Tuesday 21 October 2025
Our driver, Tahir, met us first thing and we went to Gaochang Ancient City. He spoke English which was a bonus so he enlightened us about the grape growing region, the karaz system of irrigation and how little rain they get (~16 mm a year) - to which he added “that’s why we still have two ancient cities”. I got very excited as we dipped below 0 m mean sea level (MSL). In fact we’re spending more time under rather than above MSL here and reached 90 m below today. Quite a contrast from 4700 m above MSL last week, nearly 5 km height difference!
Gaochang city is on the northern rim of the Taklamakan Desert. It was a trading post on the Silk Road built in the 1st Century BCE and was the ancient capital. Its prominence declined over the centuries until it was totally overcome in the 14th Century CE and left to ruin. Since then, the wind and sun have reduced its stature, aided and abetted by local farmers who believed the adobe (mud walls) made excellent fertiliser. Apparently they would simply tear parts down using pick axes. They didn't totally decimate it, and today you can see ruins of old palaces and inner/outer city walls still exist - the outer walls spanned over 5 km.
As is often the case in these sites, we were shuttle bused (buggy really) around. And there were only three stops. As we weren’t attached to a tour group we were given our own buggy and driver. At the first stop we wandered along the board walks taking photos. This is the a small Buddhist temple, built 13-14 CE.
We then were driven to the next stop, but I think the driver was either bored of our slow speed or trusted us and asked if he could drive on. We waved him off and a nearby guard gave us permission to walk back to a site we’d just driven past (not one of the regular stops). So, basically, we had the site to ourselves, or so it seemed. As long as we stuck to the boardwalks and roadways we could go anywhere.
This was far more than we’d hoped for and we had a lovely couple of hours exploring the site.
Each temple complex/significant artefact had a notice board and an officer standing there to check compliance with the no-stray rule. Khan Palace was the largest set of ruins and you could see all the niches where the Buddhas once would have been.
On emerging, our driver took us to a Karez exhibition area. The karez system of irrigation is the life blood of the region and seen as one of the great engineering feats of Chinese history. It was only really practised around the Turpan area and involved digging a deep (up to 100 m) well at the foot of the Tian Shan mountains and boring an underground trench at the correct slope to bring the water to the ground surface. The trick is to have a downward gradient for this subterranean channel that is less steep than the descent of the land above it, so eventually the water is only a few metres below the surface. Clever stuff, but incredible when you realise they only had basic tools, rope pulleys, buckets and spades to create and maintain this. To lower a karez craftsman into a shaft a hefty person sat on the capstan frame, controlling the descent speed via foot pedals. Being a karez builder/maintainer was not for the faint hearted.
Across the region, Xinjiang, there is 5,272 km of karez, supported by 172,367 vertical shafts. Due to climate change, on average 23 karez dried up each year between the 1950s-2003 and 32 each year from 2003-2009. More on the Turpan karez system here.
I was very tickled by the karaz outfall experience area which came complete with a bronze sheep.
And we were less enthused by the over-developed underground karaz experience which was very blue (it's the lighting that's so blue - the water is actually clear believe it or not) and there were subterranean tourist shops plying their wares. This is, though, a real Karez - the 3000 m long Yengi Karez, maintained by 110 shafts, with the depth of the first shaft being 63 metres.
It was in the discovery centre that we realised how the grape drying system here works. We’d seen the drying buildings around (picture later) and presumed they spread the grapes on the floor to dry. But, no, they hang them on wooden poles and, as the grapes dry, they drop off.
Lastly, today, we went to the ancient city of Jiaohe. This was on JC’s bucket list so we made sure to leave 3+ hours for it. Jiaohe (known as Yarghul in Uyghur) was built around the 4th Century BCE, and was the capital/main city of the region from ~108 BCE to 840 CE. It sits on a large islet 1650 m long, 300 m wide in the middle of a river which explains why there are no city walls as the 30 m steep cliffs kept intruders out. It had a population of 7,000 according to Tang dynasty records and was finally abandoned after an invasion by the Mongols in the 13th Century.
The temple district occupied 2/3 of the total city area! The largest temple was decked out with chairs ready for the evening's light show.
There were plenty of Buddha temple/hall remains plus a forest of stupas. Stupas are objects around which Buddhists walk to pray. In the Buddhist caves we visited yesterday, some of the caves had a central pillar which the worshipers walked around. This was the earliest stupa presumably, which then turned into independently standing objects, such as the stupa below. Stupa tend to solid mounds whereas pagodas can be entered (and may contain stupa inside). More here in case you're interested.
The buildings were made by cutting into the ground and piling up the sand/mud to create walls. It made for very cool houses in the scorching summers, and provided a degree of warmth in the winter. With minimal rainfall this was an ideal design.
We bumped into some cyclists from the UK who were cycling from UK to New Zealand and it was interesting to hear their travel stories. And across the valley I could see numerous grape drying buildings.
We stayed as long as we could leaving at 18:45.
That evening we ate at Tahir’s house. His wife and he run an enterprise whereby they welcome tourists into their home (well, outside seating area) for snacks and tea. His wife’s thing is to demonstrate how pasta is created from scratch. She had already made the dough, hand rolling it into tubes about 1 cm in diameter then let it rest for a few hours.
She demonstrated how she hand stretched the dough through her fingers which happens twice before she wound it around her hands for the final stretch. All most impressive. And, no, I am not at all tempted to try this at home although, if you listen carefully on the first video, JC seems up for it.
No comments:
Post a Comment