China: Great Country - Great Wall - Great Food - No People!

Our itinerary so far (overview)

Our itinerary so far (detailed view)

We are in China!!!! Jippiiiiehhh!!!
Pauli repeats: Chiiiiinaaaa, Mama, Chiiinaaaa!!!" :-))))

We have made it across the border. On time.
We pass two Kyrgyz checkpoints and four Chinese checks. The night before we park right in front of the Kyrgyz border controls at 3600 m, together with a lot of other trucks. The night gets freezing cold, must be somewhere around minus 15 degrees, our windows have ice coverage inside and the diesel in the cans is frozen next morning.
The Kyrgyz officials say good bye with some last shows of what they do best: exercising corruption big style. In the morning, long before the borders opens, one policeman walks down the row of trucks to collect money from everyone. Not from us though.
Border control is nasty as usual, but goes on pretty quick, at 10.30 h after driving some 10 km through no mans land across the Turgart pass we stand in front of the gate to China. Finally, how exciting, we have made it until China!!!

Just behind Turgart Pass: First impression of China.
Landscape wise little difference to the last 200 km in Kyrgyzstan ;)
Simply Beautiful!

Our guide is not there yet, we are a bit too early and have a nice chat with the two friendly and curious Chinese guards. We start to relax. We made it on time and Kyrgyzstan is behind us.
The guide accompanies us through all the Chinese checks, that are very moderate to what we have seen before. Calm and friendly, they take pictures of Paul, take a lot of time for all the paper work, but in general they leave us alone.

At the customs we have to wait to get our passports stamped. There is a huge poster on the wall with a big sun on it saying: "Nihao- sunshine service!". Pauli repeats since then: "Mama, Niiiihaooo, Sonne!" :-)))
Checkpoints on the Chinese side are spread on a route of about 100 km. The first one is at the pass, the second some 10 km behind the pass, the next one 30 km after that and customs wait for us 100 km from the pass. So we are busy the whole day and reach Kashgar in the evening, where we meet for the first time our real guide, who will stay with us for the next five weeks. His name is Chang Tse, but for foreign guests he calls himself Leo, so we call him Leo all the time. We all love him from the first minute. He is friendly, funny, helpful and he speaks fluent English and German! He is really nice with the kids and they love to be with him.

Torsten is not feeling well these days, he has fever and pain in his neck. The cold nights up in the mountains were too much, since in one of the nights he was exposed to direct cold air coming from one of the windows. Now we cover the window, but the pain from that one night stays.

Time has changed to Beijing time, two hours ahead. In Kashgar everything runs on two times: locals use the Kashgar time, the same as the Kyrgyz time and all official places use Beijing time. Leo uses only Beijing time. That means it is 7 o'clock and 9 o'clock at the same time. We are a bit undecided what to do with our first evening in China. "Chiiiiinaaaa, Mama!!!" :-)))))
But hunger hits us pretty soon and we decide to try the hot pot restaurant in the hotel. What a great fun and experience: we jump with two feet into our China adventure!!! Long rows of fish, meat and vegetables wait for us and most of it I have never seen before and we throw all of this into the hot pots on our table and have fun trying it all. Leo is not with us the first evening and we decide to invite him next evening to the hot pots and ask him all about the food we don't know.
What a great start, we are all excited and happy!!!

Kashgar: Johann managing his first hot pot meal

Kashgar: Simply throw it in. It's gonna be delicious!

Kahgar: The kids love hot pot!

China is hot!

Antonia loves to dress in the
Chinese bath robe!

From our room, we see the statue of Mao greeting Kashgarians. We watch night life right in front of our door.

Kashgar: View from our hotel room.
Good Morning Mao!

Kashgar: View over the city

Next day will be a long day of checks again. We need to get the Chinese TÜV and our drive licences. Torsten, Johann, Leo and a local guide head towards the technical inspection.

[ ... begin Torstens' insert ...]
The technical inspection is about 45 km outside of Kashgar. We arrived at a back entrance of the area and were allowed to bypass the long lines of waiting cars and trucks (some of them wait for several days and return in the morning to their 'parked' vehicle).

Kashgar: The fast lane at the technical inspection was not made
for Emmas' size. Some concrete blocks had to be moved.

All starts quite simple by showing the warning triangular and the fire extinguisher. Then we notice that other cars are asked to show their lights working. To be sure I'll give it a try with Johann and it turns out that one of the breaking lights and all direction indicators don't work :(
While the breaking light was having a contact problem and was fixed quickly, the analysis for the direction indicators have not shown the cause for the problem. However we notice that the guy in charge is about to approach us, and literally in the last moment Johann notices that one of the fuses shows more corrosion then the others. I take it out, clean both ends, put it back in when the guy comes and asks us to switch on all the lights and ... tata, everything works as required, thanks to Johann!

Kashgar: The official starts with the technical check-up of our car,
literally seconds after Johann discovered the problem of
the direction indicators, which was not working!
Many other clients are curiously observing us.

Kashgar: People waiting hours to get their cars checked.
For trucks it even takes days to get technical control!

Next another official jumps on our driver seat and we enter a huge building where Emma needs to go on a scale and has to proof that her breaks work as needed and head lights are adjusted correctly. Everything went fine only missing reflectors around the box appear on the to-do-list. We get a bunch of red-white-reflector stickers and put them on the edges. All ticks in the box to get a Chinese License Plate.

Last but not least the formalities have to be completed for our Chinese Drivers Licenses. But this is is done behind the scene by our guide and his local colleague. Without them we would not have been able to make this parcours successfully. Big thanks to them! 

We return to Kashgar and since I started the day already with some temperature in the morning I'm pretty worn out after all the efforts.

Here are the merits of our work: ...

Emmas license plate and our drivers licenses!

[ ... end Torstens' insert ...]

We have our first Chinese breakfast and are amazed by the huge variety of vegetables, meat dishes, soup, steamed dumplings etc. But they even have some toast, butter and marmalade... ;-)
Toni, Pauli and me, we decide to have a walk in the nearby People's park and we get to see, what is so wonderfully amazing: hundreds of people doing Tai Chi in the cool morning air. I think we look a bit stupid: with big eyes and open mouth, we walk through the park and enjoy the elegance of Chinese old people doing their morning sport. Tai Chi with music from little radios, people using swords and fans. Groups of people waving arms and legs in the same rhythm and people on their own, shouting and breathing hard while doing their exercises. Toni shows me a woman walking slowly but steadily backwards. A little further we hear more music and on a big square and there are people dancing: pop, walk, foxtrot, they know it all. People play badminton and table tennis. No one jogs though, people walk fast, waving arms, but there is no running. A group of people have brought their singing books and with the help of traditional Chinese instruments they shout their joy in form of songs into the park. What an amazing experience! What we realize is, that all this dancing, waving and singing is not being done for pure pleasure, all faces are very serious, very focused: this is hard work and part of daily life. A politician for retirement pensions must get grey hair when seeing this discipline, these people are so fit and healthy for their age that they will all reach at least the age of one hundred years.... ;-)))

Kashgar: Mao greets his people.

Kashgar: E-Scooters everywhere ...

Kashgar: ... driven by anyone.

Kashgar: Walk in the park.

Kashgar: Fall is coloring the trees in the park.

Kashgar: Tai Chi in the morning 

... with fans ...

... with swords.

Kashgar: Pauli is fascinated by all these people
doing all kinds of sports in the morning 

 ... such as dancing ...

... singing ...

... more singing ...

Kashgar: Johann enjoys his lonesome ride in
the 'jumping rice bowl' as we called it

Kashgar; all benches are held by characters from
the famous Chinese novel 'Journey to the West'

Kashgar: A senior writes Chinese symbols with
a gigantic paint-brush and water on the ground

And here we see for the first time the big difference of local Uighur people, mostly men, sitting on tables playing cards and the Han-Chinese, doing the exercises of Tai Chi etc. Both are for themselves, in style of clothes and by their faces they are very different from each other.

Kashgar: Uigur men watching ...

... or playing table games.

Kashgar: sometimes they stand right next to each other;
one watching (left), the other one (right) being focused with his/her exercises

Kashgar: The contrast could not be bigger

Uighur are still the majority in Kashgar, but Han have arrived the last ten years in great numbers. The whole city has apparently gone through a big change in the last couple of years: skyscrapers, big highways and a smaller and smaller old city, with the traditional Uighur artcrafts people. Uighur are Muslims, Han atheist or followers of one of the old Chinese religions (Tao, Confucianism or Buddhism). Actually if the region of Xinijang would not be a part of China, it would just be another -stan-country. Turkestan would it be called, it already existed, before it became part of China.
Uighur write with Arabic letters, every official sign here is written in Chinese and
Uigur. We know that there are problems between the two ethnic groups, and we see a lot of police, heavily armed police and very heavy armed police. Even tanks roll on the streets. The aim is very clear: showing off aggressive power to scare protests away. The last demonstrations with dead people happened in 2013. While we are in town everything is calm, otherwise we would not be let in, I guess.... We learn that China's investments into inner security is much higher than the budget for external security and military. They are more scared of their own people, than of any outside threat...

Kashgar: Tanks form part of the streetscape.

We enjoy another visit to the hot pot restaurant, this time with the help of Leo and things get even more tasty!!!

Kashgar: Hot pot again ...

... this time with the help of our experienced guide.

Kashgar: Luckily there are brand symbols which we recognize

The hotel has a laundry service and the wash is done very quickly. A service woman shows up in our room to bring back the clothes. Torsten is trying to get some sleep at that moment, having fever, we are gone for a walk. The service woman wants the payment for the washing immediately and does not want to understand that Torsten does not have any money (I have the Yuan in my pocket), she gets really nasty, not stopping to yell in Chinese and even walks around in our room, sneaking in our things apparently to find money. After some 20 minutes Torsten throws her out of the room and is really exhausted. No idea, why it was not possible to notify us and let us pick up the things at the reception... This whole story triggers a lot of anger in me and I go to the hotel management to complain. On a trip like this privacy is something very precious, because there is not much of it. We have our car, but even there police can ask entrance any time, border controls are always very heavy invasions into our private zone. So this lady goes far beyond what I am ready to take. Leo helps by translating, no one of the four-star-international-hotel-management speaks any English. At the end the hotel manager excuses the whole situation by apologizing to Torsten, we are given fruits and nuts and the service lady has to apologize herself (after she had been screaming and yelling again, when we complained in front of the hotel manager....) A pretty nasty situation. Torsten tells us later that she had even started to fart while she was walking around in our room looking for money... At this moment we can already laugh really loud again about this shi.... :-))))

We enjoy Kashgar. It is warm, we are back to light jackets, can't believe that we were with minus degrees a couple of days ago...
Torsten recovers a bit, we walk through the old town, Torsten gets a shave of his long beard to stop scaring poor Chinese. We introduce him to Leo, after the Barbour is done...:-)))

Kashgar: The rest of the crew pulled me into a barber shop.

and insisted to get shaved again,
because they would not recognize me anymore. 

This time it wasn't apparently a barber, who tried to skin me,
but an Uighur sheepshearer using only cold water: it hurt!

But for all: I'm cold now!

The old town is really nice, a big bazaar, but we have seen this so often in Central Asia by now and we are really yearning to see real China, that we are ready to go on the next day, eastwards.

Kashgar: Walking through the Uighur old town.

Watching craftsman at their work.

Tubes are still bend by hand.

Here wooden steam pots are made,
used to prepare lots of traditional dishes

Kashgar: Antonia chooses for the nuts which we love to eat
while driving long distances.

Kashgar: Pauli wants more of pomegranate juice.

Kashgar: Old town during sunset.

Kashgar: Curious kids surrounding us.

Kashgar: Fried eggs popping out of this machine.

Kashgar: Fun ride on the back of a Tuk Tuk.

Kashgar: A carpenter in the old town

Kashgar: Delicious Chinese food in a non-smoking room.

Most of it we never tried before. Fantastic!

1500 km of the Taklamakan desert are in front of us. Every 500 km there are big cities, so we will stop every 500 km for an overnight stay. Between these cities, there is: Nothing. Well, sand and mountains on our left hand side.

On our way to Aksu: Stopping for lunch

Aksu is our first stop. Not much to say about this town, besides that it is a very planned Chinese city, some rests of old Uigur culture can still be found besides the skyscrapers. We stay in a big hotel on the 13. floor, with a nice view. Due to the political situation we are not allowed to stay at other places than in or next to hotels in Xinijang.
1 million people live in Aksu. We learn: China has 270 cities with more than one million inhabitants. Though Xinijang feels empty: we ride for days through the desert sharing the road with some trucks, but no heavy traffic at all. Highways are in great state: four lanes, boring drive, just straight ahead for hours, that's all. Sun is shining, temperatures are nice. In Aksu we are supposed to see the peak of Peak Pobedy in Kirghistan with more than 7000 m, but there are dusty winds and sand in the air, so we don't see anything.

Aksu: Looking for some food.

Aksu: Pauli dreaming of food.

Aksu: Barley Tea.

Delicious and spicy!

Aksu: Restaurant staff asks for a picture!

Aksu: Susanne & Leo planning the itinerary for the next week 

Aksu: The arms at the hotel entrance remind us that we are still in Xinjiang province.
Metal detectors and body search at the entrance of big buildings like supermarkets.

We use the long driving hours to prepare for things to come. We read Chinese fairy tales, because we will visit a park of figures from the book " Journey to the West". I learn with the kids about Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. With Torsten I read about politics and history of this great country. We try to remember all the dynasties of Han, Tan, Ming, Qing etc, very interesting.

We reach Korla after another 500 km. Same as Aksu, big, but nothing to see. We park next to a hotel, we have pasta and tomatoes that night, after a lot of Chinese food these days... ;-))

On our way to Korla: Bizarre landscapes.

On our way to Korla: Beautiful rock formations.

Korla: Old mosque squeezed between huge apartment buildings

On our way to Turpan we get for the first time in some rough weather, a heavy wind storm chases across the desert. The whole car is jumping and shaking, we have to tighten the roof windows from the inside and hold on to them with safety strings. Torsten gets out of the car, the rest of us is too scared and with some 20 km/h on the highway we fight our way through the storm. Leo is with us in the car and is really relaxed, so we are too. ;-)

On our way to Turpan: Pauli loves qurut. 
I bought a little stock in Kyrgyztan before we left.

On our way to Turpan: Traffic signs in Chinese and Uighur.

On our way to Turpan: Sand storm is basically stopping us on the highway.
With the pedal to the metal we don't make more than 20 km/h.
When checking the solar panel on our roof I could not open the drivers door
and had to hold on really tight to the roof.
BTW: we are here roughly 100 m below sea level.

On our way to Turpan: Leo playing with Pauli.

Turpan is an oasis. Watermelons, grapes, apples, peaches, almonds etc grow here in the middle of the desert. Farmers here would say: We hope that it does not rain, otherwise we will have to fight drought and our families will be starving." The solution to this strange saying is quite simple: farming here does not rely at all on rain, but on the water coming from the close Tian Shan mountains and their glaciers. And glaciers melt and bring water when sun is shining, when it's raining it gets too cold on the mountains and ice will stay up there. The water reaches town through water channels digged into the ground already centuries ago. What a great coincidence, we have seen them already in Iran. Here they are called "Karez" and here they have a great museum about the water channel system. Finally, I thought this whole engineering wonder already deserved an explanation in a museum in Iran. But as we find out, Chinese cover in their museum also the history of the Iranian desert water channels... ;-))

Turpan: Pauli loves being with Leo.

Turpan: Visiting the museum, explaining the ancient water system
based on Karez.

Turpan: Model of man maintaining the underground water system

Turpan: The museum like many other are nicely setup
with lots of explanations also in English.

Turpan: Model is showing a smart way of digging a tunnel from
two points without missing each other. The direction is defined
above ground and projected with vertical holes to the underground workers,
who therefore know in which direction they need to dig further

Turpan is a very old town on the Silk Road and around it there are lots of ancient ruins and Buddhist caves to be discovered.
The new we part of the city is as all other cities we have seen: a very modern skyscraper-big-avenues- thing. To be honest I have a hard time remembering the Chinese cities we have been to, because they all look the same. We stay in nice hotel next to a lovely bazaar. We find a sort fast food restaurant for Chinese food and enjoy the different vegetables. We can not read anything anymore and always have to rely on pictures and hand and feet when Leo is not with us. But the food we manage to get is really good and we are proud and very happy. :-)))

Turpan: Weather forecast in the hotel lobby. Quite a range ;) 

Turpan: Pauli discovers how eggs are cooked on the bazzar.

Turpan: Big surprise for us! Like everywhere,
where we have been so far E-Scooters have replaced the bicycles.

Turpan: View on the bazaar from our hotel room.
Colorful, beautiful in the evening.
Unfortunately we missed to take a picture from up here.

Turpan: Bazaar at night.

Turpan: Someone really likes Germany here.

Turpan: Excellent food in simplistic restaurant.

Turpan: Enjoying the food from a noodle bar in our room.

Turpan: Emin Minaret 

With the kids I have been reading the book "The journey tot the west", an old fairy tale from the 16th century about a king of apes who becomes immortal and is being ordered by the Emperor of Jade to go to India to bring the Sanskrit to China. While on this journey he has to pass the Flaming mountains, a wild-yellow- orange- red mountain range near Turpan. To remember this story the tourism office has placed next to the mountains a series of metal figures from this fairy tale and we go see them and I tell the story again. The kids like it, as they like all fairy tales. :-))
In China there seems to be an entrance fee for everything. Even for seeing the Flaming Mountains and the figurines of King Ape we have to pay an entrance fee and most of the time we pay around 20 Euros, for highly ranked sights we pay some 40 Euros to enter. This gets pretty expensive after a while...

Near Turpan: Leo & Pauli playing at the Museum
of the Flaming Mountains

Near Turpan: Reliefs at the entrance showing stories from the novel
'Journey to the West'

Near Turpan: Museum shows former wall paintings from caves,
which were robbed or destroyed over the centuries.

Near Turpan: Thermometer for surface temperature, decorated with
characters of the novel 'Journey to the West'.
In summer this is one of the hottest places on earth.

Near Turpan: The park shows different characters of the novel
'Journey to the West'.

Close to Turpan there are some Buddhist grottoes, that are more than thousand years old and can be visited. Our travel books warn us already, that there is not much to see inside, besides the empty grottoes. The reason is very easy and not very comforting. Most of the frescoes are in: Berlin. In the years 1905 to 1907 there have been several 'expeditions' to the area organised by the Berlin Museum für Asiatische Kunst and they have brought some 400 boxes of artifacts from the area of Turpan to Berlin. So when we are back, we will go to Berlin to see the frescoes of the grottoes we have visited in China.... :-( The rest of the paintings was destroyed during the Cultural revolution in the sixties. Still we have a very nice impression of the surroundings and some paintings can still be seen. Surprisingly clear and fine paintings.

Near Turpan: Intense discussion.

Near Turpan: Buddhist Grottoes with some wall paintings left
which were not destroyed or robbed.

Near Turpan: An older men playing on a traditional instrument
in front of the Buddhist Grottoes.

Near Turpan: One of teh few wall paintings in the Buddhist Grottoes

Near Turpan: Buddhist Grottoes

Near Turpan: Valley of the Buddhist Grottoes

Near Turpan: Not many tourists at this time a year.
Actually no one except us ;)

Sometimes handy to have a big sister

Pauli all happy!

He changed so much.

After another stop in Hami, another town on the Silk Road, we reach Dunhuang. We reach the town late in the evening, the road we took was not ready yet and it was rough and dusty driving, something we haven't had for a while now. We have left Xinjiang and enter the Province of Gansu. We realize the change of provinces by two things: heavily armed and built up police checks are gone and there are new toll prizes for the highways. None of the highways are free and fees are pretty high, we are trying to ask mercy and not put us in the highest class with our Emma....

Hami: Impressive to watch how noodles are made by hand.

In Dunhuang we will see one of the most interesting and stunning sights of Chinese history: the Mogaogrottoes. And they are not empty. :-))) They are also some 1500 years old, but they had been forgotten and covered by sand for some 500 years and were rediscovered around 1900. Thanks to that period of no one touching the caves most of the statues, frescoes, pillars and paintings are still there and the color is marvelous. Some 1000 caves have been built, around 20 can be visited in a guided tour. The most stunning is a huge sitting Buddha statue, with a height of around 37 m.
Here we enter for the first time the well run machinery of Chinese sight seeing places. What a perfect organisation and in depth information they present! There is a very new huge visitors centre some 10 km from the actual site, where as an introduction we watch an interesting film about the history of Dunhuang, the Silk Road, and the building of the Great Wall and the building of the grottoes. It is all in Chinese, we have head phones for English translation, but still it is really interesting and a great way for the kids to see in a film what we have been reading about to prepare for our visit in China. And then they have a second movie in 360* surround view, where they show in detail the paintings and statues of the caves. It is all ahhhhs and ohhhhs and we look forward to see them in reality. We don't have to wait long, we are all asked to enter buses that drive us to the site, where we are received by a very nice guide who gives us a tour in German. :-)) All perfect, as I said. After having visited so many things in Central Asia, where a lot of times it was difficult to see that sights and artifacts were not treated well and we asked ourselves how many years to come these things would still be preserved, it feels very nice to see that here in China it is different, though sometimes also a bit too touristy.

The huge sitting Buddha is covered by a big temple building and is the most impressing, even for Paul. So days after we have left Dunhuang he sees the picture of a huge temple, hesitates, I can see him thinking and then he points to the building and says: " Mama, Buddha, drin!" (Mama, Buddha, inside!) :-)))
We enjoy the restaurant of the visitors center and by nice souvenirs at the shop, nothing missing, all together a great and relaxing experience. :-)))

Near Dunhuang: Mogaogrottoes

Near Dunhuang: Mogaogrottoes

Near Dunhuang: Mogaogrottoes.
Vivid sculptureswith beautiful colors in one of 1000 grottoes.

Near Dunhuang: Mogaogrottoes.
Bodhisattva statue.

Near Dunhuang: Mogaogrottoes.
Flying Asparas ('Buddhist Angels').

Near Dunhuang: Mogaogrottoes.
Squared Pilar in the middle of a grottoe.

Near Dunhuang: Mogaogrottoes.

Near Dunhuang: Mogaogrottoes.
Rediscovered grottoe with 50.000 artifacts
(also called library grottoe).

Near Dunhuang: Mogaogrottoes

Near Dunhuang: Mogaogrottoes.
Behind this wall the gigantic Buddha is sitting
for some hundred years.

Near Dunhuang: Mogaogrottoes. And here he sits.

Near Dunhuang: Mogaogrottoes. We did not even reach his toes.

Near Dunhuang: Mogaogrottoes.
Here with our German speaking guide.

Near Dunhuang: Mogaogrottoes.
Beautiful Wall Paintings

Near Dunhuang: Mogaogrottoes. 

Near Dunhuang: Mogaogrottoes.
We all loved this place. Pauli happy!

Near Dunhuang: Mogaogrottoes. 
Not really part of the museum, but at least as interesting ;)

Dunhuang is as all other towns we have come along at the outskirts of the desert of Taklamakan and the desert of Gobi an oasis and is surrounded by high sand dunes. We hike them, which is a pretty energy consuming exercise, but we enjoy great views up there. (Even here we pay an entrance fee of some 30 Euros...) Temperatures are pretty low, but sun is shining, what a great day, we are very happy!!!

Near Dunhuang: Entering the area with the sand dunes.

Near Dunhuang: 'Picture, Picture?'

Near Dunhuang: I would have loved to change with Pauli.

Near Dunhuang: View over the dunes down to the spring
of the old crescent moon lake.

Near Dunhuang: Off season.
In the summer time this place is crowded!

Near Dunhuang: Leo taking some sand as a souvenir

Near Dunhuang: It was really a fun hike.

Near Dunhuang: Some guys could not get enough ...

... and were dancing ...

... and playing in the sand.

And looking for more challenges!

Johann and Antonia are two tiny dots in the upper part of the dune.

Buddha statue at the crescent moon lake.

Old bell of the monastery of the crescent moon lake.

None of us had seen this plant before.

Ricinus!

Witch meeting?

We stay in a hotel, where the night is not very relaxing. The room is overheated and opening the window leads to scratching throats, since in the night industry surrounding Dunhuang seems to open all chimneys and the air is polluted. This is not the last time that we see huge brown and black clouds above cities with their industries; a lot of people wear mouth protections around here.

Dunhuang: Modern city vs. anachronistic working methods.
People are apparently cheaper than equipment.

What China does against air pollution and for energy production we can see on the highway next day. Wind parks wherever we turn to, huge wind parks and on the highway itself we see lots of trucks carrying parts of wind mills still on their way to constructions sites. Besides the wind parks there are huge areas with solar panels, the desert is used at every possible way to generate energy for thirsty Chinese industry.

On our way to Jiayuguan: Countless trucks with gigantic wind mill equipment.

We are very excited, our next stop is the Great Wall! We will stop in Jiayuguan, the most western point of the Great Wall.

Jiayuguan: New fruit found on the bazaar. 

Dragon fruit or Pitaya. Tastes somewhat like a Kiwi.

Jiayuguan: Fresh vegetables on the bazaar.

Jiayuguan: more than half of the products in the supermarket
are undefinable for us. Here I'm in the lane with spicy things.
We are already curious what I bought ;)

Jiayuguan: We parked next to the fort and museum of the Great Wall.
Short walk in the morning.

We actually visit the end of the wall, so to say and it is a very spectacular end. The wall in whole China is some 8000 km long, 600 km can still be visited today. In Jiayuguan there is a fort that is some 600 years old. We climb the steep stairs to the walls and enjoy great views on the impressive mountain ranges surrounding the fort, that protects a small corridor between the mountains. Qilian mountains on one side are up to 5000 m high, Neimengu mountains to the other side around 2000 m. This used to be the end of the world for Chinese, behind this point there were only uncivilized long nosed wild... (Us.) :-))))

We have a great time and enjoy the site and the museum, we gather more knowledge and the puzzle of Chinese history becomes more and more clear in our heads.

Jiayuguan: We reached the Great Wall. We are pretty impressed.

Jiayuguan: Painting with top view of The Wall in the museum

Jiayuguan: Model of the Fort, which we see a little later.

Jiayuguan: Not sure why Mao had to be in this museum,
but a whole room was dedicated to him.

Jiayuguan: Impressions from one of the Forts of the Great Wall 

Jiayuguan: Impressions from one of the Forts of the Great Wall 

Jiayuguan: Impressions from one of the Forts of the Great Wall.
This stone is refering to one of the stories
around the Great Wall.
Hitting this stone is supposed to sound like a swallow bird.

Jiayuguan: Impressions from one of the Forts of the Great Wall.

Jiayuguan: Impressions from one of the Forts of the Great Wall.

Jiayuguan: Impressions from one of the Forts of the Great Wall.
Graffiti in Chinese.

Jiayuguan: Impressions from one of the Forts of the Great Wall.
Happy campers.

Jiayuguan: Impressions from one of the Forts of the Great Wall.Leo explains us, where bits and pieces from our books do not fit together.

Jiayuguan: Impressions from one of the Forts of the Great Wall.
Marvelous scene. Yellow, the color of the Chinese emperor.

Jiayuguan: Impressions from one of the Forts of the Great Wall.
Trying Bow and Arrow.

Only Johann hit the board.

Jiayuguan: Impressions from one of the Forts of the Great Wall.
Trying really hard Bow and Arrow.

Our names in Chinese.

Written on a tag.

Jiayuguan: Impressions from one of the Forts of the Great Wall.
Administrative rooms

Jiayuguan: Impressions from one of the Forts of the Great Wall.
Command center.

Jiayuguan: Impressions from one of the Forts of the Great Wall.
Main gate.

Jiayuguan: Impressions from one of the Forts of the Great Wall.

They love machines!

The end of the wall is at a great river canyon outside town. Very impressive and must have been a shock for mongol invaders who had ridden on their horses until the end of the Chinese wall to enter China and trying to get around this huge wall...

Jiayuguan: Museum of the Western End of the Great Wall.

Jiayuguan: Museum of the Western End of the Great Wall.
Posing with a guard.

Jiayuguan: Museum of the Western End of the Great Wall.
Canyon build natural limitation of The Wall.

Jiayuguan: Skywalk over the canyon..

Jiayuguan: Hole in the Great Wall.
Back in the old times unimaginable.

Jiayuguan: Plank bridge over the canyon.

Jiayuguan: Plank bridge over the canyon.
Pauli loves it.

So does Johann!

;)

Jiayuguan: ... and back through the hole.

Jiayuguan: Remnants of the Western End of the Great Wall.

North of town there is a restored part of the wall. We climb the steep wall and enjoy the view. The landscape is impressive, but I don't not want to imagine being guard here in Chinese emperors times, far away from civilization, all alone in this unfriendly desert...

Jiayuguan: Restored part of the wall. 

Jiayuguan: Restored part of the wall.
Nice hike all the way up.

Ready to take off.

Pauli prefers the scarf again ;)

Jiayuguan: Climbing the watch tower at the top.
Someone was here already.

Jiayuguan: Impressive view from the top.

Jiayuguan: Impressive view from the top.

Jiayuguan: Impressive view from the top.

Pauli still not tired ;)

Jiayuguan: The Great Wall: An important infrastructure
for protecting the caravans on the Silk Road.

Jiayuguan: Having lunch next to the Great Wall.

Johann still not tired.

Fort of the Great Wall over the river.

Even with these unfriendly weather conditions the area has been cultivated and populated for a long time. Today there are some underground graves still visible with interesting ancient paintings about the rural life in the area.
Another great day full with wonderful impressions. :-)))

Jiayuguan: Rediscovered graves with wall paintings.

Watch your head!

Jiayuguan: Paintings show every-day-life-scenes.

Back above ground: Pauli walking & dreaming.

In Zanghye we visit one of the oldest Chinese sleeping Buddhas in a wonderful old wooden temple. He was made in 1059, looks very friendly and Pauli loves him. He is very impressed and doesn't stop whispering "Buddha!". :-))) He wants me to go back with him to the temple several times to see the sleeping statue. So we buy him a little Buddha figurine that he now carries around with him in his little pocket.
I like the Statue too, but the whole scenery seems so dead, there are no monks, no candles, no scents burning, today it is just an empty cold museum, no religious life anymore and that makes it all a bit awkward.

Digging in the dashboard to find the reoccurring problem with our
direction indicator. Result: Cable fire in the blinker unit.
Surprisingly I found immediately a spare part.
Fixed!

Zanghye: I did not see this car in the mirror.
That was close!

Zanghye: Entering the monastery of the sleeping Buddha.

Impressive but sad at the same time.
The Buddha is not only sleeping but also lonesome. No monks nowadays.

Zanghye: We love his face.

Zanghye: The Buddha is huge ...

>34 m long & >7 m high.

Zanghye: Wall paintings behind the sleeping Buddha.

Zanghye: Impressions.
Decorated column next to the Buddha.

Zanghye: Impressions. Red the color of happiness in China.

Zanghye: Impressions.

Zanghye: Typical Roof Tiles of Buddhist Buildings.

Zanghye: Impressions. A last look back to the Stupa of the Monastery

After more than one week driving in the desert on great highways, we have gone some 3000 km. We are looking forward to see some different landscapes and overall we are looking for an answer to the question: where are the 1,3 billion Chinese people? Entering China from far west seems to give a total different impression: landscape, highways and even cities seem empty. No feeling over overcrowded streets or places, in all museums we have been usually on our own, or at least with numbers of tourists that never lead to waiting times or any other annoyances... :-)) We will see what the next weeks bring.