Endless Chinese Roadworks
Monday, July 12, 2010
Sunday 11th July
Our time in Kashgar was basically spent eating. We have finally left the carnivorous/cheesy-licious Central Asia, where Shashlik and lagman are sometimes the only thing on the menu, for the much anticipated food of China. Although Kashgar has Central Asian influences in their cuisine, the ability to order Kung Po Chicken and mysteriously enough “Love Juice” is a wonderful thing!
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This morning we set off for the Mogao Caves, which are a set of sculptures inside caves which are high up in the desert, also known as the caves of a thousand Buddhas. The largest being 34.5m which had one massive Buddha statue in it. Unfortunately there were no photos allowed but the link will give you a better idea. Whist some of us are being lazy this afternoon others are planning on heading to the Echoing sand for some sand boarding and camel riding.
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Our time in Kashgar was basically spent eating. We have finally left the carnivorous/cheesy-licious Central Asia, where Shashlik and lagman are sometimes the only thing on the menu, for the much anticipated food of China. Although Kashgar has Central Asian influences in their cuisine, the ability to order Kung Po Chicken and mysteriously enough “Love Juice” is a wonderful thing!
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We said farewell to Mike and Alice in Kashgar who decided a trip to Beijing and Xian was in order. Also spent a ridiculous time in the post office with a clerk who couldn’t understand that Scotland was a country and not a city in England, and finally managed to get Taylor’s shoe fixed. Our time wasn’t all wasted on sorting stuff out, we spent some time in the old town and the funky Sunday market (stumbled across a stall where they sold scorpions, hedgehogs, spiders and kittens and as we gawped at the strange things the locals gawped at the strange tourists, gawping at the strange animals).
From Kashgar we headed for a few nights bushcamp through the Taklaman Desert on route to Turpan. The roads at this point had dramatically improved in some areas, even though the green barrier wouldn’t let us out, but large sections were roadwork’s and at times we only went 7Km in an hour! In fact as the Chinese army have nothing to do just now, they employ them as a construction army and the Xinjang province has been turned into the roadwork’s province. All tolled we bounced and swerved through around 1,500km of roadwork’s! Found one of the best bushcamps when we finally escaped the green barrier where we had a night under the stars (well we had our tent windows open).
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Turpan – also known as “Fire City” is 154m below sea level in the middle of the desert (in other words its hot-upwards of 45 degrees). Sightseeing would have been impossible during the day so we waited until early evening and headed for the Ancient City of Jiaohe to look at what is left. Pete took us to a night market for dinner in the evening which has unfortunately diminished since he was last here but we still enjoyed a wonderful meal of noodles with spicy sauce all for 40 pence… we’ve almost mastered the art of eating with chopsticks too, plus beer is a measly 40p (Stella you should move here)!
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Another bushcamp on route to Dunhuang, the home of the Magao Caves and the Mingsha Shan (Echoing-Sand) where we would spend 2 nights and welcome back Mike and Alice (has it really been a week??). Yesterday was my day to suffer a bit from heat stroke, and the roads weren’t on our side. Finally made it to Dunhuang and made a speedy recovery in our fully air-conditioned room! We also celebrated Ben’s birthday and headed out to a night market – unfortunately there was no MacDonalds here for him.
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Tomorrow we start our assent into Tibet after a few more bushcamps, the road we are supposed to be taking is causing a few difficulties, Lilly (our local guide) says it’s closed whilst others say it’s open. If we can’t take it we have to add an extra 1000Km to the route.
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