Silk Road Suzie: Turpan notes ................

My diary entry relates that I met a couple in John's Cafe, Turpan, French artists, who I had previously encountered in John's Cafe in Kashagar. This time we had more of an exhange than the nodding and smiling. We sat and talked politics sharing our views and what we had noticed about the Uyghur culture and how it is being supressed and changed. Entry reads "Had quite a good discussion about this part of China. They had made similar observations to self. Although it is an autonomous region it would appear that the Chinese are unable to deal with a population that is different from there own - as in Tibet. Which is really strange as China is so huge and has such diverse populations. Already there is an insistance that the Uyghur learn Chinese - coming from the UK I can well understand this as to how we dealt with our linguistic minorities - very similar.............. It may be time to put aside my Turkish/Central Asian phrase books and rely entirely on the Mandarin one! May be not. Street eating - J/R/G [& self] - Chinese first for deep fried veg/chicken - Then noodle dumplings fro a Uyghur stall. Always v. gratifying when stallholders can appreciate my poor Uyghur - but now can say "goodbye" (her kosh)! Went into a Chinese pharmacy & saw a bat on a stick! (Thought of Terry Pratchett at this point with the "rat on a stick"! Unfortunately I did not get a photo of this one but I made a note to get a copy that somebody else took to show to the accupuncturist I go to who also is a Chinese herbs practitioner. The diary continues "Delightful meals - the city all very vibrant - and a couple of guys taking photos of US (@ the next table) in a very friendly & pleasant way. A good day all round apart from the hat. (See previous entry). Looking back on the diary entry I am reminded of this day. Turpan had a very relaxed atmosphere and there was something very continental about it. Perhaps it was because it was light when we went out to eat. I remember it being pleasantly warm and lots of people just walking about without a tremendous hustle and bustle.

"30th May Left Turpan and drove to more ruins at Goachang, this time not so well preserved as previous day but had a huge Buddhist Temple twice the size of the one at Jiahoe. Took a donkey ride there. Lovely little dondiey - trotted along with R/J/JC/R & myself. Enjoyed the donkey ride as much as the ruins! Gave donkey a thank-you scratch on the ears - & he moved his ears over so I culd get behind." And here he is quite the star of the show.

Rest at last.............

Is this my best side?

It was at Goachang that I bought a CD of what I can only describe as a "Uyghur girl band" and I am so sorry that I cannot include a bit of one of the tracks on this blog. As I do not read the script I have no idea what the band is called but it was playing in the tourist shop and I was so taken with it that I bought it immediately. The three artistes look so fetching in their white berets on the front cover. It is the sort of music that has me dancing round the house when I put it on - and it is very good for belly dancing to as well!

Then a visit to the Bezikelike Caves of the 1000 Buddhas. "Caves built into rock decorated with scenes from the life of the Buddha &/or Jataka & roof of each cave covered with time Buddhas - Unfortunately very damaged- some early Islamic damage - ie. gouging eyes but later Aurel Stein & others removed whole walls. Some of which were taken to Germany and subsequently destroyed in WWII. Lovely lunch in car park- watched a guy climb up the huge sandstone dune face- that's what it was effectively a huge sand dune with rocks on tip. We all cheered when he got to a certain point- when he came down just before his bus left he came over & said "hi" to us which was rather nice." This sort of thing happened quite a bit. People making contact like that. Though we gave him a really loud cheer along with everyone else in the car park too. I have not got any photos of that side of the sandstone dune but here are a couple showing the caves and the sandstone cliff on the other side of the river.

Not surprisingly in this part of China there is still a significant amount of resentment to Aurel Stein - I suppose that there is always the argument that had he not removed the artefacts that he did that they would probably have been destroyed during the Cultural Revolution - by quite likely this might not have happened. But going to the places and seeing whole gaps where there had been statues was still, even 80 or more years later, still very embarrassing!