Welcome to Nanning!

During my first week in China, I noticed a number of adverts on Chinese TV proclaiming the merits of "China's greenest city - Nanning" which at the time was hosting the 2006 China-ASEAN summit, there was also something else going on there too, which I forget, but it was getting plenty of media attention at the time. I was planning on going there sometime during my time in China to meet 娟-Juan (English name Jane), and also as it is a gateway to Vietnam which I want to visit, but I had no idea when or for how long I would stay. Well, then this wedding invite appeared from Jane and so I rushed down to Nanning for that and ended up staying for a whole month ! It turned out to be a good, relaxing, fun time, Jane and I got on really well, had great fun and enjoyed our time together, doing many things and a month just flew by.

First there was the wedding, for which I had to buy some slightly tidier clothes than what I already had in my backpack, but clothes can be relatively cheap here in China. So my first day in Nanning - with help from Jane - I explored some of the shopping centre of Nanning which helped to find my way around this new city. With the wedding over, we met up a few times with the wedding couple Jane & Jeff for dinner, visited the people's park, went boating on the lake, played some bowling, visited a couple of discos etc and explored more of Nanning, among other things.

Renmin Park or People's Park is a big green sanctuary in central Nanning, with a boating lake, small fairground, monkeys, skating rink, lotus ponds, bridges and many, many trees. It's a lovely peaceful place to wander around for a while and float around on the lake, feeding or chasing fish. In the centre of the lake is a bridge that is regarded as the symbol of Nanning.


Left: Boating in Renmin Park
Right: This bridge is a symbol of Nanning, so I'm told.

There was also the Camelia Park, named after the tree common in this park, an even quieter park than Renmin with locals sititng around playing mah jong enjoying a relaxing lifestyle in amongst the greenery and small streams. It was outside of this park that I found one of the many bits of badly translated Chinese to English phrases found all over the country, commonly know as 'Chinglish', it said:

"Welcome to Nanning, the Green and Hospital City of Guanxi"

Near to where I was staying is Chaoyang Square, a small square in the city centre where many of Nanning's residents gather daily to play music, sing, dance, play cards, chinese chess or mahjong and relax in the shade of the trees. Card games especially, attract large crowds, chinese chess and mahjong also do so at times. The old traditional Chinese instrument an erhu referred to by someone as a 'chinese guitar' even though it's nothing like a guitar, was a common sight in the park as well as other parts of town, where I even saw blind men playing the instrument. One Sunday morning there was also an outdoor orchestral & choral performance in Chaoyang Square. Music, exercise and game playing is certainly a key to life here.

Another park and the largest of all is called 'green mountain'. It's a huge nature area with forests, temples, parks, lakes and activities in which you could spend days wondering around. This is a little further away but very beautiful, a great place to spend a relaxing day away from the city atmosphere, despite still being in the city.

In the evenings ona big square in front of the large municipal offices, you can see groups of people taking part in dancing or tai ji classes, or just performing on their own. Every evening there are a lot of people there taking part, and it's nice to sit alongside and watch, especially the tai ji, which can also includes people performing with swords, spears or other accesories.


Left: Jane & Jane at a Renmin park fair ride.
Right: Dancing in the moonlight in one of Nanning's squares.

Earthquake problems

Hi, no posts this week until now and may be infrequent until the network issues between China and the rest of the world are fixed. Not sure how well this has been reported outside of China as I cannot read about it, but in case you didn't know, the earthquake that hit south of Taiwan on 26 December damaged network cables feeding China to the American continent and onwards to Europe affecting communications from mainland China to phone networks and websites hosted outside of this part of the world, so this week I have not been able to access anything much at all except for Chinese news until now. Apparently satellite communications have been put in place to cover some of the traffic but it's only a part solution, and this is first time I have been able to access my usual sites and it's painfully slow, others are still not available. So all for now...

Happy New Year

A wedding invitation in Nanning

My friend Jane in Nanning had invited me to this wedding, it was a marriage between a Chinese lady and an man from the US.I think I was asked so as he had some other foreigner there to keep him company ! So I skipped a few places I planned to visit and rushed south to Nanning as I thought it would be nice to see a (half) Chinese wedding. Although in a number of ways things are done similarly to what I see in Europe, there were plenty of little differences that made it interesting.

娟-Juan & Jeff were already married in the US a year ago and this was the Chinese version, so not a full wedding ceremony, but it was a full day of activites. It started with going around visiting the houses of family where small ceremonies, exchange of gifts, eating of noodles, burning of incense sticks and throwing of confetti etc were all part of the festivities, unfortunately the loud fire crackers that I heard and saw often in Xinjiang wedding ceremonies were not allowed here thanks to the Nanning municipal governers banning such things in their city... (boooo, boring people). The houses visited were all covered in pink heart-shaped ballons and Chinese good luck symbols, gifts were given in red envelopes (red is a lucky colour in China) and surprisingly I even received some of these too from the family members we visited.

After the visiting was over, photos were taken in one of Nanning's green parks and then back to their flat to rest and snack for a while. Here, I was amused by Lin Huang Ming, a young girl whose mother left her at the flat for a while, she spent most of the time blowing up ballons ad letting the air out again, chasing them round the room, or getting me to tie them for her and then drawing smiley faces on them, she was ever so funny to watch. At one point she wrote her name for me (in Chinese which I of course could not read). Later, when I was with her and Jane in a car, Jane asked her her name, she looked round at us and pointing at me said, 'he knows', which was embarassing as of course I didn't know having not been able to read it earlier. I know it now and won't forget !



Left & Centre: Some wedding photos
Right: The lovely 娟-Juan (English name Jane) who invited me.

The evening dinner and ceremonies took place in one of Nanning's hotels. The couple and best-man/bridesmaid greet all guests at the hotel entrance with plates full of chocolates, biscuits, nuts, seeds and cigarettes which guests help themsleves to. When everyone has arrived the married couple enter the dining hall to another shower of poppers and confetti, make some brief speeches, pour some drinks, cut some cake then go round every table toasting everyone while all the guests get to eat. There was plenty to eat so I ate as much as possible, met many new people, was introduced to lots of Jane's friends and had an interesting evening.

Happy Christmas

So Happy Christmas to anyone reading who celebrates Christmas. Here in China it's not such a big event, though the younger generation of Chinese who deem 'western cultures' to be cool, have been celebrating a little. I have spent the day in Nanning, where most young people seem to be just wandering the streets and eating out, especially around the street market area where a wide variety of food is available. Some are carrying balloons and wearing red Santa hats, which also seem to have been popular among restaurant waitresses and shop assistants for the past weeks. There are also a few Santas among the western style shops, hotels and restaurants and some Christmas trees around.

Despite this Christmas theme going on , personally it does not feel much like Christmas, things seem to be carrying on much as normal really, people are working, shops are open, it's around 20 degrees centigrade, so no chance of a white christmas, I can walk round in a t-shirt, it just does not feel like Christmas, but I don't really miss that.

The street market has a row of cafes and stalls selling all sorts of food, last night I had a pork and vegetable 'porridge' which is made with rice rather than oats and was very nice. Food on sticks is big in Nanning, from pieces of marinated pork, mushrooms, squid, melon, pineapple or if you fancy it, pig's penis, and many are sitting in cafes eating noodle or rice dishes. There were also plenty of other options such as woks full of fried bird, the ubiquitous chicken's feet and on one stall a dog, as well as more appealing meat and fish snacks and tons of Asian fruits.



Left: One of the many snack stalls
Centre: Selection of foods.
Right: Tasty looking chicken's feet.

Anyway, I spent my day in Nanning doing nothing special, a lazy morning, met up with Jane, visited the local police to register my address before I can extend my visa, visited a pet and plants market, followed by dinner at a "eat all you want" buffet with plenty of western food as well as local specialities. I ate far too much and have been feeling fat all evening since.. Tonight I will watch one of the DVD films I picked up at the market at a ridiculously low price.



Left: Little fried birds. a popular snack.
Right: At dinner one evening showing off a yummy taro and sweet potato snack.

A day in Xi'an with the Terracotta Army

With my deadline to get to Nanning (南宁), I was intending to skip Xi'an (西安) this time. There is lots to see around the city and I have heard good things about life in Xi'an from people I met who have lived and worked there, so I wanted to spend some time there, some time I did not have at that moment. But, train schedules meant I had to go there, change trains there and, in order to secure a ticket for the onward journey to Nanning, it was best I get there with plenty of time to spare. So taking the only feasible option, I arrived at around 5:30 am in Xi'an with 14 hours before my evening departure. I thought about it before and decided I would not go to see the Terracota Army, I would save it for the future, to ensure I did return to Xi'an, but as I arrived in the early morning and thought about what I could do for 14 hours, I decided that some kind of tourist attraction had to be visited, an all day trip was too much, walking aroung town all day was not enough. I knew the easiest one to make in a few hours was the Terracotta Army, so I found a bus heading that way and jumped on. It's about 25-30 km I'd guess outside of Xi'an and as you get closer the signs of expansion around the site are obvious, a town that is stretched out along the main road, with scores of shops making terracotta soldiers which stand on the roadside watching the traffic go by.

I arrived there early and was one of the first inside, which meant great peaceful viewing with only 2 or 3 other people for a while until the throngs of tour groups started to arrive and took over the place. This is a good tip for anyone going there, get there early, before it opens and be the first in, it was well worth it for the virtually private viewing you get for the first 20 minutes or so.

The Terracotta Army discovered in 1974 was built to protect the tomb of Qin Shi Huang. During his time on the throne of the western state of Qin, he managed to subjugate all the warring states and hence during the third century became the first emperor of a unified China; he was also responsible for beginning construction of the Great Wall. No records exist of the army and was probably designed never to be seen.
There are 3 pits in all, plus a museum. Pit 1 is the original find and most excavated, the first view as you walk into pit 1 and see the lines of soldiers stretching into the distance is something you will never forget. The pit has hundreds of soldiers lined up in battle formation, behind these are more unexcavated areas plus an area where the latest finds are being re-assembled into complete soldiers for re-placement in their correct position, I estimate only about one quarter of this vast pit has so far been excavated. Pit 2 has few reconstructed finds, though the best of these are displayed in cabinets and show a variation of positions and ranks to those in pit 1. There are also some unearthed, broken soldiers showing the damage state in which the soldiers have been discovered, and here you can also see the collapsed roof structure which still covers whatever is hidden below, waiting to be discovered in future excavations. Pit 3, a smaller pit has some reconstructed soldiers and clearly shows the layout of a building that is the battle headquarters.

There are also two bronze chariots being led by horses which have also been discovered and are on display in the museum. The design of the chariots is incredibly detailed and shows clearly that so much effort must have gone into the design.



Left: Army in battle formation in pit 1.
Right: Bronze horse-pulled chariot.

Finally there is a pretty interesting short documentary about the history of the site and its discovery which you can watch in a 360 degree surround vision hall. Just outside of here in the cafe was also a bemused looking old peasant signing guide books for visitors, he had a fan in one hand which he used to cover his face, probably as he did not want the attention and photos. I can only assume this was the man who originally discovered the site.

Found a bus back easily to Xian, traffic jams slowed us down, but I had time to kill, so even the driver becoming impatient and holding up all the traffic in the opposite direction turn round to go back a few kms to try another route was not a concern for me. Back in Xian, I saw very little, just found a place to lunch, walk around a little, eat dinner, get food and drinks for my 34 hour journey and head to the train. Nanning here we come...

Lanzhou, the centre of China

Lanzhou (兰州) appears to be geographically pretty much in the centre of China, though it doesn't feel that I have travelled that far since Kashgar, and did not take too long, so maybe China is not as big as you are sometimes led to believe. With plenty of places to stop on the way and good transport links, overnight busses/trains etc, it has not been difficult getting this far at all.

However, there's not much to see here in Lanzhou, just a convenient place to stop on the train (overnight 11 hour journey from Jaiyuguan), train arrives here early morning and I thought it would be a good place to get a connection South towards Nanning. Turns out not to be the case, but never mind. I wanted to stop here anyway and visit BingLing Si caves a set of caves containing Buddhist art accesible only by boat along the Yellow river (黄河, Huang he). Unfortunately, often at this time of year, boats cannot get there due to low water levels, also the fact there are no other tourists meant it would be very expensive to arrange by myself, so this idea has been put to one side for a later date. There are a few other places in the vicinity too worth a visit, but because I need to get to Nanning by Dec1, I did not rush to to make any of these trips. Instead, I just hung around Lanzhou for a couple of days, finding my way around, drinkiing tea, eating Lanzhou beef noodles, thinking about routes to Nanning from here and after deciding the only thing I had time for was to just go there directly, then trying to decipher a Chinese railways timetable to find out how to get from Lanzhou to Nanning.


Above: Xuanzang, Monkey and friends from 'Journey to the West'.

The only things of note to see in Lanzhou were a couple of Buddhist temples, the famous Yellow River, which is in fact a dirty muddy brown colour and the statue of Xuanzang, Monkey, Pigsy from the book 'Journey to the West' better known in the UK as the TV series adaptation, 'Monkey'. Unfortunately the weather was pretty dismal when I was there, overcast and cold and even a little snow, the one day it was a little warmer, the sun could still not be seen very much due to the awful air pollution in Lanzhou, which is allegedly one of the world's worst. The city is not all that bad and will be a good base to visit Bingling Si in future and too head for other places in the region such as Maiji Shan or to head South to Xiahe which has the great Tibetan Labrang monastery before heading further South town by town towards Sichuan province, something I would have liked to have done given the time.

Anyway, discovered the way to Nanning is via a change at Chengdu or Xi'an. My original idea was to head to Xi'an and spend a week or so there seeing various sites, but with wanting to reach Nanning for a wedding soon, I won't have time for more than a day or two, so I do not really want to go there now and rush it. Chengdu is more interesting, but I'm told it's more difficult, involves more waiting and is more expensive so recommended to go via Xi'an. Therefore, bought a ticket on overnight to Xi'an, arrive early morning, and there is then a train to Nanning direct from Xi'an in the evening, so will need to go buy a ticket and spend a day wandering around Xi'an.

That's all from Lanzhou

Jiayuguan - The end of The Great Wall (长城 )

From Dunhuang it was a 5 hour bus journey to Jiayuguan (嘉峪关). The last fortress and western most part of the Great Wall (长城, Chang Cheng) was built here by the Ming in 1372, marking the final defence of the empire, the end of China where the Western wilderness began. Good views of the fort and a bit of the Great Wall as you pass by on the approach to Jiayuguan from the West. Off the bus, I did the usual thing and took the hotel nearest to the bus station, the girl at reception was friendly, helpful, spoke some English and I got a reasonable deal out of them. Stayed just one night in Jiayuaguan, which included an afternoon aorund town, a day sightseeing and buying a ticket for the train, before leaving on the train to Lanzhou the next evening.

First evening I tried to arrange the train ticket, one agency were too keen and handed me a ticket I didn't want !! I kept explaining I wanted to know times, options and I wanted to go tomorrow, but I was just given a ticket for 2 days time and told that was all there was !! I wasn't convinced, so, I tried someone else who said she could help, but the next morning she changed her mind. In the end I just went to the train station and bought one myself, easier than I thought and wished I had done that straight away now !! And I got to leave that night too.. Lesson learnt.. !

So train ticket in hand, now for a few sites.. The Overhanging Wall as it's called, not very authentic as it has been recently restored, but a nice windy, climbing piece of the wall to walk and view the surrounding lands (if the air is clear). The fort (城搂, Cheng Lou) at the Jiayuguan Pass lies sandwiched between two mountain ranges to the North and South and marked the passage way to/from the West, the end of Chinese civilisation during the Ming Dynasty.

Left: The "Overhanging Wall" a few km outside of Jiayuguan.
Right: The fortress outside of Jiayuguan.

Final visit of the day was to the 'First Beacon Tower'. Although the tower was built later in the sixteenth century, it's significant that it marks the far Western end of the Great Wall stopping on the edge of a cliff overhanging the Taolai river.

Left: 第一墩 (Diyi dun) 'First Beacon Tower' at the western end of the Great Wall

Right: This is really 'the end' of the Ming dynasty Great Wall.

Finally, a bus to the train station and I prepare for my first train experience in China for this trip.

Silk Road Souveniers

I left Turpan the next evening and took an overnight bus to Dunhuang (敦煌), which meant I was now leaving the Autonomous Region of Xinjiang and entering Gansu province. Again we stopped on the way for a chance to grab some food in some remote place and as usual, the foreigner attracted plenty of attention. This time while standing outside some cafes, I was brought a seat and told in English to "sit down please" another phrase many Chinese seem to know and later was dragged to a shop where I had previously bought some cake and drinks to help one of the girls with her English studies. She wanted to understand a few new words and as usual I had to tell them many, many times my name and telephone number. During the little class a big group of observers gathered round watching and listening curiously, all nice fun.

On the way the bus passed through Hami, another stop on the Silk Road. I had been tempted to stop off here for some home comforts as according to Marco Polo:

"I give you my word that if a stranger comes to a house here to
seek hospitality he receives a very warm welcome. The host bids his wife do
everything that the guest wishes. Then he leaves the house and goes about his
own business and stays away two or three days. Meanwhile the guest stays with
his wife in the house and does whatever he will with her, lying with her in one
bed just as if she were his own wife and they live a gay life
together."

But apparently this tradition is not so common these day, so I went straight through to Dunhuang.

I immediately liked Dunhuang more than any other place I had been recently, the streets were pretty quiet, there was a distinct lack motor horns that had been present in other places throughout Xinjiang, it seemed cleaner and the air clearer too. It felt a nice relaxed place to spend a few days, so I ended up staying 4 or 5 nights here, seeing a few sites and just enjoying good Chinese cafes of which many on the main street had English menus. I also bumped into two other travellers, a German and a Japanese both of whom I had shared a dorm room with back in Kashgar. I had left Kashgar before them but had spent more time on a longer route getting here, it was nice to see them again as they were the first English speakers I had met since leaving Kashgar.

First trip was to Mogao caves (莫高窟, Mogao ku), I caught a bus early in the morning in a freezing cold Dunhuang, with a Korean guy and lots of Chinese, it took around 30 minutes to get there and then had about 2 and a half hours looking around the caves. The earliest of the Buddhist Temples of Mogao were built in the fourth century and span through one thousand years to the fourteenth century when they were a centre of culture on the Silk Road. There are supposedly over six hundred caves in total - of which only around thirty are open to the public - containing Buddhist sculptures and Chinese art from the fourth and fifth century Northern Wei dynasty and subsequent Sui, Tang, Five, Song and Western Xia dynasties. Some time during the fourteenth century, Yuan dynasty. the caves were sealed and abandoned until discovered again by Wang Yuan Lu in 1900. As often the case in such sites, cameras were not allowed, but I managed to sneak a couple of photos from the museum exhibition which had some replica caves on display.

Above: Buddhist statue and frescoes from exhibition replica caves at Mogao.

Dunhuang also had some interesting places to visit a little closer to the town, so I hired a bicycle and cycled to the 'White Dragon Dagoba' (白马塔, Baima ta) and later to the 'Singing sand dunes' (明沙山, Mingsha Shan) and 'Crescent Moon Lake' (月牙泉, Yueya Quan). While the dagoba is just a tower to look, Mingsha Shan and the dunes were a bit of an activity centre.

Left: Whits horse dagoba
Right: First full view of Ming Sha Shan

As you approach the dunes you can see them towering above which is a pretty awesome sight especially when you are just about 6km out of a town. At the dunes, the lazy folk can take a camel to one of the peaks, the more adventorous can climb them which is a lot tougher than it looks. Coming down was a lot quicker. It was possible to descend via para glide, toboggan, sliding on your bum, just run down at a furious pace, or, I suppose you could walk too. It was a lot of fun and I wish I had spent a whole day there and had tried a few more descents, maybe another time.

Left: Chinese tourists at top shout encouragement for the final third of the climb.
Right: Most take the lazy option of a camel trek to one of the peaks

At Dunhuang I also bought myself a silk road souvenier, one of those little fluffy camels like in the picture at the top. Would have loved to have got a big size one, but sadly the back pack could not handle it.

Coming Soon...

Still struggling to catch up as all my time seems to be taken up these days, But will update the rest asap...

Coming Soon...

Dunhuang (敦惶) - Mogao Caves and Ming Sha Shan (Sand Dunes).


Jiayuguan (嘉峪关) - The Western end of the Great Wall.


Lanzhou (兰洲) - The centre of China? Yellow river, Xuanzang & Monkey.


Xian (西安) - The Terracotta Army.


Nanning (南宁) - A Wedding in "China's Greenest City"

More Silk Road yarns from Turpan

I've not had much chance to write since leaving Khotan, but now I have some time, here's a bit of what's been going on since:

Last day in Khotan I made another attempt to visit the silk factory... The decision to go there again was rewarded with an enjoyful bus journey to the village where the factory was based, during which I was surrounded by young school kids, asking numerous times "What's your name?" which seems to be the only English sentence most children have learnt in school in Xinjiang province. The one exception was one young girl who had a little notebook of English phrases and would sneak a look in there then come back to me and ask something like "What's your telephone number?". Off the bus I had a quick game of football with some of the boys before going to the silk factory. After some effort I convinced the lady in the silk shop that I wanted to be shown around the factory. She obliged for 10 yuan and i was shown about 7 buildings each housing machinery and staff processing the different stages of silk production from selection/removal of good/poor quality cocoons, bathing them in hot water to help soften the raw silk before separation of the filaments, through to the final stage of weaving. A reasonable visit, but a shame noone there could speak any English, which would have made it far more worthwhile...

In the afternoon, i caught an overnight bus towards Urumqi, I was told by ticket desk and drivers to get off at some stop called something like Toloxan, to change for Turpan, which is where I wanted to go, I decided to skip Urumqi.. Journey was on a sleeper bus, first along the Southern edge of the Taklamakan Desert and then northwards straight across the centre on a highway built by the oil companies mining the oil resources in the desert. During the evening we stopped at a small village for dinner where while standing outside a cafe I was attracting the attention of two young girls. Whenever I caught them looking at me, they would embarassingly cover their faces and burst into a fit of giggles. Slowly they edged closer and closer and then started chatting to a man next to me, after a while one edged closer again, looked up at me and asked 'What's your name?". Their (English) names were Delilah and Alice and were probably about 8 or 9 years old. Delilah spoke a little English with a beautiful, clear English speaking accent, we exchanged a few questiond/answers in English and Mandarin and I sang her a bit of a song I know by a famous Welsh singer. I also know a song about a girl called Alice, but the currently popular version is not suitable to sing to a young child, so I left that out.

I was awoken early by one of the drivers and told to move seats to accomodate a family who wanted to be together, zzzz, soon after I was awoken again and told to get off. I looked around, was he talking to me ?, yes, I looked outside, but we were virtually in the middle of the desert, no bus stop here ! Just a couple of mining buildings. It turned out (or so it seems) that the drivers decided as I was the only one going to this particular stop, they would get me off here, rather than take the 20km or so diversion from the Urumqi main road to Toloxan and back again. Just throw the foreigner off here and just show him a cab... no amount of suggesting they take me to the bus station - as per my ticket - helped and i just had to resort to the fact I was off the bus and had to take a taxi to Toloxan, but nothing i could do really. So i reached Toloxan (or whatever it was called) and took a shared taxi and eventually arrived in Turpan...

Had been recommended a hotel here, only 40 yuan for a single room with bathroom, asked at reception but he said there were only rooms for 150 yuan ! or a dorm for 30, I mentioned the recommendation and questioned his pricing, but he would not admit any such rooms were available, so I took the dorm room, which was a bit like a prison cell. the toilets were 150m away across a courtyard and the showers which were next to the toilet were only open from 15:00 - 21:00. Later, someone else checked the dorm room and said she was also being shown a single room available for just 40 yuan, which is when I found out that prices seemed to depend on who was working at the desk. So the next morning, I asked then man who had served me the day before again, faced with more facts, he now admitted, there were cheaper rooms available !! So I left as I didn't like his hotel anymore ;)

Turpan (吐鲁番, Tulufan in Chinese) seemed a pretty friendly town, loads of kids in the streets would say hello to me and a couple of cafes even had English menus which was a stroke of luck. This is mainly due to a large number of tourist sites in the vicinity of Turpan, there is nothing in the town itself, but it is a popular base for visitors to arrange tours of the sites around. Though smaller, it had a similar friendly feel to Khotan, in that the number of foreign visitors seems still low enough that the locals have not yet reached the stage of treating foreigners with indifference and still see you as a bit of a curio.


Left: Emin minaret and mosque in Turpan.
Right: Ancient ruined city of Jiaohe.

During my short time in Turpan I found time to visit the Emin mosque/minaret which is in the middle of a field a couple of kilometres walk out of the centre and also the the ancient ruined city of Jiaohe. The ruined city was interesting as much of the design was still intact, remains of building and pathways were clear and gave a feel for what it might have been like there so many, many centuries ago.