Traveling with a caravan through China and Mongolia in the Far-eastern Asia

This trip was made on the camper through Russia, Kazakhstan, China, Siberia.
In China we stayed 83 days. We have seen the desert in the east, the interior villages of the mountains, the gorges of yangs Nanjing, Shanghai, Beijing and the Great Wall.
We stopped at the tents of the knights Gher pastors of the Republic of Mongolia. We visited the Siberian city of Asiatic Russia.

 

China

At the end of so much expectation and so much hope, at last I and my husband Maurizio we crown our dream of visiting, in campers, China. After almost a month's trip with stops along the route, visiting Moscow and 'crossing of Kazakhstan, May 13 sighted the red flag with 5 stars of China and, emozionantissimi, we are presenting at the border. Frightened by dozens of guards in full uniform and green cap with red stripe that there are an infinite number of signals, we put ourselves in line to visit the passport and we, with great wonder, the warmth and availability rivoltaci. Although a little late, in fact, we do not close their doors in the face, but, rather, are in four to help the transition. The journey resumed the following day, completed all the formalities under the wing of our Top Ten guide.
We arrive at Urumqi, after passing through several towns and stayed in some of them, to stop a couple of days. We have an opportunity to participate in the daily lives of Chinese, active and always smiling. We realize that working a lot, from morning until 10 pm, with no days of rest and a day of rest per month! The city streets are full of small shops with colorful signs near the largest of the space itself. The restaurants are everywhere in China, as in Italy, there is always a place where you can stop to eat at any time, day or night. The only problem is the quality of food for us is too spicy!
Even the markets are open continuously morning and afternoon and the products displayed, divided by sectors, is a lot, and varies from cell phones, clothing, fruit, vegetables, meat and fish. Is not bread, but in this area where there is a strong presence of Uighurs, un'etnia of Turkish origin, is a kind of delicious bread, cooked in pit ovens. The milk is found in shops and lots of toilet paper that is even used in restaurants instead of napkins! Another characteristic that makes us think is that for young children are not used or strollers or wheelchairs, but are always kept in his arms and most do not wear diapers or even underwear, but the horse with shorts open. The journey continues through a desert area and it seems to be in Tunisia with lush oasis in the distance where the vine is grown and not so much to make wine, but for drying the grapes in special drying places outside the cities and cut, along with melons and prunes, dried fruit that is the major source of income of the area. We stop a couple of days to Dunhuang, where we visit the "Sand Dune that clink" and, on some roads still under construction, others beautiful with toll toll every 100 miles, we move to Tibet.
Beautiful cross almost uninhabited areas and begin to climb in altitude. The last stop, before facing the only road to Lhasa to Golmud to do. And then we move along the rail construction of approximately 1160 kilometers, we will venture on the Tibetan highlands through beautiful meadows surrounded in the distance from the mountains just sprinkled with snow and dotted with large herds of yak grazing peacefully. Micro cross country lying on either side of the road, and salt in a desert entirely devoid of trees, climb up the Kunlun 4849 meters and, after the passage of 5231 meters Tansguza accusing, of course, sore mountain.
Finally, after four days, we descend to Lhasa where we dive into a life of days gone by the office of mysticism and folklore. Almost all wear traditional clothing and hairstyles. Those wonderful men and women Khauipa with silver rings and red ribbons braided raven hair. The city, situated below the majestic Potala, the winter residence and governmental center of the Dalai Lama, is full of pilgrims, on foot, go to visit the Buddhist temple of Jokhang, the most sacred of Tibet. Sorry for not being able to stay more, we leave Lhasa to head to the famous three gorges of the Yangtze through a part of China untouched by international tourism.
We pass through villages and towns of a few million inhabitants, but also through endless campaigns where every square centimeter of land, even loose soil of a landslide, is grown with lots of care seem to be a framework. The road, however, is used for drying fruits and vegetables, to beat the wheat and other household activities. Come to Xi'an where we visit the Muslim quarter with a beautiful mosque and the eighth wonder of the world: the terracotta warriors. Thousands of life-size statues and a beautiful museum housed in specially built structures. With a hot sultry come to Fengje which we leave for a short cruise on the Yangtze River. The water of the dam has already risen by 100 meters for the three beautiful gorges with steep walls remains almost anything.
In 2009 will rise for the last 75 meters and will be evacuated around 9 million people. We continue the trip in the mountainous part of China with a stop at the famous Shaolin school of kung fu also undergoing vast and beautiful terraced rice fields, until you get to Shanghai. The town welcomes us with its vibrant everyday life, and there is nell'ideale mix of old and new: in the modern skyscrapers of concrete and glass, the districts with low houses and a myriad of activities from food, the souvenirs for tourists from shops stuck to one another to flea markets. For those who like us had never seen the great American cities, Shanghai suggests the idea of a modern metropolis. Obviously there are great shops such as, for example, a large emporium Benetton, an exhibition of Porche and beautiful, an exhibition of Ferrari in strict "all red"! There are also moves very well for themselves, without guidance, using the metro and modern without being, above all, the subject of pickpocketing, theft and so on. The city at night has shocked us to the abundance and sophistication of illuminated signs, for the illumination of the majestic buildings of the Bund financial, for the charming liveliness of Pudong and, especially, for the animated and lively and long on Huangpu River.
The Shanghai Museum was significant to have any notion of art and culture of China. Leaving the city for several kilometers along the Grand Canal lined with long rows of large barges and after a stop in Qifu birthplace of Confucius, we come to Beijing. Under a torrid sun un'afa indescribable and we are going to visit the capital starting from the Temple of Heaven, but, above all, the vast Tiananmen Square, where stands the monument to the heroes of the People, the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong and the gate of Heavenly Peace, which gives access to the Forbidden City. In the square waving a dozen red flags that remind us that we are in a communist country! The visit to the vast Forbidden City will make a tough test, but we reward a dinner made of lacquered duck and an acrobatic show for tourists.
The next day we visit the Summer Garden and the following days to pay them less artistic Beijing and famous, but more real wander around the hutong, the streets where daily life is full of Peking, the parks where you go to relax and have fun when can animate and alleys of commerce. Leaving Beijing could not miss a visit to the tombs Impe

Mongolia

Mongolia
Crossed the border with China we are in Mongolia and, more specifically, in the Gobi desert. The road to Ulaan Baatar, the capital, about 800 kilometers long is a way to say so, because in fact it is only a trail of earth, gravel, sand, flanked only by rail transmongolica, which runs at about 20 Km all ' hours unless silting! Every now and in the distance there are a few Hungary, the tents are typical of this people that even today 50% are nomadic. The only form of life that you meet, with some rare car, motorcycle or truck, are herds of horses, cows or camels. As can survive in this desert is a mystery because the water there is not proper, even in villages which, periodically, have supplied the precious liquid from the tanker.
What, however, the carcasses are plentiful and the calcined bones of dead animals along the road. However, the silence, peace, the vastness of this desert, in a word, the beauty abundantly repays the stress of travel. About 200 kilometers from the city, however, appears to spell the paved road and arrive in a flash to Ulaan Baatar who welcomes us so rough but good-natured. The day after we move to the Natural Park of Terelj stop where two days on the banks of the river to collect mushrooms, walk and rest. From here we reach the monastery, Buddhist Manzushir in the middle of the mountains and we see that all around the car park is full of edelweiss spontaneous. Religion in Mongolia is Tibetan Buddhism, and temples are similar to those of Tibet. Let us return to Ulaan Baatar, where, after 4 months of bites, we can eat in a restaurant, a nice steak whole to be cut with a knife!
Return the road to the north, but at some point deviamo to the west and walk about 40 kilometers to Karakorin the ancient Mongolian capital of Gengis Kan, where we visit the beautiful monastery and temple Erden Zuu retains that beautiful jewels of Buddhist worship. So beautiful we have not seen even in Lhasa because they were protected and hidden from the population to the arrival of communism and now, that the nation became independent, have been replicated to the cult are not popular and beautiful as those copies Tibetan but true in their integrity and age. Karakorin left back and, with a deviation of about 35 kilometers on the road, we visit the monastery of Amarbayasgalant. Again, the beauty of the sacred place, lost in the middle of a vast and uninhabited prairie, surrounded by mountains, and reward the effort from the dust of the road. What has come to my attention most of Mongolia is the beauty of the boundless blue sky, the vastness of the desert grasslands, the people kind and friendly, but reserved most of the Chinese and the number of horses, cows and flocks scattered everywhere.
The horse is the symbol and the means of transportation common to this country. Children learn from very small to ride a horse and saddle is always out of Hungary, near the tent and away from the herd, just like a car. Another pause for half a day to do the Erdenet where we visit the market. Unlike China and because of lack of water fruits and vegetables have been reduced to the Meletta, potatoes, carrots, cabbage and tomato, some rare. Return the road soon brings us to the border with Russia.
On returning home, coming, unfolds through Siberia with stops on the shores of Lake Baikal where we plunge into its icy waters, but all too inviting. After we stopped at Ulan Ude, Irkus, Novosibinsk and Yekaterinburg, the Urals riattraversiamo returning to Europe. Brief stop in Kazan, which is celebrating 1000 years of foundation, in Minsk, Belarus, and Czestochowa, Poland. At the end of September we happily returned to Italy full of baggage that weighs not but, above all, never forget it somewhere.