(please back date to 1/30/13)
quick note: I messed the order of posts up (rotten back dating!) and I don't know how to change it so please read this after "The Best of Dunhuang"
I woke up early this morning to check out of the hostel in Dunhuang. I picked up the local bus and drove the 30 minutes to the train station. Dunhuang has the biggest, nicest one-track train station I have ever seen and the only Chinese station that I have ever been to that I didn’t either feel like a refugee in a refugee camp, or cattle being herded into pens. I’ll explain. Most Chinese train stations are so crowded and every train, everyday, everywhere is sold out (including standing only tickets). So the stations become mobbed with people. And trains in China are “the people’s” mode of transportation so the majority of passengers are middle to lower class families. These families bring, what seems like, their entire stash of household goods whenever they travel and they all use either used grain bags as luggage, or these huge, cheap denim bags. I’m not sure where they get them but they all have them. These families arrive to the train station a few hours prior to departure and set up shop wherever there is room: in seats, on the floor, on top of garbage cans, wherever there is space. Train stations are also filled with beggars and thieves. They are precarious places. And you feel like cattle because, in order to control the people and ensure they don’t storm the gate riot style in order to get on to the train first when the train arrives (since there are so many people, even though your seat is guaranteed, space for your luggage isn’t so it behooves one to get on the train first), train station employees pen the different rows of seats in the huge waiting halls with lock and key barriers. So you feel like cows.
Dunhuang on the other hand was not crowded at all and the station was quiet, spacious, and clean. Good on you, Dunhuang!
I got onto my train and, like the station, the train was uncharacteristically spacious, having a few empty seats here and there. What was interesting is that on this particular train, all (or most) of the passengers were clearly lower class workers. All of them middle aged men. My entire car was filled with them. You could tell that they were workers based on their dress, mainly army jackets and pants and heavy workboots, and the fact that for the most part, they traveled with just the clothes on their backs. It is as if they all just finished a job in Dunhuang and were now being transported to another location to start another job. I do know that these workers tend to come from all over the country and I’ve seen in many instances that they live in make shift quarters on their particular job site. They stay and live in the job and then move on to the next job when they finish. I suspect this was the case here. Each man also had a distinct cough: a wet, heaving cough from the lungs that I would think is typical of people who are both chain smokers and workers of heavy industry. They also had the glassy eyes you’d find amongst alcoholics and in fact they were passing around bottles of baijiu (local grain alcohol) once the train started rolling. The workers around me were all pretty quiet and slept for most of the journey but the group a few rows down from me were all shouting at one another in voices three times the appropriate volume as they played cards and drank. It wasn’t a bother to me but it was for the people near them. Really interesting passengers today.
Another weird occurrence on the train that I have never experienced before is that after we left the station, a police officer came around to check everyone’s identity cards. In China, every person is required to maintain an identity card much like we (as in we in the US) have driver’s licenses that we also use as common ID’s. However, Chinese identity cards each have a unique bar code and the policeman that walked around had a scanner that could scan the bar code of the identity card and pull up information on that passenger on his display. Except this had nothing to do with train passenger information. I believe he was doing a sweep of the train looking for criminals or anyone that may have been flagged on a police list. He didn’t know what to do with my passport.
I pulled into Jiayuguan station around 2 in the afternoon, hopped the local bus, and checked in at the cheapest hotel I could find (based on the Lonely Planet recommendation). I am now staying in a double-bed room in a small Chinese hotel (there are no hostels here) and there is no bathroom or shower or sink or any facilities of any kind. The hotel does have a common bathroom in the lobby but the men’s room is always locked. Soooo, I’m not sure what’s going on with that...
I did arrive in Jiayuguan in time to take a trip out to the Jiayuguan Fort. I mainly came to Jiayuguan as a quick stopover before heading southeast to Lanzhou and then to Beijing. But I picked this place as a stopover specifically because this is the site that the Ming Dynasty decided to call the “edge of the Han empire” beyond which lies the wilds of the west. This is also the location of the end of the northern section of the Great Wall. During the Ming Dynasty, about 600 years ago, they built a giant fort which was the last Han foothold going west. They posted military members here to protect the passage east from the various tribes and nomads of the west. It was well known that if you took the road from here further west, you were likely to be ambushed and killed by raiders if you didn’t first succumb to the demands of the desert terrain. There are also several accounts of historical clashes between the Han generals and the tribal kings of the Uighurs and other Central Asian clans. A place wrought with history. This fort is set in the midst of a lunar landscape and on the fringe of two mighty, snow capped mountain ranges that create this funnel of a desert passage to this west. So it was a strategic spot. It was also beautiful today (apart from the clouds) because the area is still completely undeveloped apart from a few distant factories and the little town of Jiayuguan about seven kilometers down the road. So it still feels genuinely like the end of the Chinese empire. For centuries, the empire used to exile people through the west gate of this fort. Apparently, they gave whomever they were exiling a horse and some minor provisions and made them trot away to the west, never to return to the Middle Kingdom. This place was very cool and completely worth the stopover. Fun fact: this is also the area in which part of Zhang Yimou’s movie “Hero” is based (and was filmed) for you movie buffs out there.
Another train ride tomorrow. This time, the overnight to Lanzhou. See you there!
quick note: I messed the order of posts up (rotten back dating!) and I don't know how to change it so please read this after "The Best of Dunhuang"
I woke up early this morning to check out of the hostel in Dunhuang. I picked up the local bus and drove the 30 minutes to the train station. Dunhuang has the biggest, nicest one-track train station I have ever seen and the only Chinese station that I have ever been to that I didn’t either feel like a refugee in a refugee camp, or cattle being herded into pens. I’ll explain. Most Chinese train stations are so crowded and every train, everyday, everywhere is sold out (including standing only tickets). So the stations become mobbed with people. And trains in China are “the people’s” mode of transportation so the majority of passengers are middle to lower class families. These families bring, what seems like, their entire stash of household goods whenever they travel and they all use either used grain bags as luggage, or these huge, cheap denim bags. I’m not sure where they get them but they all have them. These families arrive to the train station a few hours prior to departure and set up shop wherever there is room: in seats, on the floor, on top of garbage cans, wherever there is space. Train stations are also filled with beggars and thieves. They are precarious places. And you feel like cattle because, in order to control the people and ensure they don’t storm the gate riot style in order to get on to the train first when the train arrives (since there are so many people, even though your seat is guaranteed, space for your luggage isn’t so it behooves one to get on the train first), train station employees pen the different rows of seats in the huge waiting halls with lock and key barriers. So you feel like cows.
Dunhuang on the other hand was not crowded at all and the station was quiet, spacious, and clean. Good on you, Dunhuang!
I got onto my train and, like the station, the train was uncharacteristically spacious, having a few empty seats here and there. What was interesting is that on this particular train, all (or most) of the passengers were clearly lower class workers. All of them middle aged men. My entire car was filled with them. You could tell that they were workers based on their dress, mainly army jackets and pants and heavy workboots, and the fact that for the most part, they traveled with just the clothes on their backs. It is as if they all just finished a job in Dunhuang and were now being transported to another location to start another job. I do know that these workers tend to come from all over the country and I’ve seen in many instances that they live in make shift quarters on their particular job site. They stay and live in the job and then move on to the next job when they finish. I suspect this was the case here. Each man also had a distinct cough: a wet, heaving cough from the lungs that I would think is typical of people who are both chain smokers and workers of heavy industry. They also had the glassy eyes you’d find amongst alcoholics and in fact they were passing around bottles of baijiu (local grain alcohol) once the train started rolling. The workers around me were all pretty quiet and slept for most of the journey but the group a few rows down from me were all shouting at one another in voices three times the appropriate volume as they played cards and drank. It wasn’t a bother to me but it was for the people near them. Really interesting passengers today.
Another weird occurrence on the train that I have never experienced before is that after we left the station, a police officer came around to check everyone’s identity cards. In China, every person is required to maintain an identity card much like we (as in we in the US) have driver’s licenses that we also use as common ID’s. However, Chinese identity cards each have a unique bar code and the policeman that walked around had a scanner that could scan the bar code of the identity card and pull up information on that passenger on his display. Except this had nothing to do with train passenger information. I believe he was doing a sweep of the train looking for criminals or anyone that may have been flagged on a police list. He didn’t know what to do with my passport.
I pulled into Jiayuguan station around 2 in the afternoon, hopped the local bus, and checked in at the cheapest hotel I could find (based on the Lonely Planet recommendation). I am now staying in a double-bed room in a small Chinese hotel (there are no hostels here) and there is no bathroom or shower or sink or any facilities of any kind. The hotel does have a common bathroom in the lobby but the men’s room is always locked. Soooo, I’m not sure what’s going on with that...
I did arrive in Jiayuguan in time to take a trip out to the Jiayuguan Fort. I mainly came to Jiayuguan as a quick stopover before heading southeast to Lanzhou and then to Beijing. But I picked this place as a stopover specifically because this is the site that the Ming Dynasty decided to call the “edge of the Han empire” beyond which lies the wilds of the west. This is also the location of the end of the northern section of the Great Wall. During the Ming Dynasty, about 600 years ago, they built a giant fort which was the last Han foothold going west. They posted military members here to protect the passage east from the various tribes and nomads of the west. It was well known that if you took the road from here further west, you were likely to be ambushed and killed by raiders if you didn’t first succumb to the demands of the desert terrain. There are also several accounts of historical clashes between the Han generals and the tribal kings of the Uighurs and other Central Asian clans. A place wrought with history. This fort is set in the midst of a lunar landscape and on the fringe of two mighty, snow capped mountain ranges that create this funnel of a desert passage to this west. So it was a strategic spot. It was also beautiful today (apart from the clouds) because the area is still completely undeveloped apart from a few distant factories and the little town of Jiayuguan about seven kilometers down the road. So it still feels genuinely like the end of the Chinese empire. For centuries, the empire used to exile people through the west gate of this fort. Apparently, they gave whomever they were exiling a horse and some minor provisions and made them trot away to the west, never to return to the Middle Kingdom. This place was very cool and completely worth the stopover. Fun fact: this is also the area in which part of Zhang Yimou’s movie “Hero” is based (and was filmed) for you movie buffs out there.
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| Pagoda and lake in the foreground of the fort |
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| Gate to the east and gate to the west |
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| The general's quarters |
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| View of the wild west beyond the last gate of the fort |
Another train ride tomorrow. This time, the overnight to Lanzhou. See you there!
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