Travels with Li Dongni – Xinjiang, China (October 2011), part 3

Buddhists, grottoes and mosques

Xinjiang is well served with religious archaeological sites – in particular Buddhist caves, with which the Heaven mountains are quite literally riddled.  This post, the final one looking at my trip to the province, will focus on the Buddhist and Muslim sites we visited.

Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves

The Beziklik caves are located near Turpan and the Flaming mountains, at the north-eastern edge of the Taklamakan desert (see my first Xinjiang travel post for these).  The 77 caves were created during the 5^th to the 9^th Centuries and consist of man-shaped caverns with rounded ceilings containing Buddhist paintings in various degrees of survival.  The damage to the paintings is a cause of controversy as although some deterioration is no doubt natural, deliberate damage was done by the later Muslim population and then by Europeans in the 19^th Century.  This latter removal of frescoes for European encyclopaedic museums is ingrained on the minds of the Chinese populace.  Sadly, the murals from Bezeklik were mostly taken by a German (with the rather fantastic name of Albert von Le Coq) and were destroyed during the Second World War when Berlin was bombed.  Other murals still survive in St Petersburg, Tokyo, Korea and India.

A mistrust of foreigners is still present today, and I personally didn’t enjoy visiting Bezeklik because of the close attention that the attendant staff member provided – following me into every cave, and repeatedly saying ‘no photographs’ even though my camera never came close to being raised.  I suppose I’m just used to being trusted when visiting heritage sites, but the constant hovering of the local made me feel intensely uncomfortable.  I have no problem with photography not being allowed in the caves, I just like to think that I only need telling once, and I don’t appreciate having my own personal stalker!

As it is, despite the fame of Bezeklik, I didn’t find the surviving paintings all that impressive, and thought that the setting of the caves was far more attractive.

Emin Ta Pagoda (Su Gong Ta)

Emin Ta is a mosque located near to Turpan, and is one of the largest in Xinjiang.  It is most famous for its gorgeous 144’ (44m) high minaret, and the story of its construction.  Emin Ta was built in 1777 in honour of the Turpan General Emin Khoja, a supporter of the Chinese Qing dynasty, by his son Suleman.

We actually visited Emin Ta twice, the first time at about 6 o’clock in the evening after a long day of touring around sites.  We arrived to find that the local villagers had set up a toll on the road to the mosque (I’m never sure how legal this is, but it seems to happen quite a bit in Xinjiang, and is tolerated by local officials so there’s nothing you can do).  Our driver paid the toll and we proceeded up the road to the mosque – only to find that it had just closed!  We headed back out again, and our driver had a rather heated argument with the local lads, who seemed to think that they had no reason to refund the money, saying that they wouldn’t charge us when we came back to visit again.  Thankfully, our driver managed to get them to refund the toll and we also stopped a number of other drivers from paying – they weren’t too impressed by the local’s dishonesty either.

We went back the next morning and got in without incident, despite the time it takes to move past the array of souvenir and food stalls outside when every stallholder is intent on showing you every single item of the wares.  Emin Ta also sticks in my memory as one of the great examples of a local thinking that all foreigners are somehow careless with money, and trying to sell things for stupid prices – in this case it was a little leather box of no real age, the haggling over which began at 800RMB (£80) and ended with me buying it at 50RMB (£5)…

In the end, I’m actually very glad that we got to go back and see the site at our leisure against the backdrop of a clear blue sky rather than rushing around it in 10 minutes in the near dark, as the architecture of the mosque is very pretty indeed.

Kizil Caves

Kizil Caves are located near to the town of Kucha (which we also visited), and are some of the most famous Buddhist caves in China.  They are also probably the earliest, dating back to the 3^rd Century.  They are set within a dramatic cliffside, though the modern interventions to formalise the cave fronts and insert stairways do little for the attractiveness of the monument.

Kizil Caves is another site, like Bezeklik (see above), that has seen damage to its frescoes through the action of 19^th Century westerners, and it is another site at which photography is not allowed.  In this case, photographs are not even allowed on the hillside, even when facing away from the caves towards the attractive open countryside.  However, as usual, a policy which would have been fine was undermined by inconsistent application.  I was made to leave my camera in a locker at the base of the cliff and was even told off when I got my phone out of my pocket in case I tried to take photographs, yet when coming back down was passed by Chinese tourists very openly carrying cameras, and with the staff not bothered at all.  Very annoying, and sadly one has to wonder if the application of the rules is deliberately racist.

The site is well aware of commercial opportunity, however, and although there is an entrance fee, that didn’t provide entry into all of the caves.  The best surviving cave is only viewable for a separate payment of an astonishing £50 per person.  Needless to say we did what I imagine most visitors do and left it alone.

'The closed grotto'

The reason for the strange name for this grotto is that I have no idea what it is called!  It is a site that we were privileged to see as it is not yet open to the public.  It is situated very close to the Kezikalahan war signalling station (link), and when we visited the builders were there constructing staircases and site buildings.  Our driver managed to get us shown into a few of the caves, though we had to leave our cameras in the van.  After picking our way across the building site (including crossing some rather rickety planks that I’m sure wouldn’t pass British health and safety), we were shown into a couple of caves that had the best surviving cave paintings we’d yet seen – far surpassing the more famous grottoes mentioned above, and ones that will surely become famous with tourists when the site opens.  I’m pleased to say that I was able to see them without having to fight with tour groups!

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Travels with Li Dongni – Giant Buddha, Leshan, China (November 2008)

That’s one big Buddha...

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts my wife is Chinese and her whole family still live in China, in the stunningly beautiful province of Sichuan.  This has meant that as well as seeing the major sights of China such as Beijing, Xi’an and the like, I have been fortunate to have my own personal tour guides to show me some of the lesser known tourist delights of the Middle Kingdom – in fact my wife sometimes gets asked if she is my interpreter, which she understandably hates!

The place I’d like to highlight here is the fairly well known, certainly within China, giant Buddha (‘Dafo’ 大佛) at Leshan in Sichuan – a UNESCO World Heritage site and part of the Mount Emei scenic area.

You’ve probably guessed from the name and the photo that this is indeed one big Buddha.  His stats are nothing if not impressive – he is 233 feet (71 metres) high, his shoulders are 92 feet (28 metres) across, and just one of his eyebrows is 18 feet long!  Unsurprisingly, it is the tallest Buddha statue in the world.

His history is also rather interesting.  Construction began in AD713 (Tang dynasty), the brainchild of a monk called Haitong, who thought that the Buddha would help calm the waters of the three rivers which join at his feet.  When funding for the project became threatened (see – not just a modern occurrence), the monk is said to have gouged out his own eyes in protest – that’s dedication for you.  The funding was restored and the monk’s disciples continued the project, the statue being finally finished in AD803.

The Buddha himself, seated with his hands on his knees, is a depiction of Maitreya Buddha – a popular figure in art of the 4^th to 7^th Centuries.

To get to the Buddha, you wind your way up the hillside beside him, past various carvings and calligraphy, some on an impressive scale, left there by previous pilgrims (we call them 'vandals' today).

This means that you can’t see the Buddha until the very top, when you arrive at the Buddha’s head - your first view of him being a giant ear and one serene, heavy-lidded eye.  Once you’ve looked around the top of the mountain, which also features a few pagodas, modern eateries and the cave Haitong allegedly lived in, you can begin to descend the quite amazing stone staircase down the side of the Buddha.

It is during this descent that the scale of the Buddha really does become apparent, and there are plenty of stopping points to look back up at the benignly smiling face.  Eventually you arrive at his oversized feet.

When you’ve had your fill at the bottom, you can begin to go back up the other side of the Buddha, this time through a series of winding cave paths.  However, this actually turned into one of the most memorable moments of my time in China.  We had visited fairly late in the day, so when we were at the bottom of the Buddha it was already after 4.30.  We started to move back up the cliff at the same time as a group of other tourists, but held back to get some photos while they moved ahead – we didn’t want to be fighting with them all the way back up.  However, when we got back to the top we were faced with a locked gate, even though we were only mere minutes behind the others.  Shouting didn’t result in anyone coming, so we went back to the bottom of the Buddha with the intention of going back up the stone staircase.  Only to find a locked gate there too…

This situation caused a reaction in me that falls somewhere between fury and panic.  Panic at the sheer shock of being locked in, and fury that the staff could lock up such a big site without actually walking through and checking that all the visitors were out – there is only one path and we weren’t exactly playing hide-and seek in the shadows.

Thank goodness for mobile phones, as we were able to get the number for the site and phone the office.  No answer.  So we phoned the police.  About 30 minutes later, by which time it was virtually pitch black, we saw torches coming down the steep stone staircase.  We were taken back up the way we had come and given a ride to the edge of the park.  One thing we didn’t get, though, was an apology.  In fact, the guards (for it was the site staff rather than the police that eventually turned up) seemed to be slightly angry with us – I expect out of embarrassment rather than a real belief that we had done wrong, though in China you do sometimes feel that those in authority have very little sense of personal responsibility for their failings.  Perhaps the thought of being shouted at for imprisoning a western tourist was worrying them?

Despite the bizarre incident, my willingness to recommend the Buddha remains undiminished.  If you find yourself in Sichuan, make your own pilgrimage to the giant Buddha.  Just try not to visit too late in the day…

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