the candy trail …

The Yumbu Lakang monastery is straight from a fairytale – there, clinging to a rocky crag and surrounded by barren ridges, this ancient castle overlooks an oasis amid a mountainous, high-altitude desert. At 4000 meters above sea level this is the Yarlong Valley, the cradle of Tibetan civilization.

In the valley below, a gravel road runs between grids of freshly-ploughed fields, where clumped-trees stretch to clusters of flat-roofed, white-washed, stone-block villages; there prayer flags flutter slightly in the late-summer breeze. The sun is intense, blinding bright, yet, it’s cold in the shade.

Occasionally, farmers yelling at yoked yaks – break the silence; shouting across the valley and up to the desolate surrounding slopes – brown and without snow; peaks barren and rocky and reaching to the calm, ocean sky.

For hours I enjoy this vista there, there, yeah, the tranquillity until, several army jeeps wind their way up to deliver 20 Chinese soldiers, who proceed to stomp and shout their way up the monastery’s galleries to reach the roof, where I sit. And to the handful that catch my eye I say hello, in Chinese. But soon I’ve become an exhibit, and so head down to the seclusion of the central shrine.

Inside it’s dimly-lit: rows of flaming brass bowls burning yak’s butter, casting shadowy, slightly-spooky vibes. Hanging from the high pillars and down walls are the thangkas – banners of crazed, cartoonish murals with blue, multi-headed demons ringed by skulls and fire. The shrine is a mass of glistening metal, small flames and shadows, dominated by large Buddha statues of serene, golden-faced gods, robed in brocade gowns. Amid this the Dalai Lama’s portrait, engulfed by pilgrims’ offerings – Chinese currency.

To Tibetans the Dalai Lama represents the Bodhisattva of compassion – the focus of Tibetan Buddhism is compassion; he is their god-king. (Dalai means ocean, ocean of wisdom; lama meaning monk. Each Dalai Lama is believed the reincarnation of his predecessor.) And the founding in the 14th century of the Gelugpa, the Virtuous Ones or the Yellow Hat Sect, established the rule of the Dalai Lamas.

It was the Great Fifth Dalai Lama who unified Tibet and built the Potala, the massive fortress-palace that overlooks Lhasa. However across the following centuries a succession of Dalai Lamas ruled Tibet yet it suffered foreign invasions and remained largely under Chinese influence until 1912.

Tibet’s independence was brief … In 1950 came Chinese communist occupation and since 1959 Tibet has been without it’s spiritual leader after the Chinese Army crushed a rebellion, forcing the Dalai Lama and 80,000 Tibetans to flee to India (where they reside today). When the Cultural Revolution of 1966 – 76 swept across China – it also battered Tibet. During this period some 2000 Tibetan monasteries were damaged or destroyed.

AROUND 2000 years ago the First Tibetan King built the Yumbu Lakang but with the end of the monarchy in the 9th century it was converted into a Buddhist monastery (but after demolition by Red Guards the Yumbu Lakang was later rebuilt in the 1980s). Now the temple’s interior lacks that ancient, musty smell, typical of the older, surviving monasteries.

I watch the elderly monk polishing a small brass bowl, then replacing it amid the row of bowls running the length of the shrine. As he starts on another bowl, he sees me and I grin, then, putting my fingers in my ears I point to the noise upstairs. He beams a smile, then repeats my charade. But as he does this, saying something in Tibetan, a group of screeching Chinese soldiers enter. The monk goes silent. I break the situation by hissing – “Ssssh!”, finger to my lips. “You guys are too noisy. This is a holy place, not a circus!” They behave. The elderly Tibetan seems pleased at my action. But minutes later another lot arrives, and while some are quiet, respectful, most are loud and laughing – as if at an amusement park. One lad acts a sleeping charade on the monk’s couch. After 20 minutes the soldiers leave, and calm returns to the monastery.

It’s late in the afternoon when I begin the 12 km walk back to the town of Zetang. It’s cold where the tall poplar trees shade the deserted gravel road.

In the surrounding fields farmers urge yaks and plough across dry, dredged dirt. One group sits on sacks on the soil, eating, and they wave me over to join them and so I do.

Immediate smiles from two middle-aged women in faded black robes – sleeveless, pink shirts protruding, twists of pink and blue cloth in their black, plaited hair. A third woman wears her dark traditional garments with a Mao cap. Of the two men present, the younger is dressed in Chinese peasant wear while the elderly guy wears tribal tunic and trousers. He is the headman and offers me an empty sack on which to sit. His short black hair is clean-shaven round the ears; his brown-red face etched, lines reaching from eyes to ears when he grins, more rippling round the bulge of his cheeks as he urges me to eat.

From one thermos he pours yak’s butter tea – unsweetened, oily, buttery-tasting. Another thermos contains chang – a sour, flat, barley beer. To eat there is small flat bread and tsampa (a coarse flour made from parched barley, it’s textile like dough) and boiled potatoes, which we peel then dip in a bowl of watery, tasty chilli. I offer my biscuits and sweets for dessert with yak’s butter tea. Afterwards the old man offers cigarettes. Very few words are spoken but for 20 minutes we communicate via charades and smiles.

Upon leaving I thank them, in Tibetan. As I shake the old guy’s hand, he raises it up, placing it against his forehead, then utters … something.

Back on the lonely dusty road, passing trails of tatty, five-colour prayer flags, the breeze sweeping their mantras heavenwards, I think what his words could have meant: maybe a sense of hope and thanks, maybe a prayer for Tibet – maybe that, yes, here where still the spirit survives.

Beggar & baby in Lhasa

Twenty-eight hours on a slow train across the Gobi Desert provides me with plenty of time to reflect on the rigors of traveling the Silk Road.

It’s a brutal world beyond my window: sun glaring over endless mountains and empty expanses of stone, sand and scrub.

Across this wasteland flash occasional blurs as lines of power poles or other trains pass. Too rarely, we halt at isolated, shabby stations – where vendors rush to hawk their wares before we slide away.

On the 801 from Lanzhou to Jiayuguan the services are basic.

Compartments sleep six passengers, each with a hard, fold-down bed, without pillows, sheets or privacy. No door shelters us from the noise of the corridor but at the end of the carriage is a supply of boiling water – to brew tea or make instant noodles. When an attendant pushes past with a trolley of cola and beer bottles, packets of peanuts and assorted snacks, I decide, I’ve got it easy.

Problems encountered on the Silk Road today are mainly confined to the effort required in purchasing a ticket without much knowledge of Chinese. Or threats to your camera from overzealous police. Or a rail journey that’s meant to take 18 hours but stretches into 28, as in my experience.

Yet nothing compares to the myriad of dangers faced by those on the Silk Road some centuries ago. Back then you slogged for months by camel, braving high temperatures and sandstorms; and in the mountain passes, altitude sickness and snow-blindness. But surely the most feared threat was robbery and death at the hands of bandits.

When I was in Lanzhou, a bland industrial city of 2 million, I’d witnessed a modern-day-Silk-Road robbery.

Amid street congestion a thief had snatched a box off the back of a cycle-cart, without the owner seeing. But a by-passer had. He chased the thief a few meters – until he’d dropped the carton; the good Samaritan then returned the goods to the bewildered owner as the thief calmly strolled away. Back in the old days merchants had combined their caravans to protect themselves, grouping as many as a thousand camels together under armed escort.

Despite all the dangers of the journey, profits ensured that the Silk Road flourished between the 2nd and 14th centuries (until it was superseded by sea freight). Previous cargoes of silk, ceramics, paper, and later gunpowder, once left the ancient capital of China, Xian, to arrive in Central Asia and India, other routes led into Iran and Arabia and onto the Mediterranean. Goods trekked in from the West had included grapes, cotton, spices, wine and glass. But it was only during the last century that a German geographer coined the name Silk Road to describe this chain of trade routes.

The romance of the Silk Road doesn’t really strike me until I arrive in Jiayuguan.

It begins with the atmosphere and flavors of the evening market. The roasting of meat, the lights of lanterns, the Islamic sounds invite me over as Muslim traders grill kebabs over charcoal, as customers sit at tables consuming and chatting. The crowd consists of Han Chinese, Mongols, Kazaks  and Hui (Chinese Muslims). Historically, Jiayuguan was the western-most post of ancient China and subsequently it became a crossroad for cultures.

Today Jiayuguan is located in the north-west province of Gansu (China’s silk-corridor state, wedged between the deserts of Mongolia and the high peaks of the Tibetan Plateau). Just beyond the modern city is one of those alluring Silk Road sights.

The tranquility. The desolation. Between snow-capped mountains and rugged, black peaks lies a narrow desert strip guarded by the battlements and pagoda-towers of a mighty, 14th-century Ming fortress. Here is also where the Great Wall ends – after snaking across China for 6000 km it halts at this strategic fort, appropriately named the ‘The Impregnable Pass Under Heaven’.

Through these gate-towers all caravans traveling the Silk Road had once passed. Beyond the western gate sweeps the Taklamakan Desert – to ancient traders a terrifying, waterless wasteland, haunted by barbarian nomads and evil spirits.

Those merchants who survived the arduous journey gave thanks to God in the form of commissioning cave-shrines to be built along the route. The most famous are the Thousand Buddha Caves, near the oasis of Dunhuang. The visions of a wandering monk – who saw a thousand Buddhas, it’s said – was so inspired that he cut the very first cave into the Mingsha cliffs in 366 AD, (Buddhism dominated China during the Silk Route’s golden age).

Nearly 500 caves still survive in good condition, offering 45,000 sq m of murals and over 2000 painted sculptures. I only get to see ten caves for my $10 entrance fee. The largest cave houses a 31-meter-high Buddha, its  feet the size of a small car.

In the desert around Dunhuang there remain fragments of fortified beacon towers that once warned of an enemies’ approach.

The main threat today are swarms of package tourists, mainly Asian, clambering over the sand dunes, riding camels, posing on mass for photos or para-gliding from the peaks. The effect is circus-like.

As the sun slides behind a silhouette of distant dunes the magic of the past returns.

I peer over a high ridge and down to a cluster of tourist camels trailing the slopes in the fading light; imagining them to be a trading caravan traveling the Silk Road, and that I’m a bandit, watching, waiting, planning to attack and plunder …

[ published 1996 & 98  ]