A Journey to Well Known Places

Yep, I stopped in a city for the sole purpose of going to the Giant Buddha Temple. That is it’s official name. Really; it says so on the sign. I took a day train in and went to the hotel recommended in the Lonely Planet. They didn’t know what a dorm room was and ushered me into a single. I spent the rest of the day on the internet. About that, you know, it is tough to strike a balance here. On the one hand I didn’t travel halfway around the world to spend hours on end in smokey internet cafes, but on the other hand writing this blog and getting email from home helps me feel more connected and less lonely. The room was nice anyway and I settled down for a good nights rest. Didn’t happen. The walls were paper thin and I heard every single sound. From my neighbor washing his face to phones ringing and people knocking on doors. My room was louder than many of the dorms I have stayed in. I still got up at a decent hour though. I got some breakfast and went back to the internet cafe to call my girlfriend. I checked out of the hotel just before noon.

My first order of business was to get a train ticket out of town. Glad I did too. The last train out left at 3:15…it was 12:30 by the time I bought the ticket. Crap. I took a taxi to the Giant Buddha Temple, paid the admission price, and wandered in. For the first 45 minutes I had the place all to myself. Now, you might be thinking, whoop tee do, another 1000 year old plus temple with a big Buddha. This temple has a bit of a historical twist to it though. It was the birth place of Ghengis Khan’s son Kublia Khan who went on to be emporer of the Mongol empire; which at the time stretched from the coast to Moscow. His capital was modern day Beijing and he must have been born on the road during the original attempts to conquer northern China. It was also home to Marco Polo for a year. He was so taken with the Giant Buddah he hung around for a while.

Frankly, I can see why. The first thing you notice about the Buddha is that it is very big, hence the name. And very ornate. The statues and painting were beautiful and the temple is home to thousands of rare scriptures and writings. The city of Zhangye itself is quite nice. I wish I had more time to just spend walking around and soaking it in. It was cold and rainy when I was there, which is not at all what one would expect from the Gobi desert, but there you have it. I ate several meals in a Ughar muslim restaurant and the food was delicious. Yummy.

Then back on the train again for a 71/2 ride to the most polluted city in the world. My ticket was for standing room only and they were serious. The train was packed when I got on. There wasn’t even a place for my backpack. I eventually jockied for a little room and put my pack on in the isle. Luckily I only stood for about 20 minutes. Being western in China is a bit like being a C list celebrity. Someone made room for me on a seat and found a space for my bag on the luggage rack. When I pulled out the English to Chinese dictionary a crowd appeared. Everyone was curious and a couple good English speakers came forward to translate. They bought me a couple beers and offered me some of the snacks they had for the train. I had peanuts, pickled spinach, cucumber and donkey. Yes, more donkey. I didn’t know it was donkey until it was in my mouth and at that point it was too late. We fumbled our way through hours of communication on all sorts of topics. People are always very curious why I am travelling alone. I usually tell them my girlfriend is coming to meet me in a few weeks and I show them pictures. They also always want to know where I am going, where I have been, and what I think of China. That conversation can last hours. All in all it was another great train experience. I only have two and half more hours before my train to Tibet departs. I got my stitches out and went to the pharmacy to get some medicine for altitude sickness. They sold me Tibetan ginsing. Hmmm, I am not sure if that is going to do the trick……

When you hear from me again I will be in Lhasa. Hurray!

I haven’t been able to upload anymor pictures cause these computers are locked down. However, several people have mentioned that they cannot see any of my more recent pictures.

Try logging into snapfish as me. That should help. Cheers.
login: marca31@hotmail.com
password: 13luckyme

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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 24th, 2007 at 2:49 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.