Travels with Kathryn

Having arrived into Lanzhou at 6pm local time, then having driven to the hotel in rush hour traffic, then dinner, then bed and then an 8am departure this morning I cannot say really that I have experienced the delights of Lanzhou. Although it may be famous as being a key crossing point of the Yellow River, from what I have seen, let us think of this as a base to get to more interesting places… To quote Paul Theroux:

Towards mid Morning, the Yellow River widened, and we arrived in Lanzhou. I had been there before; I had no desire to stop.

Anyway, our morning destination was the Bingling (spelt correctly!) caves. It was a good 3 hour drive, through raining greyness, so I refused to take photos. We were aiming for one of the three reservois on the Yellow River. These reservoirs were made by flooding the valley (obviously moving everyone to “better locations chosen by the government”). The Bingling Caves are located on the banks of the Yellow River, and we had been told we would be taking a boat. Now, in my mind, I had imagined some kind of large boat capable of holding a coach party of Chinese tourists. Nope. See below:

Anyway, this gives me a great opportunity to talk about two very Chinese things. Firstly, face saving. I have not yet ever experienced a Chinese person admitting there is a problem or they do not know – we boarded the boat, sat there, the Captain tried the engine, then got off again, then nothing happened for some time. No information available as to whether there was a problem – it transpired that our boat was moored to the boat next to us and they were waiting for a group of Chinese tourists to arrive so we could leave together. Also, due to the fact that the reservoir is currently rather shallow, the captain wanted to follow another boat (captained by her father, we assumed) to follow the same route. Secondly, directness. As a British person of large proportion, I know that a British person being polie would use any words to describe me other than fat, big, large, etc. Not in China. I was pointed at and told heavy person to the front. You have got to love that kind of honesty!

Now it was perhaps not the nicest day for a river cruise, but you get the idea:

The Bingling Caves are a UNESCO World Heritage Site (you know I enjoy these immensely), and Bingling means 100,000 Buddhas in Tibetean. So, there is a slight clue in the name that these are caves containing some 100,000 Buddhas. The first caves were carved in the 4th century here as this was a key crossing point on the Silk Road (regardless of whether you took the North or South route). Initially, they were a place of worship, but as the numbers of travellers along the  Silk Road grew, it was considered a bit of an advertisement for Buddhism in such a scenic place.

Many of the Buddhas date to the Tang Dynesty- recognisable by certain features, in particular one hand placed on the hip in a jaunty manner and being slightly on the chunkier side. Now, as you will no doubt see from these photos, there are not 100,000 Buddhas here today. Some simply wore away over time or were destroyed by various earthquakes over the centuries, but in order to create the reservoir, any caves below the 10m line had their Buddha removed and filled with concrete. A few are still here, but others have been relocated to various museums.

I had imagined cave paintings, but actually, there are 183 niches, 776 statutes, and 900m2 of murals all carved into a long wall.

The main draw (and the image you may recognise) is the 27m tall Tang dynesty Buddha. His upper body is carved directly out of the rock, and his bottom half is sculpted in clay – you can see his feet stick out just over the line of the cliff ceiling hence his plastic bag booties.

I took my allocated seat for the return boat journey, and it was time for a late lunch. My main achievenment of today’s lunch other than over enthusiastic turning of the Lazy Susan and thus throwing boiling tea over Wayne (apologies again!) was my ability to recognise that a dish we were told was aubergine, and then beef, was actually minced lamb wrapped in egg. A proud moment.

We are now back on the bus and driving the 3 hours to Xiahe. As the weather has improved, I will share photos to give you an idea of the landscape. It is much greener than I expected and as we travel up the Tibeaten plateau (note this is Tibet in terms of geography/what was once greater Tibet, as opposed to the line of Tibet drawn by China today) we will reach a height of 3000m.

Note that you can see some construction – they are currently building a new high-speed link to connect Sichaun and Tibet. When completed, it will take 13 hours to travel from Lhasa to Chengdu, expected to open around 2030. When I went to Tibet back in 2019, this required a flight or 35 hours on a train. A high speed line is also being built to connect Xian and Lhasa, and that took 3 days back in 2019.

We arrived in Xiahe at around 6pm, and I should probably comment on how fancy the hotels that Wild Frontiers use are – certainly 4* – think bathrobes, slippers, etc. However, there is a certain Chinse fashion for bathrooms with glass walls. It is an interesting concept when you are sharing with someone you have just met… Although this fancy hotel (and apparently nowhere in Xiahe) offers a laundry service- luckily, I have my wash bag/detergent/washing line, and the bathroom is now festooned with clothes, but certainly an opportunity for an entrepreneurial local person? Then again, I myself am currently seeking work…

Then off to dinner. It is clear that we are in Tibet as dinner included a number of recognisable dishes from my time there in 2019, including yak. I shall be holding out for momos tomorrow.

A final thought before bed, our tour leader likes to keep us entertained with various quiz questions (answer will be given in the next post): there are 4 countries in the world whose name includes only 1 vowel used once. Please name them.