Silk Road

Xinjiang and Gansu Provinces
Gateway Between East and West The silk road has been a gateway between the east and the west for thousands of years. This doorway in the area of Turpanl, seemingly leading to nowhere but the desert dunes, seemd to be a perfect symbol for that. Car Wash - Uighur Style What to do on a lazy sunday afternoon? Well, why not give a wash to your car? While most people would take their car to an acutal car wash or unroll the hosepipe on their frontyard to do so, Uighurs seem to just drive their car to the next river. Or rather: into the river. An while daddy brushes the car, the family has a nice little pick-nick on the riverbank. Turpan Raisins We were astonished to see large areas of grapevines in the desert oasis of Turpan and were wondering if any wine was produced here. It isn't - but the area is one of Chinas major production sites for raisins. The grapes are being dried in the characteristic buildings that can be seen in the background. Jaohe Ancient Desert City The ancient city of Jaohe was built more than 1600 years ago - mainly out of mud / adobe. The fact that it has largely been preserved over such a long period of time is an impressive prove of how dry the area here (in Turpan) is. Shades of Brown Brown mountains, brown soil, brown sand and brown buildings - it's a bit monotonous in the desert around Turpan....
Barbecue - Uighur Style THE typical dish in Chinas west: all kinds of skewers - while the favourite is lamb, theres an incredible variety of alternatives... yummie! Gobi Desert It looks like a Mars scene in "Total Recall", but it's actually just some trucks crossing a sandy road in the Gobi desert... Thank God I Have My Cowboy Hat :-) Ok, I promise this will be one of the last pictures of my Cowboy hat. For the mere reason that I will leave it behind a few days from when this picture was taken. Nevertheless, it was actually the perfect headgear for the desert.... Traditional Uighur Kitchen in Tuyoc What looks like a still life is actually the kitchen of an Uighur family in the (somewaht touristy but still authentical) village of Tuyoc. No Title
Blending in With the Locals Peter trying to blend in with the locals. Despite the hat and the authentic instrument, he ownly partially succeeds :-) Chinas Wild West We felt set back a hundred years into americas wild west when we saw these oil pumps, hundreds of them scattered around a vast area in the vicinity of Turpan. And it became very clear why China is so strongly interested in the Uighur province of Xinjiang and brutally supresses any separatist tendencies in the region... Mogao Caves One of the major tourist attractions on the silk road are the Mogao caves - hundreds of rock grottoes carved by hand and decorated with artful paintings more than 2000 years ago. While from the inside the caves are impressive, from the outside the site lacks some character, as in order to protect them, the caves have been sealed with walls of ugly concrete... Mogao Caves Desert Tombs Besides the Mogao caves, Dunhuang is famous for its sand dunes. When taking a camel ride to the dunes, we passed a huge cemetery with desert graves...
Into the Desert On the way to a night out in the desert on our well-tempered camels Riding the Desert Waves And Suddenly I knew... Ok, I admit that I was a fan of the TV series "Alf". While I never made up my mind about the looks of the funny extraterrestrian, when looking at my camel in the Dunhuang desert, it suddenly was so obvious, where the makers of the series took their inspiration from... it is, isn't it? Singing Sands Mountain Dunhuang Dunes The dunes at Dunhuang offer looks into the vast nothingness of the desert planes towards the northesast.
Surreal Landscapes of Yadan End of the Chinese Wall Officially, this is the western end of the great wall at Jiayuguan - and the first glimpse I got of the wall (it certainly won't be the last one). Powerhouse While we were aware that the desert areas around the silk road are being strongly developped for wind and solar energy, we were somewhat surprised to see that the city of Jiayuguan, in the middle of the Gobi desert, seems to be also a power house for less alternative forms of eneregy, as we spotted several nuclear and coal power plants, assuring that despite it's remoteness, the air quality was just as bad or even worse than in any average chinese city. Jiayuguan Fort One of classic tourist stops on the silk road, the Jiayuguan Fort proved to be impregnable over hundreds of years and for just as long marked the last major stronghold of imperial China in the west. IMG 6575 Mogao may have the most elaborately painted buddhist caves on the silk road, but the ones in Mati Si are certainly the ones with the most specacular setting, and also the most adventurous ones. The caves can only be reached by a system of narrow tunnels and staircases carved inside the rock wall, and with plenty of tourists moving both ways, this is certainly nothing for the claustrophopic!
IMG 6581 Staircase leading to one of the rock caves. IMG 6587 Thousand buddha caves in Mati Si, backed by the beautiful snow mountains of the Qilian mountain range. A Touch of Tibet Mati Si has a tibetan community, which manifests in the many prayer flags placed in the area. Walking as the Crow Flies When walking through the landscapes of Mati Si, I had a (not so secret) follower - a crow was flying after me from tree to tree for at least a kilometer. When it was moving to the next tree, it would fly past my head so I could feel the wind its flaps in my neck.... it was a bit scary, really! Qilian Mountains The Qilian mountain range markes the southern boundary of the Hexi corridor, a relatively small passage leading from east to west, and being one of the most strategic areas on the silk road. It is also the main water source for the aera, allowing life in the desert areas. In Mati Si, at the foot of the mountain range, the landscape looks very alpine and would it not be for the buddist flags and tibetan tents spread accross the area, it could easily be mistaken to be a place back home...
No Title Wooden Pagoda in Zhangye The wooden pagoda in Zhangye seems to a popular hangout for the local swallow population... Quintessentially Chinese Just a scene in the train, but so typically chinese as virtually EVERY chinese (a) carries along a flask with tea and (b) nibbles sun flower seeds. The shells of the sseds are disposed on the floor, by the way, no matter where you are... High Speed Trains China is extending its high-speed train network at an incredible speed. Too fast, it seems, for the infrastructure around it to keep up. Along the silk road, where the new train line was opened in December 2014, we found several train stations with unpaved access roads and improvised food stalls. Besides the obvious focus of priorities on the actual railway tracks, another explanation is that the new railway stations are often in the middle of nowhere, many kilometers away from the actual cities they are named after. Most extreme example is the high-speed trainstation of Dunhunag, which is an incredible 125km away from the city! Just Another Construction Site No matter which chinese city you visit and no matter how big or small, it will seem to be fully under construction. A huge construction site like the one on this foto (this one in Lanzhou) is a common sight, and in Lanzhou there are several of them. It's just part of the experience. But of course it raises some questions, like: who actually pays for all the construction work? Will there be demand for the new buildings and infrastructure? Will there also be money to maintain everything? These questions can hardly be answered - only the future will tell, but it will certainly be interesting to see how things look in a few years. A good reason to plan a next trip!
Morning Exercises Another quintessential chinese scene: Dozens of people gathering in the early moring to do their Qi Gong practice in some public space, here on Lanzhous main square a 07:00 AM....