Day 74 271 miles 22nd May
Well that was a tough run. At least 150 miles of the above was spent rocketing down a dirt track which runs alongside the superhighway which is being built to link Xingjian with the rest of the country. We have rocked and bucked over the worst piece of off road that I have ever travelled – for those who know it, it is the Greek mountain road but for five hours with a stream of lorries going in both directions. The car has finally suffered a bit of collateral damage as a result of battering over the hours. A spotlight on the front bumper has fallen off as has the rear reversing light – both just shaken loose by the constant pounding. I am hoping that there is nothing else to report, although we did have a scare with grinding coming from the back wheel which happily turned out to be a stone caught against the disk which was easily dislodged. Altogether this was a tough day. However, we did get to Jiayuguan in time to visit its famous fort and the Great Wall at its western most extremity. The fort is a very impressive adobe brick structure with complex courts and high walls to trap insurgents should they breach the main gates. The walls are topped by strategically placed pagoda towers which rise high above the rocky plain. The western gate stands as a reminder that in the 14th C when it was built, the ultimate sentence was banishment through these gates into a land considered truly “beyond the pail”. In this area, the Great Wall is a less than impressive adobe structure, but six miles up the road, climbing a small but elegant range of hills is an ersatz version specially produced as a kilometre walk, albeit uphill. This is history packaged for the 20 yuan note and while the views are good, it will take a couple of hundred years before the structures mellow and become acceptable as an accurate portrayal of this gateway to China proper. For me this also represents the final chapter of this journey. After months and thousands of miles, we will no longer see deserts, Muslim culture will become a memory, industrialisation and cities will become commonplace and the paddy field will be the face of agriculture. Jiayuguan is a crossroad and we are now inside the Wall.
Day 75 317 miles 23rd May
Our departure from Jiayuguan illustrates the essentially anarchic spirit that still operates within the Chinese soul despite the best efforts of Beijing. We are off to the superhighway which allegedly picks up north of the town, so as usual we make a number of stops to allow Jimmy to interrogate the local population to get our bearings. Eventually we arrive at what appears to be the entrance but there is a wall of earth across the road and the toll booths appear to be only partly built. Following a taxi, we rattle over a short piece of dirt track and find ourselves heading east on a completely deserted, perfectly surfaced highway. Spirits are up. After a couple of miles, a suspicious grey patch appears ahead and it is not a mirage. Jules squeals to a halt to discover that the road surface not only becomes dirt, but that to continue we have to drop down a couple of steps and then climb the other side. Nervously we continue and every five miles or so, stop to cross question a road maintenance crew all of whom appear utterly unconcerned at our progress along their partially completed highway. Eventually and after about 20 miles we run out of road and bounce over more rubble down to the two lane highway and on to our lunch stop at Zhangye and a visit to its famous Temple and 34.5 metre reclining statue of Buddha. The streets around the Temple have been preserved and are a very small reminder of China before concrete construction methods were adopted. Charming little shops with curved, carved pagoda style roofs and in the temple itself painted wooden pagodas with lively altar areas, incense burning. However, sadly the main Buddha statue was swathed in scaffolding as was his personal pagoda as a major restoration job was undertaken so not much joy here. Lunch is again about £1.25 per head in a grubby little restaurant serving excellent grub. So far there has been an almost inverse proportion between quality and price/looks. The worse they appear, the better they are and we still seem to be alive. Our rundown to Weiwoo follows the route of the Great Wall for nearly a hundred miles, but in this area it is adobe and therefore much of it is eroded to a fraction of its original size. On the way we climb to over 2500 metres on a very good highway and as we start to descend from the pass we are waived down by the highway patrol. I am driving and expect a ticket, but he smiles, salute and sends us back on our way east. So whoopee no ticket.
Day 76 173 miles 24th May
Jules’ birthday is first celebrated in the breakfast room of our challenged 3 star hotel. We salvage a couple of fried eggs from the ample supply of chilli cabbage, boiled dumplings and deep fried eel and wash them down with coffee topped up with the expedition Nescafe reserve. The run down to Lanzhou is pretty easy although it includes a pass topping out at nearly 3000 metres. The scenery in the mountains is once again spectacular and at the high points stand Buddhist temples, prayer flags streaming in the wind. Lanzhou is a big city. It stands on the Yellow River and has a population of three million squeezed into its mountain valley. It is a modern town full of traffic and high rise buildings, important as the capital of Gansu and standing as the last staging post from the west before Xian – the old capital of Imperial China and spiritual end of the Silk Road. We spend the afternoon wandering in the only old market in the city and I buy a Han stabbing sword for a couple of hundred Yuan which was doubtless knocked up in the metal work factory round the corner. Good fake though. Birthday dinner is enlivened by the ever wired Jimmy who we invite to help us translate the menu. Julian has found the “best resto in town” and as we arrive we discover that this is not the normal menu system – we are to choose from a display of ingredients. This causes Jimmy to hit the turbocharger as we bounce a series of contradictory questions and instructions at him. The histrionics cause not just the waiting staff to throng but the kitchen empties and within no time we have twenty amazed employees giggling and smiling at this strange site as a long suffering senior waitress attempts to create a semblance of order from the chaos around her. Happily, it all works out and the three of us sit down to one of the best meals of the trip.
Day 77 429 miles 25th May
At 8.30 am Jimmy tells me that the motorway between Lanzhou and Xian is also under construction. This rather undermines our idea of a reasonably easy day and as we discover we are looking at 135 miles of super highway and the balance of pretty poor A road level. Think A30 between Salisbury and Shaftsbury for the best part of 300 miles. Sadly this doesn’t come as a great surprise as each day that we undertake a major trip, we discover that the great Chinese construction boom is still getting to grips with the infrastructure of this vast country and Jimmy and his travel agency are behind the curve on what is happening where. We grind over beautiful countryside in rather hazy conditions for 10 hours. And it is beautiful, stepped terraces climbing either side of steep valleys shining with the emerald green of the early rice crop; quiet villages of sandstone adobe houses with livestock scuttling around and sharp sided limestone valleys – drifting away into the smoky distance – tree clad and green with fast flowing streams in their bottoms. In places there are bullocks ploughing in a late grain crop while lower in the valley bottoms, coolie workers are scything a first crop of wheat and standing stooks in rows just as we used to do when we were young and the combine had not been invented. In contrast with this pastoral scene, we battle with coal lorries over the hills – this area is rich in coal – and the small towns have a grubby, grey air – we are in the “black country” where the contrasts between old and new are at their most poignant. We descend into Xian a little drained and check in to our first 5 star hotel so perhaps a few odd financial facts will help illustrate the contractions that are China. Lunch on the road costs 18 yuan for four people - £1.50. Our hotel rooms cost £40 per night including breakfast. Dinner is £33 per head and ½ litre bottle of Evian is £3. All slightly odd. Tomorrow we visit the Terracotta Army and the Old city and capital of the Empire. However today we have reached a major milestone; we have reached the end of the Silk Road. From tomorrow, we are on our way home.
Day 78 81miles 26th May
We take off to see the Terracotta Army which is about 25k out of Xian. Jimmy is looking the worse for wear and on the way out we manage to overshoot what he thinks is the right exit on the Expressway and I am forced into a U turn when we cut through the barrier for a diversion a little further up. We career back down only to discover the exit closed on this side - so we charge down to the next exit, pay another toll and career back up. There are tolls everywhere in this country. We then find ourselves passing the Great Tomb of Qin Shihuangdi which is a tree clad mound standing 260 feet in height with a set of steps to the summit and some of the toughest hawkers we have yet met. It was built C 220BC and the Emperors tomb lurks within – but in all it just appears to be a small hill with crowds of tourists – so rather underwhelming. The Terracotta Army by contrast is an altogether grander affair. The car park is heaving with coaches and cars and there are countless groups led by flag waving guides chattering in all the world’s languages. The complex is in three parts and we enter the first – Pit 1 – to be truly amazed by the scene that greets us. We are in a huge enclosed hall, rather like a railway station and below us in corridors cut into the sandy rock are row upon row of life-sized soldiers standing guard for the ghost of Qin Shihuangdi. It is power on an epic scale – originally thought to total 6,000 figures – at least six hundred stood in ranks below us stretching back several hundred yards. Each face is individual but sadly their weapons have been removed to aid conservation and so they stand unarmed but nevertheless ready to defend their Emperor into eternity. On our way back, we decide to visit the Neolithic Museum at Banpo and once again we miss our turning and race up and down the Expressway with Jimmy becoming ever more frantic. This was not his day. Once found, we wander around a mildly interesting enclosure containing an archaeological dig – ie a number of holes and ridges in the ground. We decide that Jimmy needs a day off and so later in the evening we taxi to a resto in the old city. All is well and after filling ourselves with Chinese food yet again (a menu item will be posted) we stroll down Dong St which is vibrant and teeming with locals out for a Friday night party. We find a night market and squeeze between stalls selling leatherwear, textiles, ladies underwear, trinkets and jewellery and then – seamlessly – fish and fruit. The smells are an assault on our senses – some sweet and pungent then bitter and finally the sickly stench of over-ripe fish. All the while we are pushed and shoved and aurally invaded by hawking, shouting, coughing. We pop out at the end of the market to the comparative quiet of the main road and taxi back to the hotel by the South Gate.
Day 79 0 miles 27th May
It is another beautiful day with clear skies and a temperature around 28 degrees albeit a little more humid than in the desert. We walk along the great retaining wall of the old city; it stretches almost 14 kilometres around and while renovated and repaired it is still striking – a Chinese Carcosonne. We through the museum of stele where several thousand carved stone obelisks are a permanent early library. It is Saturday and we share the streets with throngs of local people who, like us , are checking out the many street traders for a bargain. We climb the Bell Tower, an ancient pagoda in the centre of the old city, from where a unobstructed view takes you to the gates each a couple of kilometres away at the four corners of the compass. We dawdle in the maze of streets that are the old Muslim quarter and deep in an area of street markets we come across the Great Mosque. It is in classic Chinese style with gardens and pagodas – gates leading the eye down to the main prayer hall, entrance forbidden to unbelievers. This is very different to the sunnis in Syria. No joy and throngs of people. Just a few old men and signs to keep us away from what appears only to be a quaint historical monument in modern China. After a little dim sum for lunch, Greg leaves for his plane back to UK. It has been good fun having another traveller on the road and his departure sharpens our feeling that we have to make a bold push for the coast and Shanghai. So it is an early start for the morning.
Day 80 525 miles 28th May
A nine hour marathon due east across China to the small city of Xuzhou – now our last staging post before Shanghai. The roads are pretty good although crowded with trucks even though it is Sunday. The tolls are set at European levels costing us over $50 for the trip. Apart from the tarmac ribbon that unwinds ahead through the day, two items deserve special mention: the standard of driving and the quality of agriculture. The driving skills of the average citizen can best be illustrated by the fact that on this journey we witness three serious accidents, one clearly fatal. All involved lorries which is no surprise since most are overloaded to a comic degree. Huge vehicles in the first place, they carry loads that climb ever higher and in many cases appear close to toppling along with the vehicle as the loads shift with the passing of time. We see one where the lorry is stationary its teetering load prevented from toppling by a row of long stakes, awaiting help to arrive to unload and repack. We are travelling for the most part on a two lane dual carriageway where the accepted norm is for vehicles to sit in the lane where they find themselves and faster overtaking cars to weave between lanes in order to proceed. Once you get the hang of it, it is quite exhilarating although you must remain aware that with little provocation a neighbouring vehicle can execute a quick lane change putting a premium on quick reactions. The agricultural side of things is more sedate. For the best part of 400 miles we pass huge fields on both sides of the road containing groaning crops of ripening wheat and barley. This is a huge private enterprise breadbasket and the vision of the starving Chinaman looks to be part of the past. In fact everything looks rich and productive as we move east. The fields are full and the cities are teeming with smart cars, sharp, well dressed people and new factories and housing. Even in this relative backwater of Xuzhou, the scene is a junior version of Bladerunner with huge flashing neon lights and skyscrapers marching along the high road. And we are not even in the booming south of the country.
Day 81 392 miles 29th May
The run down to Shanghai is surprisingly easy with good roads and less traffic the yesterday despite an expectation that we might meet a Monday rush. As we cover the last 50 miles into the city the smog builds and we find ourselves in a growing conurbation. At last we pay the final toll and are in the city proper with huge skyscrapers all around, blaring horns, teeming with bicycles and pedestrians. It is an assault on each of the senses and we plunge into the riot that is downtown Shanghai until finally we reach our reassuringly expensive hotel. Our final destination has taken 81days to reach and we have covered 13,817 miles to get here. We have climbed to 3,700 metres and dropped to 40 m below sea level. Temperatures have soared to 41degrees from minus 7 degrees. We have eaten food from each of the seventeen countries that we have visited and are still alive to tell the tale. It will be good to get back to the 18th and home with the family and friends after 3 months of phone and email.
Postscript – Getting the car out is considerably more difficult than it should be. It is now Wednesday morning and I am sitting in one of the three customs offices in Shanghai. Yesterday was spent with Jimmy and a representative of the shipping company, Eric in an ever increasing crescendo of obfuscation as we attempted to find the right customs official to process the exit papers. We drive 60 miles and two hours, the boys got lost, to the wrong office and in the end after a succession of false starts including a driving 25 miles towards the city and then u turning back to the wrong office on telephone instructions from Urumchi in Western China –a bad call – we miss the closing deadline of the right office in Shanghai city by 20 minutes. So here I am at 8.30 am, waiting for a customs agent to sort through the paperwork and engage the attention of an official so that I and the car can go our separate ways and both exit the country legally. We are fast running out of time. But at 10.20 all the papers are signed, the car is in the Customs warehouse and I believe that I will be let out of the country tomorrow.