Fellowship on the Silk Road

WHO would have imagined a group of classmates like us would make a trip to Xian and Urumqi, China, in our 60s. Not in our wildest dreams.

While in Form 5, we were struggling with our studies and financial problems and above all, facing an uncertain future amidst the political turbulence of 1960s in Sarikei.

For some of us, it was a trip of a lifetime while for others, a chance to travel with good friends.

Three from the same class at St Anthony’s took the 14-day (April 8-21) Silk Road tour this year as a challenge. It was a journey of about 5,000 miles, mostly along well-paved roads, and twice on high-speed trains.

Two were from another class at St Anthony’s while the rest were from Miri and Sarikei. All together there were 21 travellers.

The journey began in Xi’an, formally known as Chang’an. More than 2,000 years ago, the first emperor of China, Qin Shihuang, built his capital there, followed by 13 other dynasties from Han to early Ming.

The emperors and their royal courtiers also built lavish tombs with spacious room to store historical relics and treasures. The Terracotta Warriors are good examples of such grand burials. Not surprisingly, there were many tomb raiders in those days.

In 1974, a group of farmers, while ploughing their fields, hit something peculiar – a stone figure of a man. Most of the farmers felt apprehensive about the discovery and put the stone figure back into the ground. However, one farmer called Yang reported the matter to the district office, which led to the unearthing of thousands of Terracotta Warriors. Today the excavation is on-going with immense restoration.

 

World heritage

The burial place is now a world heritage site. The villagers prospered after the discovery while Yang, now in his 70s, became a celebrity, well looked after by the government.

The expressions of the Emperor Qin’s (terracotta) soldiers and their generals are different. Moreover, while underground, their uniforms were colourful but turned grey after coming in contact with the air above the ground. Qin Shihuang deployed 72,000 craftsmen to work on the excavation project, spanning 18 years.

Xi’an now is a vibrant city surrounded by ancient city walls. The city is clean, neat, and green. One of the many tourist attractions is the Hui Muslim Street, a carnival for food lovers where a variety of halal food is available.

 

Baoji

A member of the group, Veronica Wong, told thesundaypost, “After a two-hour bus ride from Xi’an, we arrived in Baoji and stayed in a hotel run by the Famen Temple, where 2,000 treasures from the palace of the Tang Dynasty were buried 1,500 years ago. The temple tower is said to house a tooth of Buddha.”

From Baoji, a prefecture-level city in western Shaanxi Province, the group took a high-speed train to Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu Province in Northwest China and historically, a major link on the Northern Silk Road. The journey took 40 minutes but it could have been four hours using the road called Herxi Corridor, west of River Huanghe.

The group visited Tian Sui’s Maijishan Grottoes, climbing up the many winding stone steps to reach the top. The Grottoes house the biggest statues of Buddhist saints, said to be more than 1,000 years old.

The group then took a 300-mile bus trip from Tian Sui to see the great Huanghe (Yellow River), China’s Mother River and the cradle of Chinese civilisation.

The Huanghe flows from Qinghai Tibet 245 miles to Lanzhou and another 5,000 miles to the sea, causing many floods throughout Chinese history. For more than 2,000 years, people had been putting up with its wrath. Before the bridge was built in 1949 in Wuwei, a prefecture-level city in northwest central Gansu province, goatskin rafts were used to cross the river.

The group was happy to stroll along the footpaths, lined with willow trees, and beautiful flowers on the waterfront of the great Mother River. At Wuwei, they visited the Jiumoloshi Temple where, according to legend, a very eloquent Buddhist monk made a final wish for his tongue to be spared when his body was cremated.

Today, his three-inch long tongue can be seen in the tower of the temple, leading to the Chinese metaphor describing a man with a three-inch tongue as a very eloquent person.

 

Ganxu Province

The group made another stop at the historical Province of Ganxu, a gateway to the west. They saw the Temple of Big Buddha at Zhangyei, housing the biggest Sleeping Buddha in the world, built about 1,000 years ago during the Wei Dynasty.

It was said Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan, was born there. He overthrew the Sung Dynasty to become the emperor of the Yuan Dynasty.

 

Jincheng – Wine Font

One of the group’s most amazing stops was Jiucheong Wine Font. Around 130 BC, Han Wudi of the Han Dynasty sent a young general, Huo Chuebing, and his army to fight the nomadic Hu tribes at the border.

After their victory, the emperor sent a jug of wine to Huo as a reward. To share the wine with his men, Huo poured it into a font so that every man could taste the good wine, thus the name Jiucheong Wine Font. A few centuries later, a famous poet and wine lover, Li Bai, made his presence felt at the place.

 

Western end of Great Wall

From the western front, merchants and other visitors travelling from the west, along the Ancient Silk Road, had to pass through the gate at western end of Great Wall.

The Han Chinese in exile and the princesses sent to become brides of the chiefs of the nomadic tribes as a peace deal, left their homeland through this gate with a slim chance of ever returning. So it was moving out of Jiayuguan in north-western Gansu province with never-ending tears.

In the forefront lies the Gobi Desert, looking back at a gate of no return. Once out of Jiayuguan, it’s all desert – no birds in the sky, no grass on the mountains and no humans within thousands of miles – only stones flying in the wind.

After travelling over 400 miles and five hours along the born-dry Gobi Desert, the happy but tired Anthonians reached Dunhuang, a busy trade centre on the Ancient Silk Road. It’s a ‘meeting place’ of four ancient civilisations – Greek, Indian, Islam, and Chinese.

Mingsha Shan are the ‘Singing Sand Dunes’ in Dunhuang. When the wind blows, the dunes give out a singing or drumming sound.

In the middle lies a lake with clear blue water. The most thrilling site in Dunhuang for the group was the Mogao caves and grottoes.

According to the guide, in 366 AD, a travelling Buddhist monk saw a beautiful light on top of a hill. Taking it as a sign from Buddha, he built a cave to stay and meditate.

For the next few hundred years, more and more caves were built – from Jin to Wei and Shui to Tang. Colourful murals were painted on the walls and ceilings, depicting the lifestyles of the different eras. Thousands of handwritten scripts were also kept and sealed in one of the caves.

In 1900, a Taoist priest was made caretaker of Mogao. To make the caves look clean, he asked the workers to pile layers of cement over the paintings, obliterating the murals of several caves.

He also sold the ancient scripts to foreign explorers. These writings of antiquity are now displayed in museums in England, France and Russia.

 

Xinjiang

The group took a second high-speed train for a three-hour journey to Xinjiang which occupies one-sixth of China with a 20-million population consisting of Uighur, Kazak, Mongolian, and Han Chinese.

Security is very tight at Turfan, a prefecture-level city, located in the east of Xinjiang. It’s the driest (rainfall 16mm annually), hottest (temperature can reach 50 degrees C) and lowest (over 400 metres below sea level) region, yet the sweetest grapes are found there.

In the distance looms the Flaming Mountain where the legendary Monkey King borrowed the fan from the princess, Iron Fan, to put out the fire in the mountain.

While the Monkey King and his exploits are stuff of legends and myths, the story of the Tang monk, Xian Zhuang, is real. This was the same road he travelled on to India to get the original Buddhist scripture. He stayed in the ruined city of Gao Chang for some time.

After another three hours on the road, the group arrived at Urumqi, a multiracial-multicultural city with a beautiful mosque in the city centre.

“We also saw the breathtaking Tianshan, the snow-covered mountain that provides water through the melting ice and glaciers,” said Veronica.

Roy Sew, 77, and his wife Margaret Phua, a former Anthonian, were part of the group. The septuagenarian said he was happy to be travelling with his wife’s former classmates and other friendly Sarawakians.

Another member, George Lau, from Edmonton, Canada, said he could now call himself a ‘Silk Road explorer’ after travelling on the road with a 2,000-year history.

Wong Poh Eng, an Antonian, chipped in, “I’m impressed with the tremendous change in infrastructure, public transport, security and cleanliness of the place. So much has improved since my last visit nine years ago.”

Group leader Temenggong Frederick Wong, from Sarikei exclaimed, “A journey of a lifetime has ended. We have travelled close to 5,000 miles with four stops and four tour guides, up and down the stairs of train platforms lugging our luggage, checked in and out nine different hotels but we made it.”

He said they were celebrating 50 years of friendship “which is still going strong”.

“This trip will go down our shared memory lane. I only wish more of our classmates had come with us. Classmates and schoolmates should make it a point to organise reunions and go on trips together,” he added.