Week 12 - China

After breakfast at John’s Café, we headed out to the Ancient Ruins of Jiaohe. It was extremely hot and the ruins did not really interest me that much as they were mostly dried sand mounds and it was difficult to imagine anyone had ever lived there. The area was inhabited 2000 years ago. I am afraid I remain a Turkophile and no other ruins match up for me! Coming back down from the site it was hard not to get stabbed by all the umbrellas on their way up. It is obviously a very popular Chinese tourist spot but we were the only Westerners around.

The Ancient Ruins at Jiaohe

George our lovely Chinese guide posing

The Chinese find us extremely interesting and stop, turn round and stare at us. When we arrive in town in the truck, we stop the traffic with people rushing out to take photos and they line up waiting for us to get out. I now know how the Queen feels.

After a lunchbreak back in Turpan, we were off again through the desert. Our camp site was another gravel pit and just as we had set up camp, the lorries started returning for the end of day’s work. The puzzled drivers all waved and tooted and later came back, stopped and chatted. They bought up watermelons and cantaloupe and a couple appeared from heavens knows where with bread. They were all very interested in us and Denis had a long discussion with the drivers about trucks. Must have been interesting as his Cantonese is limited to hello and their English was non existent.

The cook group creating something delicious

Gravel pit camping

Denis entertaining the Chinese lorry drivers - what is he saying
and can they understand?

Another long day through dry, dusty desert. Our toilet stops hit an all time low with new modern service stations but indescribable toilets. The local population just went behind the building. Jen said it had scarred her for life. Lunch was in a very grotty lorry drivers café but the pork in green beans was delicious. Our hotel in Dunhuang looked good although the beds were like concrete and the pillows filled either with gravel or ping pong balls.

What a lovely welcome!

The following morning we were up and off to Mogao Caves where we had the services of an excellent guide who spoke wonderful English. The caves were hollowed out from 366AD and there were 735 caves in the area all dedicated to Buddha in one form or another. It seemed a miracle to me that they survived the Cultural Revolution but apparently they were locked up and nothing was damaged. The caves were very impressive, many of them having 1000 Buddhas painted in them. There was the largest indoor Buddha, the largest reclining indoor Buddha and many other firsts!

The Magao Caves

The Magao Caves

Back in Dunhuang, I went exploring and was very impressed by the well ordered clean town with the lovely friendly people. I wandered through the food market where everyone was pressing food on me. Later in the evening, a group of us went to the night market which was buzzing and really lovely. I could have spent a fortune but limited myself to a pair of silver earings.


The next morning was a bit of a debacle as we all got up early to discover that Sandra had gone to hospital with an ongoing complaint and when she and Keith returned it was decided that they would fly to Xi’an. Then George, our guide, had his backpack stolen and instead of leaving at 7.00, we got away at 11.30. I had had a terrible night with a re-occurrence of my problem and would have loved the extra four hours in bed instead of at John’s Café drinking weak green tea. In case you are wondering why I keep mentioning John’s Café, there are three hotels that we stayed at with the same café, same menu but not the same standard of food.

Our destination that night was Jiayuguan and the Overhanging Great Wall which was constructed in 1539 and reconstructed in 1987. It was a steepish climb up and the renovation had removed a lot of the character but it was good to actually be on the Wall.



Me on the Great Wall at Jiayuguan



The Great Wall at Jiayuguan



On one of the towers



The camp site at Jiayuguan

Our camp site was next to a rather stagnant looking pond which was remarkably mosquito free. Later in the evening the police turned up. They were interested in us and friendly. However, not long afterwards the heavy brigade came with flashing lights and trousers tucked into jackboots who were not so friendly and they made it very clear that we were not welcome to camp there. So some very rapid packing up took place and we were escorted with lights flashing to an extremely smart looking hotel. CJ went into hotel to negotiate price and then came storming out! This was repeated a couple of times until he had got them to agree to a price of 150 yuan (£15) per room from the starting price of £750.


The next morning we headed out to Jiayuguan Fort which was built in 1372 and was christened "Impregnable Defile under Heaven". This Fort was built at the end of the civilised world for the Chinese and beyond it lived only desert demons and the barbarian armies of Central Asia. It was a fascinating place to spend a couple of hours.

Jiayuguan Fort

With a dusty Buddha in Jiayuguan Fort

We only spent the one night in Zhangye but there was time to visit the largest reclining Buddha in China. It certainly was huge and had the most compelling eyes which seemed to follow you. He was wonderfully serene and it would have been good to spend some time just staring at him but an overlanders work is never done and we had to get going for our next destination, Wuwei.

Welcoming committee

With a friendly Buddha

Pagoda at Zhangye

Wuwei was a good looking town with a famous Flying Horse statue and a rather magnificent pagoda. Getting lost on our way back to the hotel, Melissa and I ended up walking through an animal market where I really hoped that the dogs, guinea pigs and rabbits were destined to be pets. Melissa has now named me back alley Sally as she always ends up walking down these rather seedy back alleys when she is with me and again this was the case. Even I was glad to turn a corner and see the main street. Later in the evening our guide, George, took us out for Chinese hamburgers which were experience but I don't McDonalds needs to be too worried.

Wuwei Landscape

The Flying Horse Statue at Wuwei

Concert in park.  Audience was more interested
in watching us than the concert

The road was great until just before lunch when it disintegrated into a pot-holed, unmade, dusty mess. The town we stopped for lunch in was being completely rebuilt and the traffic was awful. In fact the whole place was awful and things did not improve after lunch when there was a solid traffic jam due to the fact that trees were being cut down. Instead of getting to Lanzhou at 2.30 we arrived at 7.30 but did have time to eat a bowl of extremely hot noodles and meat which were delicious before crashing into bed.