Oasis, SandDunes and Camels

8/2/2008

Today is the day after the eclipse. Wow, I'm still on the eclipse high.

We traveled to Dunhuang, China, a jewel in the desert. This city is only about 160,000 in population, but has the most vibrant atmosphere. Founded around the only oasis for hundreds of kilometers, in ancient times, if a caravan missed this oasis, they died.

The hotel here reminded me of a spiritual resort in Santa Fe. I will be back. When we arrived in Dunhuang, we visited the oasis, where I road a camel, slid down a sand dune and visited a pageant after dinner.


I met Khati on the 2005 Galapagos Eclipse Tour and traveled with her on the add-on tour to Machu Piccu.



Lynn is a friend I first met at the 2001 African Eclipse.

The pageant, a combination of dancing and acrobatics, tells the story of a goddess who was injured by a dragon (warlord), saved by a shepherd, married the shepherd with whom she had a daughter. After a burning of the village by the same dragon, the goddess gave her life to save the village. A famine followed and the daughter went on a quest to get holy water to bring wealth back to the land. The dragon again attacked just as she was to pour the water on the land, instead she drank the water, then spilled her blood on the land and brought back wealth and happiness back to the land. This story is apparently told in painting at the Mogao grottoes near the Oasis.

More tomorrow. Leticia

Eclipse Day August 1, 2008 - Dark Sun

Eclipse Day is here!! The day started by meeting "the boys from Texas". Background, at the "Kung Fu Show" in Beijing, John noticed a young man in the row just in front of us with University of TX T-shirt. John chatted with them and found out they were on a one month tour of Asia, with hope/target to see the eclipse. I gave them my email and China cell phone number and told them to contact me in Hami. James, one of the boys, told me he'd hoped to catch up with a group and just follow them into the viewing site. I call them boys, really young men in their 20's.

This morning at 8am, James, Dereck and Bo caught up with us. So, after talking with them I realized these guys didn't have a plan. After giving them eclipse glasses, eclipse track maps, a time table of the eclipse, and requesting our Chinese guide help them negotiate the services of a taxi driver for the day, they attempted to follow us to the Yiwu eclipse site. Sadly, security was tight and they did not get past the first check point (you needed a permit issued months in advance). With the map I gave them they were able to see the eclipse from another site.

As you can see, our site was remote. Our site near Yiwu, China, bordered Mongolia and Russia.

We took a caravan of buses to the Eclipse site near Yiwu China.

We stopped first in Yiwu, an oasis of life in the desert. An idyllic village of Yurts, cows, goats, horses, fruits, gardens, trees and green.

Then we got to the eclipse site, at the edge of the Gobi Desert. BTW, Gobi means stony, it’s a stony desert. Before 1^st contact the temperature was in the 90’s pushing 100. A bright and hot desert summer day.

Then, first contact, a nibble on the edge of the sun. Oh no!!! Clouds!!

As you can see in the following series of pictures, the light begins to wan, getting darker and darker each passing quarter hour.

A comment on the chairs. Chasing eclipses involves going to remote places, usually deserts to increase the chances of seeing one. Facilities in the desert are limited. Everything is brought onto the site, usually by the tour arrangers. One thing always limited or missing is Chairs!! The first true desert eclipse I saw in Australia, I asked will there be chairs on site, the answer was no!!

I ran out and bought two “camp” chairs like the one shown here. Now every desert eclipse, I purchase two chairs at a local (relatively nearby, in this case Urumqi) store and carry them to the site. I refer to them as our viewing equipment.

As totality approached we began to worry the clouds kept hanging around.

And around. Move clouds, move!!!

A great day, worth the 6 hours on the bus to the site and another 6 hours back to the hotel in Hami.

I hope that soon all of my friends will travel to an eclipse. At least once in a lifetime. Maybe even with me. Maybe next year, July 22, 2009 in the Pacific Ocean? If not, in 2017 on August 21st, you’ll get a chance to catch one here in the United States, and if you hang out here in Dallas until 2024, you’ll see one over head on April 8^th.

Enjoy,

Leticia

Latitude: 43:27:10 N = 43.453 deg N = 43 deg 27.162' N

Longitude: 94:50:49 E = 94.847 deg E = 94 deg 50.812' E

Ghost City and Chinese Hell

Today we started off with a safety meeting in the lounge of the ship. It turned into a sales presentation for massage therapy and acupuncture. Actually, John and I both went for acupuncture as did most of our fellow travelers. You had to everyone was wearing those smelly camphor patches so you need to wear one just for defense.

As we traveled down the river, we noticed ALL the bridge building.




We stopped at the "Ghost City" a city devoted to the "King of Hell". Our guide told us that the Chinese believe that all spirits go here after death, even western spirits. It was sort of a carnival ghost town inspired by Dante. Or maybe Dante was inspired by the Chinese view of hell.

Guild Hall and Concubine Lives

A lack luster day for the tours. Chongqing is a commercial / industrial center with it's location on the Yangtze. Our day was mainly the transfer from Beijing to Chongqing to get on our Yangtze River cruise.
We started the day with our hotel breakfast buffet, including yes, silk pupa.

Then we boarded the bus for our flight to Chongqing.

Once in Chongqing, I think the tour company had to wrack its brain to come up with a tour. So today was a tour of Concubine Beds and a Guild Hall.


Yep, I know more than I really wanted to know about Concubines and their beds. The first wife apparently had a bed with "6 tiers" to signify status, concubines had beds of different number of tiers from one to five. The wife and concubines basically lived within the "bedrooms", played mah jongg to pass the time. Remember, these were also times when they bound women's feet for beauty, not a good life. Of course it was better than being the wife of a peasant and working in the fields.

The Guild Hall tour was like a "concrete" wax museum of local merchants who set up farmers in the local area. This is the front of the Guild hall here.
Then onto the ship via a cable car system to lower us down to the ship.
More tomorrow.Leticia

Observatory and people scenes of interest

7/22/2008

In the morning we visited an observatory built in the 1600's. The Chinese were great astronomers. In these pictures are an eclipse viewing device and they recorded over 1000 occurrences of eclipses.

Also, just some other items that caught my eye. 4 boys fixing a bicycle, why upside down, I don't know, but they were so cute.


Tai Ball in the park. A take off of Tai Chi using a ball and paddle. The objective is not to bat the ball back and forth, but to catch it, keep it on the paddle with centrifugal forces and toss back gently, almost a dance.

In the afternoon, after touring, I went for a trip on the Beijing Subway alone to pick up some blouses at a tailor shop. The subway was clean, safe and well marked, so I had no trouble getting to the Silk Market and back.



Afterwards, I and other tour group members got together for dinner. We wanted something 'authentic' chinese and were recommended to a nearby restaurant, with a speciality in "hot pot". Sort of a Mongolian style soup, where you select items to drop into the very hot soup to cook.

More tomorrow.
TMBWitW

Summer Palace, Forbidden City, driveways

Busy day today. The Forbidden City and the Summer Palace. BTW, it's very hot and humid in Beijing this time of year. Definitely the off-season, except for the Olympics soon.
We visited the Forbidden City. A place denied to proles like us in the last century, now a tourist spot. I love revolutions.

I'm just fascinated by the intricate bas-relief work for a "ramp". So I got several pictures of them. I kept thinking, it might sell to have 'concrete' forms made of this as "drive ways" for up end home. I think it would sell.

Here a bas-relief Dragon Wall at Forbidden City.

A 24 arm Buddha for sale by the "government" at the Gov't Store. I need to research this when I get back to internet access. Part of the museum tour at the Forbidden was to sell these "treasures" to tourists. I want to research if this is for real.


We took this Dragon Boat to the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace grounds were cooler, with at several of these 'cool spots' within the long corridor. On the Grounds of the Summer Palace is the longest corridor in the world. A long covered porch mainly for traveling from place to place on the Summer Palace grounds.




TMBWitW