountaineer, i want to come back and climb the 24,000 ft peak that lived over our heads for 2 days - Muztagata. you hire camels to carry your climbing gear for you up to the basecamps.
make sure you check out the pictures on kendall's shutterfly address. howard and i are headed back to beijing tomorrow, where i will meet my dad for 2 weeks in mainland china. the real deal.
but, perhaps because its getting ready for the olympics and is therefore on its absolute best behavior, beijing proved to be anything but the strange planet that i was expecting. i was shocked to find an atm at the airport, hopped on a cheap airport bus with an english sign, then when it ditched me in the middle of the city, wandered around until i found a subway station, hand gestured my way into a ticket, found another english sign that told me when to get off, and walked south until i bumped into the hotel i had randomly picked out of a guidebook i borrowed for 5 minutes in nepal. smooth. the hotel was actually a hostel, enormous and immaculately clean, felt like the Plaza Hotel. i was immediately blown away by the sheer size of the city and its urban modern feel. back to the developed world. or was i?
howard met me soon after and we spent a day or two wandering through the streets and "hutong" alleys of beijing. this was a perfect initiation into the world of incredible rapid growth and change that IS china. the city, famous for its mazes of hutong alleyways and old-fashioned urban life, is being completely destroyed and rebuilt, not only in preparation for the olympics, but also, it seems to me, in preparation for world domination. everything is a construction site.
we walked through bright red streets filled with Vegas-style neon lights, young chinese with funny hairstyles, blaring music and screaming advertisements. we perused menus for dishes like "fire dragon burns the fungus mountain" and "snowy chicken explosion," eating peanuts with chopsticks in restaurants where statues and photos of Mao Zedong watched us carefully from every wall. we wandered through the alleyways and snacked on street food, watched a crazy acrobatics show, went shopping in the 4-story supermarkets, and
i then convinced howard that we should head immediately to the far western part of China, to an enormous province called Xinjiang, which is actually not really China but, for all practical purposes, part of Central Asia, inhabited by a Muslim ethnic minority - the Uigurs - who maintain an Eastern Turkish language and culture and have far more in common with their neighbors in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, than they do with anyone in the Far East. we flew to Urumqi (in chinese, wooloomoochee), a bustling and sprawling industrial mess of a city in the middle of this massive desert, and since then we have been exploring this desolate area.
the province of Xinjiang contains many of the strategic points on the historic Silk Road (the path that connected the Chinese empires with the indian subcontinent, the middle east, and europe, not only as one of the world's most significant trading routes but also connecting the different regions ideologically and spreading the world's major religions). we have followed this route somewhat, exploring the awe-inspiring deserts, plateaus, and mountain ranges that made it such a ruthlessly inhospitable place to survive, and therefore such an incredible journey for the traders and monks and kings that spent years travelling through it.
immersing ourselves in the Uigur culture, and therefore in the traditional lifestyle of Central Asia, has certainly been the highlight. the people here are Muslim, with the correspodingly beautiful and meticulous Islamic architecture, funny hats, birkhas, arabic script, middle-eastern music and dance, and sense of inherently valuable aesthetic beauty. they eat tons of mutton (sheep) and handmade fresh noodles and you cant walk 10 feet without running into a big clay oven (made out of an old oil drum in most cases) thats churning out 5 different types of fresh bread. they are a peaceful and friendly people with lots of smiles, despite their love of big beautiful knives and furry hats. the men are very dirty but wear nothing but dark suits and keep their shoes finely polished.
the other fascinating part of this area is the contrast between uigur and chinese cultures, as well as the blending of the 2. chinese people are a remarkably homogenous people (Han) and their isolation as the world's largest and longest-surviving continuous civilization has left them horribly ethnocentric and cruel to their minorities. they see them as barbaric and backwards savages, worthy of exploitation and perhaps a funny show for the tourists from inside their cages, but nothing more. so, the cities here present a fascinating mix and separation between the ethnicies as they both participate in china's blinded frenzy of economic growth. urumqi is the biggest city out here and therefore the best example of this - you can walk from among the skyscrapers and bright-light expensive shopping districts, to the Uigur neighborhood on the other side of the tracks where women in full birkhas are eating grilled lamb kebabs and old men are pointing their prayer rugs towards mecca.
from urumqi we headed 200km through the desert - nothing but fields of windmills and dunes full of rock and sand for as far as the eye can see. our destination was Turpan, a historic oasis town famous for its grapes. silk road traders have been stopping here for millenia to stock up on raisins and other staples for the long journey across the Tien Shan mountain range (which, for those of you with a map out, runs east to west into Kyrgyzstan) into another desert basin and then to modern day pakistan. here, over a bowl of fresh yogurt in the street, we met a really nice German girl (Rebecka) who lives in China and got the unfortunate task of translating for us as we checked out the ruins of an ancient city perched on a tall river plateau - a desert fortress for the early kingdoms - ate raisins and walked through enormous grape trellises to explore the mosques and busy Uigur markets.
then the 3 of us headed into the mountains, which we had only seen so far from the plane. looked like the himalayas to me, only jumping out of true desert rather than fertile rice-paddy fields. we found ourselves a yurt to sleep in on the edge of the frozen solid Tian Chi (heavenly lake), and a Kazakh family to cook us delicious meals. we hiked around the high altitude lake and the range of white and green mountains that surrounded it, with snow under our feet and eagles overhead. howard stopped for some meditation and napping while rebecka and i scrambled to the top of a high ridgeline with panoramic views over the distant desert mountains and fir tree oasis near the lake. at night we huddled around the wood stove in the yurt, dipped homemade bread into sheep's milk tea, and talked with the Kazakh's with the help of Rebecka's stoic translation skills. fantastic time.
the next day we went back to the big city, Urumqi, and drank very strange chinese rice liquor in a russian discotech in the basement of our hotel, the Central Asian. howard and rebecka danced among the bright neon lights to iranian rap music and indian techno while i did my best to avoid the homosexual advances of the young Uigur bartender. the kazakhs and russians and tajiks only watched.
next morning a sad goodbye to rebecka who had a law career to attend to and a plane to catch back to germany, though she plans on spending the next 5 years or so in china. howard and i flew to Kashgar, an ancient silk road city in the far far west of china, shockingly close to the borders of Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, India, and Tibet.
kashgar is a fascinating city. a desert oasis, and the trading post and transportation crossroads of the silk road for millenia, connecting the civilizations of the far east with europe, the middle east, and the indian subcontinent. it's another Uigur city, and has an authentic central asian feel, beautiful architecture, traditional lifestyle, mosques, carpets, blacksmiths, woodcarvers, handmade knives, men with huge beards and muslim hats, women in birkhas. believe it or not, ive been eating a lot of mutton (sheep) lately.
we timed our visit to see the world-famous Kashgar Sunday Bazaar (market) where more than 100,000 central asians flock from the surrounding areas on their donkey carts to trade livestock and goods. for hundreds of miles in any direction, there is nothing but desert, but these oasis towns have been the centers of life here for longer than i can even fathom, and life is still going on here today much as it was in ancient times. the bazaar proved to be one of my favorite days of the whole asia trip, and without question the most authentic and fascinating cultural experience i have ever had. bearded old men squeezing sheep's butts and checking out the gums of horses and donkeys may not sound like much, but i guess my tastes have changed somewhat in the past 8 months.
final highlight of this leg of the journey, apart from the hours and hours that howard and i spent wandering the dusty brick-paved streets of kashgar and watching the uigur people live, was a trip to another high-altitude glacial lake. this one was called lake karakul, and was a 4 hour drive straight through what i am convinced must be the most desolate and extreme part of the earth. i was looking for bin laden around every corner.
but even though it looked just like the brutally inhospitable desert mountains that afghanistan is now famous for, we maintained a safe 20 mile distance from the border, and hung out with the Kyrgyz people instead. theyre much more friendly to americans than the Pashtuns, i think.
stayed in another yurt on the edge of the lake, this time in a 1300 person Kyrgyz village. hard to imagine anyone actually surviving in this area, but they seem pretty comfortable living off their sheep and yaks. the lake is on the Pamir Plateau, which even at 13,000 feet feels like a flat desert valley, surrounded by some of the highest mountains in the world. we hiked around the sand dunes with the camels and furry yaks and drank lots of tea cooked on dung fires. pretty stunning. i think howard was convinced at one point that i was trying to kill him but the 8 hour walk through the desert drew no complaints and even a few smiles. if i ever do become a mountaineer, i want to come back and climb the 24,000 ft peak that lived over our heads for 2 days - Muztagata. you hire camels to carry your climbing gear for you up to the basecamps.
make sure you check out the pictures on kendall's shutterfly address. howard and i are headed back to beijing tomorrow, where i will meet my dad for 2 weeks in mainland china. the real deal.
posted by thane at 8:49 AM
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