Shaanxi

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  Shaanxi
  Guangxi

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Travel in central Tibet seems to be troublesome, foreigners play a kind of cat-and-mouse game with the Chinese authorities in Lhasa. In the meantime travel agencies stuff up their wallets.

Yesterday I took the opportunity to travel to the terracotta army of emperor Qin Shi Huang. By now most people in Holland will be familiar with the pictures of the statues. But it's still nice to get a good impression of the scale of the excavations and to compare the faces of the soldiers (I got a small pair of binoculars in Lanzhou). It is evident the torsos have been manufactured by craftsmen and the faces by very talented artists. What fascinated me most were the two bronze carriages that are exhibited in a separate building. They are scale models that do not look prehistoric at all. The technical perfection in their making, 2200 years ago, causes me to doubt the advancement of civilisation. The gold-and-silver bridles would hardly stand out in today's jewellery shops. The museum staff also had a tough job finding workshops that can make replicas for some separate displays.
 

Christmas sentiments are completely absent with me, despite the abundant Christmas decorations on the shops in Chinese cities.

During the crossing to the next millennium I will camp out in the country, tens of miles from the nearest computer. I will follow the 2000-circus listening to the BBC world service.

         Xi'an, Jan. 6, 2000
During five days I followed a trace of the Great Wall, from Yulin to Heshan, covering 22 miles. Even though anyone simply walking into the desert wouldn't notice anything except sand dunes and tough bushes, the course of the Wall is easy to track by following the ruins of watchtowers. After walking for some time, dragon tails rise from the landscape, south of the Wall the remains of fortresses can be recognised and the soil near the watchtowers is littered with rubble, large bricks (equal to the Ming-bricks of the city walls here in Xi'an), glass and earthenware potsherds all around. The readymade mud towers are used for burial mounds. That explains the waste at the bottom; people sacrifice food and alcohol from earthenware dishes and glass bottles.

On the second day a duststorm shortens my view and I need to wear a mask. Friendly villagers give me water. The Wall is now largely buried in sand dunes.

Eighteen miles West of Yulin the North wind blows away the smog, the sun shines much brighter, the view is wider. The locals cut back the branches of the trees to make pollard trees, harvesting the wicker. I get my water from irrigation channels and small streams. Part of the Wall is in use as a road. I am slowly overhauled by a pick-up motortricycle. In the morning I want to make tea, but the water sits stuck in the bottle frozen solid. Stupid! I should have poured it into a pan before. During the days walk I see lots of hares cross the landscape.

Nights are often windy and on the morning of January 5 I expect the rustling on the tent fabric to be sand of a second duststorm. But no, it has snowed! Overnight the landscape has been transformed from wasteland into fairyland. Snow is used for doing the dishes. I now turn away from the Wall and walk trough an enchanting wintry landscape into a steep canyon lined by cave dwellings. Children are playing on the ice, a hunter is out hoping to catch a hare. A spiky mud needle rises from the bottom of the canyon like an island. A diligently scraped path spirals up, wicker-fences line the living space, a TV antenna sticks out.

Precisely at lunchtime I arrive in a larger village and order a nourishing meal of aubergine/egg, onion/pork, steamed buns and rice. On the same day, I am already on the sleeper bus back to Xi'an.