Checking Out China / Uzbekistan
July 1996
Tuesday June 25th/ Wednesday June 26th
On a backstreet near our hotel, we discovered some cheap restaurants. No English spoken. We entered one and had a flurry of young waitresses around us. We had forgotten our guide book, so we had to improvise by using sign language to order. The menu in Chinese made no sense, so we mimicked clucking chickens and pointed at noodles. Somehow they understood soup ("Won-ton, Won-ton!"). Chinese tea was served and chopsticks laid out with small bowls and china spoons. The waitresses laughed and giggled at our antics. The dishes were huge and delicious. We had no idea of prices. It was a shock to get a bill for just over £3 between us. China was already impressing us with smiling faces and cheap prices. We discovered at the end of the trip that three people on the group trip "welcome dinner" had gone down with food poisoning and were bed ridden for three days! We would return to these cheap restaurants throughout our trip.
Thursday June 27th
The next morning, we set off early using the cheap metro, for Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden Palace. Tiananmen Square was actually Chairman Mao's creation. It is the heart of Beijing, a vast desert of paving and photo booths. The last major rallies took place here during the Cultural Revolution when Mao, wearing a Red Guard armband, reviewed parades of up to a million people. In 1989, army tanks and soldiers cut down pro-democracy demonstrators here. Today the square is a place for people to lounge around in the evening and to fly decorated kites and balloons. Surrounding the square are a strange mish-mash of monuments past and present: Tiananmen (Gate of Heavenly Peace), the History Museum and Museum of the Revolution, the Great Hall of the People, Qianmen (front Gate), the Mao Mausoleum and the Monument to the People's Heroes.
We passed by an embalmed Chairman Mao in the Mausoleum. The body looked real enough, but the skin glowed untypically for a dead person. Armed guards eyed us as we filed past silently. For reasons of continuity, the Forbidden Palace will be covered later in the trip. Suffice to say that shortly after we entered the Palace, a thunderstorm deluged the entire place and we were forced to almost run through the complex absolutely soaked. I discarded my T-shirt and waded through rivers of water, topless, to the great amusement of cowering Chinese and Japanese tourists who applauded my endeavors and recorded it on videos. The entire trip was a wash-out and pointless. Like drowned rats we emerged at the other end and flagged down a taxi to get us back to our hotel. At a travel agency I arranged for a flight to Xian that evening. The 6pm flight was delayed three hours. At Xian, two hours later, we caught a local bus 40km into town and found the Jiefang Hotel around 1am.
Friday June 28th
Once the focus of China, in the province of Shaanxi, Xi'an vied with its contemporaries, Rome and later Constantinople, for the title of greatest city in the world. Over a period of 2000 years, Xi'an has seen the rise and fall of numerous Chinese dynasties, and the monuments and archaeological sites in the city and the surrounding plain are a reminder that once upon a time Xi'an was a booming metropolis. It was also China's capital city until Beijing replaced it. It now supports a population of three million people.
The hotel ran a cheap all day tour of all the sights. Larry, a 22 year old Chinese student was our guide. Our first stop was the Shaanxi History Museum, one of Xi'an's major attractions which contained many ancient Chinese artifacts. It was a splendid and compact museum with lovely grounds. We moved on to the Tomb of Qin Shihuang Qin Shihuang was the first emperor of a united Chinese people. His tomb is covered by a huge mound of protective earth that apparently has not been disturbed since his internment more than 2000 years ago. By beating the five independent states in the 3rd C BC, he was able to unite the country, standardising the currency and the written script. The more territories he conquered the larger the mound got and more intricate inside. The tomb is well documented and is supposed to contain palaces and pavilions filled with treasure and equipped with crossbows which automatically shoot intruders. Workers on the tomb were said to have been buried inside so they could not reveal the secrets. The entire necropolis is supposedly two and a half kilometres in circumference. The mound itself dominates the area. We climbed past the vendors to the top for a view over the countryside.
The Army of Terracotta Warriors stands about 1500 metres east of the Tomb of Qin Shihuang and is thought to represent a perpetual vigilant force guarding the ancient imperial necropolis. In 1974 peasants digging a well uncovered what turned out to be one of the most fascinating archaeological sites in the world. Excavation of the underground vault of earth and timber revealed thousands of life-size terracotta soldiers and their horses in battle formation - a whole army which would follow its emperor into immortality. The first and largest pit has been covered with a roof to become a huge exhibition hall. The underground vault measures about 210 metres east to west and 60 metres from north to south. The pit varies in depth from five to seven metres. Walls were built running east to west at intervals of three metres, forming corridors. In these corridors, on floors laid with gray brick, are arranged the terracotta figures. Pillars and beams once supported a roof.
The 6000 terracotta figures of warriors and horses face east in a rectangular battle array. The vanguard appears to be three rows of 210 crossbow and longbow bearers who stand at the easternmost end of the army. Close behind is the main force of armoured soldiers holding spears, dagger axes and other long shaft weapons, accompanied by 35 horse-drawn chariots. Every figure differs in facial features and expressions. The horsemen are shown wearing tight sleeved outer robes, short coats of chain mail and windproof caps. The archers have bodies and limbs positioned in strict accordance with an ancient book on the art of war. Many of the figures originally held real weapons of the day and over 10,000 pieces have been sorted out to date. I did not realise that they had all been crushed and fused together when a later emperor ordered them to be destroyed by fire. They have left some soldiers in their original state with heads sticking out of the ground, seemingly melted and backsides of horses sticking into the air. It looked like a scene from a horror movie. The terracotta soldiers we saw, had been rebuilt to show what they would have looked like, unpainted.
We stopped at a market town called Lishan where we had a lunch and then explored the streets and strolled around the market stalls., I tried on Chinese army shirts (XXL) and could not get into them. Finally, we were taken to Banpo Neolithic Village. This is an example of China's earliest known agricultural villages which appears to have been occupied from 4500BC until around 3750BC. It was discovered in 1953.
Back at the hotel, Larry invited us to see a Chinese Music and Dancing Show in the evening. We had a couple of hours and went exploring the markets with pigs trotters in honey piled high, and huge cow tongues hanging out of their skinned skulls over the side of the barrow. Locals would all shout "hello" and smile and wave. It was a very comfortable place to browse around. Larry came for us around 7.30pm and we taxied down to the theatre. We were treated to an hour of colourful dancing and singing by both male and female groups. An MC with traditional "Fu Man Chu" droopy mustache introduced each dance. The males tended to be lively, jumping around in warrior gear doing acrobatics. The women were more subdued, often using giant streamers and ballet steps. Occasionally the two groups would come together to fill the stage. There were probably 15 costume changes in the hour. Huge banners horns or balloons on sticks would be brought on. The music was paced well by a comical band, and not like the awkward "cat being strangled" sounds of Chinese theatre productions.
Saturday June 29th
We caught a bus past the city walls to the Big Goose Pagoda. Xi'an is one of the few cities in China where old city walls are still visible, dating from the Ming dynasty. The Big Goose Pagoda was built in to house the Buddhist scriptures brought back from India by a travelling monk. Chinese tourists would bow or knee before Buddhist alters and burn handfuls of incense. Our final site to see in Xi'an was the Great Mosque, one of the largest mosques in China. The present buildings only date back to the middle of the 18C. I bought a Chairman Mao "Little Red Book" outside. Returned to Beijing on a 4.30pm flight exhausted by two days extensive sightseeing.
Sunday June 30th
Up around 5am and out. As we walked to the metro station, there were dozens of people all exercising, either separately or in groups in the famous "Tai Chi" tradition. The Chinese believe in an all-round healthy body, mind and soul existence to encourage a good life. Tai Chi promotes the healthy body that made for a healthy mind. It also appeared, to me, to bind the communities together. Neighbours of all ages did it.
We were headed for the Great Wall. Instead of visiting the touristy sections at Badaling and Mutianyu, we were attempting to reach the furthest part from the Beijing area. Noone spoke English at the bus station but we found a bus going North East. After one and a half hours, we were dropped at Miyan's bus station. There, someone steered us onto another bus heading for Simatai. It was a beautiful drive through country lanes and surrounding green hills. Villagers lay out their corn on the road to get crushed by the passing traffic. It was another hour to the tiny village of Simatai, and a few miles further to the base of the wall.
Of all the parts of the wall near Beijing, which are open to tourism, the 19km section at Simatai is the least developed. This section of the wall dates from the Ming Dynasty. The guide book said that "Simatai is not for the chicken hearted - this section of the wall is very steep". They were not kidding. A few slopes have a 70 % incline and you need both hands free. One narrow section of footpath has a 500 metre drop. A small section of the wall has been renovated, but most of it remains in the non-commercialised crumbling condition. At the tourist car park, there were some market stalls and very few people. The bus driver said they would be back at 3pm to pick up us. We walked to the cable car terminal for the ride up to about 500 feet from the top. The cable cars were open two seaters. Chinese music was pumped out of speakers on the pylons as we ascended. The view was of rolling, green/scrub mountains all around. In front of us, there was a huge outcrop with the thin line of the wall curling around and watchtowers at regular intervals.
It was very hot. Chinese tourists were returning down with crowns of leaves over their heads for shade. Entire families had these and looked comical - as if they were growing out of the tops of their heads. People laughed at my bare torso and shorts and warned me about the sun's rays. The skies were blue with no clouds. It was a perfect day for visiting one of the great wonders of the world. There were surprisingly few people up there. The sight was awesome. The wall stretched along the hills and over the horizon miles into the distance. The first quarter kilometre of wall was relatively easy to climb and most visitors hung around this area. The wall started to get thinner and harder to walk along. We clambered along the uneven wall for an hour, taking photos and admiring the views.
At about 2 kilometres, we reached a decidedly dodgy part of the wall where it narrowed to a six inch ledge and you leant against one side to balance yourself. The next stage was a horrendous and sheer climb up a cliff. The steps were two feet apart - a real killer on the knees. Jo decided at this point that she was not prepared to kill herself for a view and said that she would wait. I took off with my camera and started to clamber up. It was hot, dusty and sweaty work. I reached the top of this section. No watchtower at the top. This part looked like it hadn't been touched in hundreds of years. Few people had been up there because there was no path. You made your own way along rock ledges jumping over gaps, clinging onto edges with awesome drops below. I could see the watchtower in the distance but the wall suddenly ended with a 1000 foot drop below me. The descent down the steep cliff was even worse. For our last half an hour, we gazed out at the wall stretching over the horizon, and congratulated ourselves on finally visiting this world famous site. It was everything I had expected and one of the most awesome sights I have ever seen.
We descended back to the cable car and took in our last views of the wall as the cable car took us back down. A bus returned us to Miyan. En route, we came across a car crash. Someone had gone through his windscreen and was lying dead in the road. It was not obvious what he had hit, but he was certainly dead. A group of local people stood around. They did not touch him, because this is illegal until the police have arrived to check out the situation. Our bus did not stop. At Miyan we changed buses. It waited until it was packed full - 27 people and it wasn't that big. En route someone would get out and two get in.
Back in Beijing, invigorated by our successful excursion, we decided to visit Tiananmen Square to witness a Sunday evening there, for which it was famous. The square was full of people - thousands, but it did not seem crowded. There were literally dozens of kites hanging in the air on the thermal currents emanating from the concrete. These kites ranged from small 6 footers shaped like eagles to kites of hundreds of sections - with dragon heads, trailing a hundred feet in the air. They looked magnificent and obviously drew the crowds. We lapped up the atmosphere as we watched the Chinese at leisure. As dusk fell, the Chinese Army marched out for the twice daily routine of raising and lowering the Red Flag. We both bought kites.
Monday July 1st
For the first time since day one, we had a hotel breakfast. It felt very westernised after all that we had been eating. We caught a local bus north west through the rush hour to visit the Summer Palace situated around the Kunming Lake. The original palace was used as a summer residence, an escape from the ferocious heat. The residents of the Forbidden City packed up and decamped here for their holidays, so the emphasis is on cool features - water, gardens, hills. It was divided into four sections: court reception, residences, temples and strolling around or sightseeing areas. Three quarters of the park is occupied by Kunming Lake. We had a cruise around the cool lake. It was the first place we saw western tour groups in force. Leaving the Summer Palace to the tourists, we caught a minibus to the Old Summer Palace. Originally laid out in the 12C, it developed into a set of interlocking gardens. In 1860, the English and French destroyed the place. Only ruins survive.
Jo was keen to visit the museum of the Xu Beihong, the painter famous for the galloping horses. We did not know exactly where it was, but felt it may be in walking distance. Big mistake! Since we were walking past the Zoo, we popped in to see the pandas. water". When we stepped inside the Panda House, it was distressing to find two pandas behind glass panels living on concrete and rocks. They looked bored stiff and their eyes portrayed a longing for freedom.. We only spent 5 mins in the Zoo. Abandoning the walk, a taxi got us to the museum which was closed. We drank cold beers and walked the rush hour (mostly bicycles) and street life. It was always interesting to watch street life in China. Walking back to the main highway, we tried catching a bus in the hope that it was going back to the zoo. Instead it turned north and did not stop for three miles. We passed barbers cutting hair on the side of the road as traffic roared past them. All they had was a chair and a pair of scissors.
Tuesday July 2nd
I felt like I had been in China for weeks. We were off to revisit the Forbidden City and make up for the washout of the previous Thursday. We walked across Tiananmen Square to Tiananmen Gate or "Gate of Heavenly Peace" - a national symbol which pops up on everything from airline tickets to policemen's caps. The gate was built in the 15C. From imperial days it functioned as a rostrum for dealing with or proclaiming to the assembled masses. It was from the gate that Mao proclaimed the People's Republic on Oct 1st 1949. The dominating feature is the gigantic portrait of Mao. You pass through Tiananmen Gate on your way to the Forbidden City.
The Forbidden City, so called because it was off limits for 500 years, is the largest and best preserved cluster of ancient buildings in China. It was the home to two dynasties of emperors, the Ming and the Quing, who didn't stray from this pleasure dome unless they had to. The basic layout was built between 1406 and 1420 by Emperor Yong Le, commanding a million labourers. From this palace, the emperors governed China (erratically). The buildings now seen are mostly post 18C. The palace was constantly going up in flames. The palace is so large (720,000 sq metres, 800 buildings, 9000 rooms) that a permanent restoration squad moves around repainting and repairing. It gets about 10,000 visitors a day. It took nearly three hours to cover the complex. There were certainly more tourists there than on our previous visit. In the sun, it looked like a different place. The colours shone out - reds, greens and white marble. We were able to take our time and take everything in. It was a splendid historical remnant that certainly lived up to its reputation. Outside the grounds, north of the Forbidden City, we entered Jingshan Park, which contains an artificial mound. From the top we got a magnificent panorama of the capital and a great overview of the russet roofing of the Forbidden City. The hill supposedly protects the palace from the evil spirits from the north.
We caught a taxi to Tiantan Park in the south. There was no metro in this part. The perfection of Ming Architecture, Tiantan (the Temple of Heaven) has come to symbolise Beijing. Set in Tiantan Park, with four gates at the compass points, it originally functioned as a vast stage for solemn rite performed by the Son of Heaven who came here to pray for good harvests. It was very large and very tranquil. The park was being tended to by a hoard of gardeners. There was an old man who wheeled around a tea urn to refresh them. He stopped us and asked us if we wanted a mug. It was very hot, and the tea was steaming, but it was just what I needed. Locals would laugh at my bare chest and size of my feet. Occasionally they would walk up and touch or prod me and laugh.
We got a bus back to Tiananmen Square. On the bus the conductor has his own little counter half way down the side of the bus. There are entry/exit doors at either end. The buses are also usually double carriages. People pour in from either entry and were so crowded that sometimes it was impossible to get a ticket because you could not reach the counter. The conductor would make no attempt to walk around. If they saw you, and had not dealt with you, they would yell at you. We jumped off in the market area just south of Qianmen Gate. It was time to do some shopping. There was little to buy souvenir wise in Beijing - fans, T-shirts, rice wine. We explored the narrow backstreets and market stalls in side alleys, selling every conceivable thing.
Wednesday July 3rd
Our last day in China! We still had things to see and do. We flagged down a taxi to take us to the (yes, once again) museum of the Xu Beihong. This time it was open and we browsed through the small museum which contained some spectacular paintings of scenery, horses, cockerels. Outside, we watched local army trainees going through their paces.
We caught another taxi to the Lama Temple. This is by far the most colourful temple in Beijing - beautiful gardens, stunning frescoes and tapestries, incredible carpentry. The Lama Temple is the most renowned Tibetan Buddhist temple within China outside Tibet itself. The 25 metre tall sandalwood Buddha was a staggering sight. Nearby was the former Confucius Temple, the second largest in China, in sharp contrast to the Lama Temple. Inside, we found a small hospital and went in. There a nurse invited us to take tea while we chatted. They were working for a doctor who did not speak English, but who could communicate through the nurses. He told me to look at the floor while he pulled up my eyelids and looked at my eyeballs. Along with touching various parts like wrists, hands and looking at our skin, he was able to give a prognosis. I had a very healthy heart and lungs but my liver had a large fatty layer around it. He could tell what blood type I was (without taking a sample). We had over an hour there talking about Chinese "preventative" medicine, how they looked upon themselves, how doctors trained. He also looked at Jo and surmised that she had digestive problems. The remedy for our ills were to take special pills. 12 after breakfast and 12 after dinner. They were tiny. We were presented with two pots of pills each (for a 6 month treatment) .
Back at the hotel at 3.30pm we boarded the group bus back to the airport. With the time difference, we arrived in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, around 11pm. The airport was the standard communist fare. Plain and dull. We had a long wait while the Russians pushed through with mountains of luggage. With their economy on the skids, they were flying to Beijing to buy goods, bribe the airport staff to let them in and then selling it. Eventually, we were bused twenty minutes into town to the enormous Uzbekistan Hotel, the largest in the city. All marble and communist colours we were given keys to our rooms. They were about the same standard as our 2 star room in Xi'an. The beds were narrow. The water in the bathroom was yellow. It was 2am by the time the baggage arrived.
Thursday July 4th
Tashkent (City of Stone) has a population 2.2m and is Central Asia's biggest and most European City and its international transport hub. Despite a 2000 year history, it has few antiquities, thanks to an earthquake in 1966 and the subsequent enthusiasm of Soviet planners. We awoke early at 5am and there was a lovely view of Revolution Square. No one was about and we walked through the park to see the statue of Timur on his horse (the bloodthirsty conqueror of Asia). We then headed south along wide empty roads. After half an hour, we found the major railway station. Because of the tight schedule, we used the tour bus to get us to Sumarkand through the cotton fields. The heat was oppressive outside. Halfway through the four hour bus ride, we stopped for drinks and at a stall I helped a local girl practice her English from her college textbook.
We entered Samarkand around 1pm and were taken to the brand new 4-star Atrosiab Hotel with a splendid view of the Registan It was blazing with heat outside. Our guide book said that "No name is so pungent with the smell of the Silk Road as Samarkand... which has an unmistakable magic". Samarkand (Marakanda to the Greeks) was already a great walled city when it was taken in 329 BC by Alexander the Great, who said "Everything I have heard about Marakanda is true, except that it's more beautiful than I ever imagined". After a succession of Persian, Turkic and Arab rulers, in 1220 it was literally obliterated by Genghis Khan. This might have been the end of the story, but in 1370 Timur made it his capital and over the next 35 years fashioned it into a new city, Central Asia's cultural epicentre. His grandson Ulugbek ruled until 1449 and made it an intellectual centre as well. It declined when the Uzbek Shaybanids made Bukhara the capital in the 16C. Most of Samarkand's high profile attractions, therefore, are the work of Timur, Ulugbek and the Shaybanids.
We did not bother with the tourgroup excursion and set off to the Registan on foot, which was only ten minutes away. We had the place to ourselves for over an hour with no other tourists until our group arrived. Samarkand's centrepiece, the Registan, is an ensemble of majestic madrasses, an array of azure mosaics and vast, perfectly proportioned spaces. It was medieval Samarkand's commercial centre and the plaza was probably a wall-to-wall market. Heavy Soviet era restoration has included digging down 3 metres to its original level to expose the buildings full height.
The Ulugbek Madrassa on the left is the original, finished in 1420 under Ulugbek (who supposedly taught maths here). Beneath the little corner domes were lecture halls, and at the rear was a large mosque. About 100 students lived in two stories of dormitory cells, some of which are still visible. The entrance portal of the Shir-Dor (tiger) Madrassa, opposite Ulugbek's and finished in 1636, is decorated with roaring tigers, flouting Islamic prohibitions against the depiction of live animals. In between is the Tillya-Kari (Decorated with Gold) Madrassa with a broad mosque courtyard inside. We were awestruck by the beauty of the whole complex. The mosaic work was superb. The detail inspiring. Within the Tillya Kari was a restored mosque in gold leaf that sparkled in the light. The courtyards were spacious and had many small shops in the alcoves. Since we were the only tourists we had many kids running up to entice us to enter their shop. It was so nice to wander around casually, without a flood of tourists. We had time to take in the detail and try and imagine it 600 years ago.
We walked on to the most mysterious of Samarkand's sights, and with some of its most beautiful majolica tilework, the street of tombs called Shakh-I-Zinda.. Again, there were no tourists and we had the place to ourselves. The tombs were very simple. I clambered around the site, currently being restored by workmen (slowly), and walked through the graveyard on the hill with bones sticking out of the ground. I joked with the workmen and took their picture. It would take years to rebuild its splendour.
Near the Bibi-Khanym Mosque was the Bazaar. It was late afternoon, so it was half empty. We wandered along the stalls, buying raisins, herbs, bread, champagne and 96% Royal vodka. I also tried bubblegum lemonade. We tried a few delicacies from stalls such as meat pasties with hot sauce, and shish kebabs. As dusk fell, we walked back to the Registan, we found it deserted, except for a guard who offered us a to climb the minaret.. A small boy took us up, who spoke exceptional English and French. We climbed up to the roof, and into the tiny stairwell, in pitch black, that took us to the top of the minaret. It was a real squeeze to get up it, and we sweated heavily in the evening heat. Eventually, we emerged at the top, we had a small round iron roof to sit on, with no barriers and a magnificent view of the orange sunset falling behind the city. We spent half an hour chatting to the kid and taking in the experience. It was a wonderful way to finish the trip.
Friday July 5th
Our final day. We had breakfast at the hotel. Cold cuts and bread, while flies buzzed around plates. followed by the return journey through the dusty landscape and intermittent cotton fields. We were driven to the airport around 2pm and had to file through immigration in group order. Much queuing to check in bags. The counter clerk was running a scam of trying to charge foreigners for heavy hand luggage. I made such a fuss after he tried it on, that eventually he waved us on. My previous experience in Russia had paid off. We had to sit air side in a tatty lounge, where the toilets had no water and there was no air conditioning. We boarded the Air Uzbekistan flight to Heathrow an hour late around 6pm. London. 9.30pm. Dark, cold and very wet. Welcome to England.
