Silk Road: Jiaohe Ruins

The tall cliffs that surrounded Jiaohe as natural defenses for the town

One of the first places we visited in Xinjiang was the Jiaohe Ruins, about 10 kilometres west of Turpan.

Established about 2,000 years ago, it was a town of about 7,000 people who were Indo-European speaking Tocharians who lived on a leaf-shaped plateau that was surrounded by two deep river valleys that acted as natural defenses. The river divides into two around the town, which is why the place is called Jiaohe, or "river junction".

What's left inside are ruins from 2,000 years ago

Jiaohe used to be an important site along the Silk Road, which later became part of the Tang Dynasty, while it also became a military post in the west.

The city was considered quite sophisticated at the time, with Buddhist temples and stupas, as well as an area for government, residents and even graveyards that were further away from the city centre, but strangely there was a small cemetery for dead babies closer to the community.

However in the 13th century it was destroyed by the Mongols during an invasion, and the people abandoned Jiaohe, leaving behind ruins that were only discovered later.

Today there are just literally ruins which people can visit, though it's impossible to see the entire site. Also after a while the areas all blur together and it's hard to know what is what.

Near the city is a small cemetery for babies

Nevertheless it is amazing to think some 2,000 years ago a community of several thousand thrived here for hundreds of years and then disappeared, leaving behind clues of their existence.

Silk Road: Jiayuguan and the Great Wall

Visiting Jiayuguan, the western outpost of the Great Wall

Jiayuguan was the last part of the Great Wall before heading towards Central Asia. It was built during the Ming Dynasty with stones, bricks and rammed earth, those these days it's been fixed up for tourists.

Tourists sampling some Peking opera at Jiayuguan

It was here that people had to have passports if they wanted to travel beyond the Great Wall along the Silk Road. The passport was a document in calligraphy that had their name and the emperor's seal on it. Outside of the Great Wall were the nomads called Xiongnu, Mongolians and Tibetans, basically barbarians.

Today's tourism officials have tried to spiff up Jiayuguan by making tourists feel like they are going back in time. There are "guards" standing by the gates and later on they parade around a "prisoner" in a wooden shackle before they start showing off some amateur martial arts routines.

Around the corner up on a high but small stage are Peking opera performers in costume complete with musicians. Did the audience really have to crane their necks to see the show back in the day? Just wondering.

One tourist giving his best drumming performance

There were also some odd-ball amusements -- literally. Our tour guide was so excited to shoot tennis balls from a mini cannon at a target that he did it twice, for 20 kuai for each round.

One of our fellow travelers paid 10 kuai to be able to hit a massive drum 10 times. However, instead of just banging the drum, he did a little dance routine as well, much to the amusement of local visitors.

Tourists could also purchase the "passport", where your name would be written in calligraphy and stamped with the Imperial seal. Strangely not many interested in getting the "modern antique" document.

People needed to carry passports to go beyond this pass

After our visit, we headed to a nearby part of the Great Wall, called The Overhanging Wall. It's called that because it looks like it is clinging onto the cliff. It also apparently has the nickname "Western Badaling" because it looks similar to the popular part of the wall near Beijing.

Our tour guide challenged us to climb up to the top, so five of us women took it on with aplomb. It took around 20 minutes to get up, and climbed over 400 steps. My aunt and I were the first to go, and it wasn't too difficult a climb, just that it got steeper and we stopped periodically to catch our breath.

When we almost got to the top, I heard a small boy's voice shout, "Ayi, jia you!"

I climbed the Overhanging Wall!

I looked up to see a boy, about five years old looking down at us and smiling with three other male adults. He kept shouting, "Ayi jia you!" "Auntie, add oil [keep going!] and I thanked him for the encouragement.

I regret not taking a picture of him before he scampered off again to the next section of the wall. We soaked up the amazing view below, celebrated our summit with three others before making it down again. Now I can say I've visited four parts of the Great Wall -- Badaling, Mutianyu, Simatai all near Beijing, and now the Overhanging Wall in Gansu province!

Silk Road: White Pagoda Temple

A bronze statue of Tibetan Lama Sagya Pandit with a reconstructed temple

North of Lanzhou is the White Pagoda Temple, a massive white stupa set against the blue sky and roses. It was built in honour of a Tibetan Lama, Sagya Pandit Gonggar Gyamcan, who came here for talks with Mongol prince Gotan, about Tibetan submission to the Mongols.

The ruins of the original temple with an offering urn

This also led to the spread of Tibetan Buddhism to Mongolia, as Sagya Pandit taught for five years until his death in 1251. He was buried here.

The original temple was destroyed and rebuilt a few times before its current incarnation, a large white bulbous stupa. But after you walk past it, you can see the ruins of the original temple which are even more interesting.

It looks like a pile of old bricks that only amount to part of the base of the temple, but they seem to have more meaning than a shiny bronze statue of the Lama completed in 2012.

A very old gate within the Confucian Temple

Our Tibetan guide was keen to pay his respects here, circling both the new and old temple, saying prayers and bowing three times.

We also visited the Confucius Temple in Wuwei that was built during the Ming Dynasty in 1439 on instruction from the reigning emperor at the time. It took two years to build it, but various extensions were added on later.

A statue of Confucius

Wandering around here is nice -- there's hardly anyone else around and lots of architectural details to photograph. One wonders though if it still has as much significance today as it did centuries ago...

Silk Road: Labrang Monastery

Pilgrims turning prayer wheels at the entrance to Labrang Monastery

In Xiahe county, Gansu province is Labrang Monastery, home to the largest number of monks outside the Tibet Autonomous Region, about 2,700. It's a large compound that doubles as a tourist attraction, and so the monks must get used to tourists gawking at them or taking pictures or video of them.

The monastery was founded in 1709 and is Tibetan Buddhism's most important monastery town outside of the Tibet Autonomous Region. What also makes this particular place interesting is that it is the intersection of Tibetan and Mongolian cultures.

The monastery is a large compound where 2,700 monks live

It was and still is a place for education. Previously several thousand monks attended university here, now the numbers have dwindled to about 1,000. Monks can study subjects such as painting, medicine, philosophy and astrology. For medicine, they have to study for 15 years, learning about the various herbs and their medicinal benefits before they can treat patients.

As we toured the various temples, there were Tibetans, most of them women, wearing masks, hats and colourful outfits as they made their pilgrimage to the temple, praying in the hopes their loved ones would get better.

They would do this for hours, and one devout woman even wore knee pads as she kneeled on the ground, then with pads on her hands, prostrated herself on the ground, then stood up, took one step forward and again kneeled down and lay flat on the ground.

An elaborate sculpture made out of yak butter!

Many of the temples had huge Buddha statues sitting or standing serenely. One room we were taken into had air conditioning -- that's because it was filled with sculptures made of yak butter! Every new year the artistic students compete to see who has the best one and all the colourful entries are displayed all year, hence the need for air conditioning. They all seem to look very similar to each other which must make judging even harder...

Another room was filled with random objects that were given to Tibetan Lamas, from books to porcelain, to paintings, ivory carvings, robes, furniture and a globe. They didn't look nice enough to be in a museum, which is what this room was, but the monks were probably proud of receiving such gifts over the decades and centuries.

The last time there were problems with this monastery was in 2008 in response to the riots in Lhasa before the Beijing Olympics. But perhaps the Chinese government has retained its control over the monastery as our monk guide explained the Panchen Lama was the one sponsored by Beijing... one wonders if he gritted his teeth having to say this over and over again...

Another observation is that the monks here have a ruddy complexion and some look portly too -- that's because they do eat meat. However they are modestly dressed, except when they attend prayers. They all arrive at the largest temple in the compound -- which seats some 1,000 people -- and they wear a golden-coloured headdress that matches their robes.

Monks take off their boots before going in for prayer

We saw them outside the temple, taking off their black boots before going inside, and they just randomly left their footwear there, which made us wonder how they would know whose pair was whose?

But then we joked to ourselves that perhaps because of their Buddhist teaching of letting go of materialistic things that it didn't matter if they wore someone else's boots afterwards...

Silk Road: Lanzhou

Taken from our bus, there are many terraced hillsides in Gansu province

Our Silk Road tour started in Lanzhou, the capital city of Gansu province. It is home to 6.3 million people, of which 3.7 million people live in Lanzhou. That's probably because there are seven ethnic groups who live here, including Tibetans, Hui, Dongxiang, Mongolians and Kazak, as well as Han Chinese.

What you first notice about the province is that it's very mountainous. While Lanzhou is situated on the upper reaches of the Yellow River, not everyone has access to water, and so hardy crops are grown, such as corn, millet, and dates. When we rode along the highway we could see terraced fields on hilly areas -- they were in such remote locations, but if there are terraces, there are people.

Two sheep taking a ride on the highway...

Historically and geographically Lanzhou was an important strategic point along the Silk Road leading to the west towards Xinjiang and Eastern Europe, and east towards Xian. And during the Sino-Japanese war, the Lanzhou corridor was crucial to the Communists in transporting Soviet supplies to Xian. It was so well protected that the Japanese were not able to take Lanzhou. 

In ancient times, the Great Wall was also extended to Yumen to protect Lanzhou, and we got to see this place a few days into our trip.

Today's modern Silk Road still considers Gansu province an important one -- geographically it is right in the middle of China, and so all transport links go through here.

However, not all the roads are paved smooth, nor efficient. Some highways were single-lane traffic, which mean waiting until the opposite lane was clear before passing trucks carrying cars, fuel, equipment, sheep and pigs.

As a result our tour guide would never give us a definitive number on how many hours we would be on the road because if there was a traffic jam, or single-lane traffic, it could slow us down immensely and he wanted to manage our expectations.

Periodically we would encounter toll areas where security officers would come on board to check us and our passports. One time one officer looked long and hard at us before he finally advised us all to wear our seat belts.

Facing north, the Qilian mountains in the distance

Nevertheless, it was pretty amazing to see so many trucks on the road, but perhaps it was the only way to get goods to remote areas that were not necessarily near the railroad system. It makes you appreciate North American and European highway systems so much more!