Dust to dust, ashes to ashes...

Xi'an; home of the Terracotta Warriors. But to get there we had some miles to cover from Pingliang. Mr. Garmin didn't want to follow instructions and although the road signs have dropped the Arabic, they don't always have an English replacement. So we were heading for Pressure Cooker followed by Crossed Swords with a Hat on.

The first bit was charming. Harvest must move from West to East and our riding day corresponded to the exact time when the combine harvesters hit the region. All of them. Sometimes in convoy. Everybody was busy in their fields with their carts collecting the cut wheat. They then were threshing and drying it on any flat surface available including a forecourt of a disused garage. Yesterday cabbage, today wheat, tomorrow paper apples? It seems that it costs too much to spray apple trees with insecticide, so each apple on a tree is wrapped in an insecticide impregnated piece of paper and a little brown bag tied over the top of it. Well the French have Poire Williams, don't they?
 
 

Although being on a motorcycle means the indignity of using kettles to fill up with petrol and the now near universal banning of the express way, it does have its benefits too. The other day the Chinese Army let us overtake their convoys whereas one of their vehicles moved over to block all four or more wheeled vehicles. Today we were allowed through road works where they had just laid and rolled the tarmac, and through tunnels where they were busy working inside. With queues of other traffic being held up whilst we were waved through.
 
After the wheat fields it was the time for a roadside encaved 20m Buddha and then...
 
Well, China has a lot of people. They consume a lot of power and the power is created by coal fired power stations. Well at least over 90% of it is. And quite often the coal seems, at least in this region, to be transported by road. There were a lot of lorries. And they were a bit heavily loaded and slow and slowed down even more by the combine harvesters who were out en masse, let alone the road traffic. Bits of the road were quite hilly and the roads were not very wide, so you had a very slow brick laden tuk-tuk being overtaken by a combine harvester being overtaken by a coal lorry. They were all so slow you could see the wheels turning. Which means that to overtake them, we were on the opposing hard shoulder. On bends. Never have we done anything like this before, but it seems to be quite expected - just tell everyone you are doing it by using the horn. The buses definitely have the best horns, better even than the lorries. Our horn still sounds a bit water-logged from the hose cleaning the other day. As far as doing things not normally associated with the rules of the road, it doesn't seem that respect for red lights at traffic lights applies to motorcycles either.
 

We were a tad grubby on arrival at Xi'an. Black even! The Midlands had nothing on this.
 
We have spent about three weeks in China and become quite used to people staring at us, as though our flies were undone and we were wearing no pants or boobs were hanging out. We have not seen ANY other non-Chinese whatsoever whilst here; none! Children giggle at us, point at us and whisper things to their parents. So Xi'an has been a bit of a shock, as there are other obviously non-Chinese here to visit the Terracotta Warriors.
 
It is quite amazing to think that the Terracotta Warriors were only discovered forty years ago and that there is a certain logic that says that what has been found represents one, or part of one, of three armies. It is also quite amazing to note that the forty metre high hill 1.5km away is actually the burial mound or tomb of the Emperor Qing being protected by the Warriors and that it has not yet been explored at all. There is clearly more to come from Xi'an.
 

 Our guide was excellent and went beyond the Warriors themselves. 800 million of China's 1.3 billion population are rural and the government wants to have a 50/50 rural/urban split. Our guide, being a proud Xianese, claimed Xi'an is China's third most important city with 1 million students graduating every year from its Universities. Not sure how the maths stack up on this with a claimed population of 7.5 million.
 

Speaking of guides we are not allowed to be in China with the Harley or any other vehicle for that matter without a guide at all times. He has had our route agreed with the authorities and we meet up with him each evening. John and his driver, Mr He, are both great guys to have around and when we have big meals, it is certainly useful having them 
to order.
 
Photos are a funny thing here as visibility is certainly better than the nightmare photos you see in the papers.  Very few people seem to wear face masks here in Xi'an. The city is surrounded by beautiful mountains and yet you simply can't see them because of the smog/mist/haze.

 
Old photographs showed Chinese streets blocked with people on cycles. To be honest the traffic is certainly different but not that impossible - see how one has been tainted by London. But the cycles are no more and the small motorcycles seem to have been nearly all replaced with electric scooters, some equipped with lovely umbrellas. So what has happened to all those bicycles? Well a large number are for hire to ride on Xi'an's city wall and we rode a couple of them on the 14km circuit this morning.

 

 

 Xi'an marks the end of the Silk Road - tomorrow we turn right and head South on the Tea and Horses route heading for the hills and maybe we can see the sky again?
 
 
Paul & Francoise

Cabbage Roadkill

Paul survived the night. A bit of a dramatic test, but a test nonetheless. The previous day's outing to the Great Wall had involved 560 big, uneven steps and some slopey bits to the top. He survived the test with no after effects. Nothing to hold us back now!

Zanghe was bustling as we arrived late afternoon, but at night most of the local restaurants had their shutters closed. It is actually quite hard to know what a restaurant looks like and a lot of them are not at ground floor level, so it is not just a question of peering in through the window. So we walked in to somewhere where there was at least somebody else eating, rule number one, and with no picture menu our pictionary came in handy.  We roughly got what we asked for. Better than miming.

 

The run from Zanghe to Xining started off as a massive traffic jam as the Chinese Army were on the move. We counted nearly a thousand vehicles, but we were allowed to wriggle our way through. The express way is no longer an option since motorbikes are no longer allowed on it or tolerated. The Army gave way to a spectacular road - Buddhist temples, Tibetan prayer flags, herding yaks, flocks of sheep, twisty roads (built for Chinese lorries, so Paul could cope as the Harley is only marginally smaller) and a mountain pass at almost 3800m altitude and down to just 2 degrees C. And then we stopped for the bike to be cleaned. Unfortunately the 50km run into Xining turned into a bit of the now usual grind playing dodgems with the buses. 

 

We had a couple of extra days in Xining, so we spent some time in a Tibetan Monastery, albeit not in Tibet which is about 200km away. Quite staggering really. One of the temples/shrines in the complex had just short of 850kg of gold in it. Work it out, the units are correct. And there were a number of such temples/shrines within the complex! We had the full atmospheric rendition, i.e it was pouring down with rain.

Paul braved a local haircut and Francoise nearly lost her cool at the post office. Seventy five minutes to send a small parcel back to the UK ...And then some Chrysanthemum tea... The shopping scene is just incredible here with a whole mall running hundreds of metres in perpendicular directions constructed beneath the road and serving as a means of crossing the roads. And they all sell the same stuff. More cool signs to make us wonder what the Chinese writing actually says outside the restaurants in London. It tree burn steak carbon...
 
Still in Gansu Province, we headed for Lanzhou, which is a bigger city stretching along the Yellow River. The Germans built the very first bridge here a century ago. The Yellow River is a nasty shade of brown. The road we travelled in to Lanzhou on had a truly awful stretch of road works. In fact we went from bad road to no road. We were effectively off-road on gravel and broken concrete for over 40km. However Lanzhou was quite a fun place to spend the night. We were hit just before six o'clock in the afternoon by a tsunami of night market stall holders pouring out of all the alleyways to vie for their pitches. Very lively and great fun - a real buzz!

 

Leaving Lanzhou behind, we have now parked our bikes in Pingliang which seems like a newtown nowheresville with nobody about, but really wide roads that wouldn't be out of place for a North Korean military parade. Pingliang is a staging post for us to get to Xian and on reflection all these towns we have stayed at are just that - relay points along the Silk Road. Today's roadworks were twice as hard and twice as long as yesterdays. So much for thinking it couldn't get any worse. We ended up being stuck in huge traffic jams and gigantic clouds of dust. Paul celebrated Chengdu's claim to fame with his panda eyes. Just short of eight hours riding for 350km. The roads were covered with the remnants of every cabbage type known to mankind being, carried in an equally varied selection of vehicles. We will look out tonight at the restaurant to see whether our evening greens have a Dunlop tread pattern on them.

 In our eyes China is now synonymous with dust. How they get their clothes clean is beyond us. Perhaps that's why there are Chinese laundries? We will probably only see the sun again when or if we get back  to altitude. So how come Paul has got a bright red face?
 

Paul & Francoise

Welcome to Xinjiang- time for a brew.

We have now spent almost a week in the Xinjiang region, having travelled from the border to Yining and then Kuytun, Urumqi, Turpan and now Hami. What is China supposed to be like? The North West province which we have just crossed is predominantly Muslim. The road signs are displayed in both Chinese and Arabic. Where did these borders come from? The whole of Central Asia including this part of China shows its nomadic history.

 
We are travelling through China as opposed to following a tourist trail. We see what we see and things are not there on display for us. Whenever time permits though, we take the opportunity to wander round and absorb what we can.
 
The road is basically an express way now. Occasionally it stops and pushes you back to the old road. The express ways are calm, well maintained and the road surface is in super condition. The old roads  are the opposite. So the motorways, especially for longer distances, suit the Harley a little bit better. Lorries can also be very long and difficult to pass as they swerve to avoid the pot holes.
 
Urumqi was an example of a rapidly growing Chinese city bustling with commercialism, whose business case seems somewhat obscure. How many mobile phones do people need? How can you have ten shops selling exactly the same things all next to each other? How does a a five storey luxury goods mall function? It’s clearly the Chinese model and we don't understand it. Tucked away behind the modern western hotels we managed to find a Muslim street selling freshly baked bread rolls. Which will still be there in five years time is hard to judge. We also visited the local museum to see some exceptionally well preserved mummies from 1800BC that had been found in the desert. We had been told of one that was 6'2" tall, red headed, European features and that pre-dated Marco Polo by four thousand years. Must have been a hell of a hangover he woke up with, after stumbling out of a Glasgow pub the night before... What we hadn't been told was that there were two museums in Urumqi.

 
The road is desert with oases. And the deserts are, well, deserted. Apart from whole new cities and power stations being built that will presumably be offered to Eastern Chinese at subsidised costs to help dilute the current ethnic influences in North Western China.

 

 
It is a pretty unforgiving landscape between oases and we must have wanted that silk pretty badly back then to warrant the Silk Road!

 

 
Turpan was extremely hot. Since we arrived early, we ventured out to visit the remains of a 2000 year old mud city. 38 degrees, very hot indeed. Mad dogs and Englishmen... In the evening we watched the Turpan Quinyuan Cup Singing and Dancing competition or at least the first three acts. They consisted of some rather melodious Chinese backing music with young female singers impersonating cats being skinned and stir-fried alive.

 

 
We are eating very well indeed. However if you have not mastered the use of chop sticks, eating in China is a messy business. We are spending a long time washing our rather limit supply of clothing and our pot of Stain Devils is running out.
 
The road to Hami dropped to 44m below sea level according to the GPS today and we are still drawing the same crowds wherever we stop - including toilet breaks. Although motorbikes are not supposed to be allowed on the express ways, we have been waved on with thumbs-up signs by police and toll attendants alike.
 

 
Once you get off the express ways petrol does become an issue. They don't always want to serve motorcycles. In fact we were refused at two petrol stations today before being allowed to fill up at the the third. Each petrol station is guarded by a barrier.  This one had a lady sitting on a chair with a string which she raised to stop us entering. She pointed to a barrier where we had to park the bike.  Paul was given a kettle which he took to the petrol pump 60m away. This is how you fill the bike up. Oh the indignity for a Harley owner!

 

Luckily the bike passed its Chinese MOT at the beginning of the week, as the headlamp has stopped working now/again.
 
I think the most fascinating thing so far is how everybody welcomes us. It makes us wonder how we welcome visitors to our country.

 Paul & Francoise