The Chinese Pyramids
Trip Start
Feb 03, 2008
1
18
33
Trip End
Aug 16, 2009
Yinchuan,
Ningxia,
China
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Yinchuan's traffic stops for us as we cross at a red light. No one honks.
The street has not a single, wind-blown plastic bag on it. There are no street shops, no vendors walking around to sell us anything out of a basket. It's quiet and serene.
The old drum and bell towers that stand in the middle of the main street are beautifully refurbished and painted with subdued, correct colors. They provide a beautiful reference point when we glance up from the impeccable, tree-and flower-lined pedestrian shopping streets.
The brisk beginning of fall weather helps along the European image, and so do the prices.
After trying four different hotels, all full, we finally find a hotel in our target area that has a vacancy. Unfortunately, at more than 200 yuan a night it's four times as much as we wanted to pay, and three times more than we were prepared to pay. Oh well, we figure, we need some rest and it's really not that exorbitant. We check in.
Originally, Yinchuan wasn't on our itinerary for this trip sampling China's Midwest.
However, last year back in Foshan our friend's friend, Alan, had shown us some pictures of these beautiful golden-leaved trees growing out of the desert sand. These trees' leaves only turn their particular light-reflecting yellow at the end of September and the beginning of October. Dan was captivated by the pictures' deep blue sky, yellow leaves and white sand and the idea that you can only see it for a limited time each year.
Ghosts
What a great opportunity to take pictures, we thought. Alan had taken the pictures while on a trip to his home in Ningxia, and via our friend Winnie emailed us that the site was in Inner Mongolia but it was easy to get there via Yinchuan.Dan looked on the internet for information about these trees, and with the help of our co-worker Michael, found a travel agency in Yinchuan that booked tours out to the trees during October. Thus, we came to Yinchuan.
We take a day for rest--Dan is still recovering from his dysentery--and do a little shopping. We are a little burnt out, but still excited about our upcoming trip to Inner Mongolia and intrigued by Ningxia province.
The next day we decide to see some of the local sights. I'm particularly interested in some petroglyphs in the mountains north of the city but closer to town there's a site called the Xi Xia Wang Ling, the ruined tombs of emperors who ruled a culture crushed by the Mongols in the 1200s.
We negotiate a taxi ride to the tomb site for more than we wanted to pay but less than the driver wanted. The driver is nervous about this until we arrive at the site and he realizes that he can get in for free with just his taxi driver's permit.
We three go to the site museum and tombs together, and Dan and I feel a little bit like we're showing him around instead of the reverse. His worried expression from when we were negotiating the cab fare changes into the gleeful grin of a student playing hooky. He eats up the museum along with a big chocolate bar I tipped him, then joins a Chinese-language tour of some 3D artist's representations of the Xi Xia life and culture.
Xi Xia Warrior
Dan and I end up waiting a few minutes for him to finish and chuckling about the strangeness of the situation.The tombs are billed as Chinese pyramids, and do look a little like the minor pyramids surrounding the famous Egyptian Giza ones. Their function is different, though. While the Egyptian pyramids hid the actual tomb below them, these yellow dirt mounds were once the foundation for seven-story towers built of other materials. There are three of these mounds that are fenced off to be part of the tourist attraction, but our guidebook says there are more a short hike away, near to the foot of the mountain barrier between Ningxia and Inner Mongolia. Dan and I are interested in these, but the weather isn't great and we aren't sure if the taxi man would be up to it.
Dan asks him if he likes the site, but surprisingly he doesn't. He seemed to enjoy the museum and tour, especially since it was all free, but thinks the tomb site doesn't have much to look at. It's about what I'd imagined, but he must have had prior expectations.
On the way back to town, with the attitude of a kid trying to get just one more ice cream, he half-heartedly takes a go at persuading us to go to a film studio where they make Chinese Western films. I guess he can get in for free there too, but Dan and I would have to pay for another entrance fee, so we ask to be dropped off downtown instead. I want to get his address so I can send him a picture but forget when we get out of the cab, so I guess he'll never see what he looks like at the Xi Xia Wang Ling.
Xi Xia Culture 4
Sorry, cab man. In the afternoon we go to the city's grand mosque. Ningxia province was created fifty years ago as a special Autonomous Region for China's Muslim minority, and we figure that the mosque will be interesting.
It is much smaller than we thought it would be, given the importance of the religion in the region, but under construction, so maybe they are expanding it. They had a museum of a sort under the area for prayer with a lot of pictures of foreign dignitaries who had visited. Annexed to that was a big room housing two scale models of the grand mosques at Mecca and Medina.
A woman was giving a tour to some Chinese tourists and by eavesdropping I managed to glean that Chinese Muslims who are unable to undertake the pilgrimage can at least go and see these replicas. They also showed a "What Not to Do" instructional video for would-be pilgrims to Mecca, complete with green checks for the things you should do and red crosses for the things you shouldn't do. Apparently, you should dress appropriately, be courteous in crowds and avoid touching holy objects.
After the mosque, we tried to go to the provincial museum. Unfortunately it had moved to the "New Town" about a 20 minute drive from our location in the "Old Town." We convinced the taxi driver to take us by the old museum site anyway, since we were looking for souvenirs and usually museums have shops nearby.
The old museum was built on a courtyard scheme like a traditional Chinese clan house, and had been converted into a park. A big tower standing in the middle must have had some Buddhist significance because a young woman carrying prayer beads was walking around it clockwise, smiling at us and chanting to herself.
Some of the exhibition rooms built on the edge of the courtyard were still open, and they displayed pictures of rock carvings around China, so we got to see the petroglyphs from the mountains north of Yinchuan anyway. The pictures showed large amounts of petroglyphs that were accessible by a hiking trail; if we're ever in that area again we'll go check them out in person.
We did a little more shopping then went back to our hotel to pack up for our big trip the next day: a 10 hour bus ride to the trees in Inner Mongolia.
* * *
What it cost:
Hotel room for two: 200 RMB per night
Taxi to the Xi Xia Wang Ling: 100 RMB round trip
Entrance to the Xi Xia Wang Ling: 40 RMB each
Entrance to the mosque as a tourist: 10 RMB each
Entrance to the building that used to house the provincial museum: Free!
