SILK ROAD TOUR

Oct 1st - 7th we joined other BYU CTP teachers for a week long tour of the Silk Road. What an amazing time we had.

We went to Urumqi (oo-room-chee), capital of the Ughur (we-gur) minority group - a wonderful museum trip and lots of shopping at the Qiao Market - largest in the world!

 

 then to Turpan to see the Jiaohe Ancient City, and an incredible underground water system - to Dunhuang to see more Ughur villages, and the Pachikli Grottos, and the Gaochang ancient town -

 

to Liuyan by soft sleeper train overnight then off to ride camels in the Gobi Deseret, see South Sand Mountain and Cresent Moon Lake and a visit to Mogao Grottos (amazing Buddah display in rooms carved out from the sand mountains).

 

We then flew to Xi'an in time for a famous dumpling dinner and Tang Dynasty Singing show - just amazing! The next day we went to the Terra Cotta Soldiers - Tomb of the first emperor. The next morning we walked along Xi'an city wall then off to the airport to return to Jinan.

 We saw the very old, like 1800 years before Christ, to the very modern in buildings and transportation.

 

IT WAS AN AMAZING TRIP.  (see the China tab for our teaching experience)

 

At the Market - Lesson learned - don't touch, don't ask, don't bargain if you aren't going to buy. They will keep going and after you walk away they will send the smallest person they can find to chase you down saying, 'it's okay, it's okay, we take your price!'

 There were many beautiful handcrafted items for sale. There were many food venders. Our favorite were the grapes made from local vineyards.



 Jiaohe Ancient City

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiaohe_Ruins

Turpan - modern city just 10km from the ruins

 There are 55 minority groups in China, most of them are in the Western part of the country. We went to a great museum that represented the major ones very well. So interesting to see the crafts they could make without the modern technology we enjoy today. And the history dates back so far! There are so many similarities we notice.

Here are some pictures from the advanced well system - Karze. And here is Jack doing what he does best - reading signs! This one happens to have English on it - so he really is reading it!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turpan_water_system

 The well is in the desert is underground to keep the water from evaporating and from being buried by the sand. It brings the water from the snow melt in the mountain to the city. It is still used today.

Above you see the engineering system above ground, it drops to below ground for the surveyor below to keep things in a straight line.
 The little holes you see in the picture below are the vents to the well system

These are from our trip to Gaochang Ancient City http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaochang 

I jumped off the cart to capture the picture of everyone, when to my surprise the driver took off - yup, I had to do an Indiana Jones and jump on a moving cart!  We are just in awe of the craftsman ship of the ruins. To think they built and constructed living, working, and farming space from almost nothing - and survived!

This is a basement room - the only air conditioned room :)

This sweet man was putting on a show for us. He let us sit with him and try to sing along... hahaha better just give him two thumbs up!

Muslim men starting to gather for prayer

Pachikli Grottos

 Yummy Chinese food!

 Happy grandfather and granddaughter

 Sleeper train bunk neighbors

 Look out Gobi Desert - Here we come! There are several hundred camel owners who contract with the park to be tour guides. The day we were there was a light day. They only had about 1200 camels out. A busy day will bring up to 1500 camels!

 One camel train consisted of 4 or 5 camels. We enjoyed a 45 minute ride - and about an hour of saddle sore walk after.

 Individuals would rent the orange covers for their shoes and pants. It was a life saver for them as they would walk up and down the sand dunes.

 Hello to my camel!

 Hello to Ride'em cowboy Jack!

 The dunes go on forever!

 You can see Crescent Moon lake from here - it was a little chilly in the desert today :)

More vast desert

Night market in Dunhuang. We had a great time looking, shopping, and eating at the market.

This gentleman is carving some Chinese characters on a piece of wood, creating a personalized stamp for each of us

 Beautiful faces and always so willing to let us take pictures!

 A couple of girls we started talking English to. They are both 10 years old.
Their English tutor, in the photo below, had brought them to town. They were hoping to find some English speakers to talk to - and they did!

 More sweet faces - the young and the old together all the time so the parents can work.

 We had our first Chinese hamburgers here. So yummy. They are chopped pork with green chilies on a bread they call a pancake.

Arrive in Xi'an and head straight for the famous dumpling dinner. I had eaten something at breakfast which didn't settle very well. So, I snapped a picture and then had to sit in a different place for the show because the smell was killing me. According to Jack they were awesome dumplings and such a variety.

 The Tang Dynasty Singing and Dancing show was amazing!

This man playing the horn held the last note for about 90 seconds. I was trying to breath for both of us!

The grand highlight of the tour was the visit to the Tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor to unify all of China. We know it as the 8th wonder of the world - the Tomb of the Terra Cotta Warriors. First a stop at the official Pottery Store where small to life size figures are created from pottery.

Inside the tomb area. They have uncovered about 2000 figures with about 6000 more buried. The Emperor was 13 years old when he began this project. There are more locations he had commissioned to be burial grounds for him. That way he could choose where to be buried and no one would know for sure. Modern ultrasound technology has been used to locate where the figures are. This is the largest building. A smaller one houses what they believe would represent the leaders camp. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracotta_Army

 A moment out for movie star shots

 We met a person who helps to assemble the broken pieces together. He tells us it takes a team of four people one year to put together one statue. This would be the job that never ends...

 This is the farmer who originally found a terra cotta helmet when digging a well on his farm. He now has a cushy job of signing books for the tourists!

 

These are only a few pictures we have taken of a very amazing trip! 

Stay tuned....next trip is Beijing, the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, etc...