CHINA 2008

We decide to watch the eclipse of August 1 near Yiwu in western China, north of Tibet and south-west of Mongolia, in the Xinjuang (ethnic Uygur) province.  Our small group begins a Silk Road tour in Urumqi, a surprisingly green place further from an ocean than any other city on earth.

People here take their personal honour seriously, judging by the way they drive and the fact that the most numerous items for sale in the bazaar are nuts, dried fruit, and daggers. I walk around town for a couple of hours without seeing another westerner (although there are many eclipse freaks staying  in the hotels).   I am also surprised by not seeing any motorbikes (later I learn they are banned from the city).  We have dinner at a Muslim restaurant. Some novelties in old Urumqi: We meet people who've not seen the sea. No motorbikes in town, No westerners around, And no wine at dinner for me.

This Urumqi stone lion looks a bit worried. Perhaps we should withdraw our funds from the bank he is guarding

We know Urumqi is remote, but I am impressed when we drive to a mountain lake and see a sign on the freeway which says "Altay City 650 km".  We find out later that these signs show the distance to the last town on the route, not the next town.  But if you look in your atlas you will see virtually nothing between Urumqi and Altay City anyway.

We drive to Turpan, known (in my opinion, correctly) as the hottest place in China.  When we were organising our trip, the tour company said "don't go there in summer".  On the freeway, a sign says "4,160 km to Dalian" and there is another sign, counting down, every kilometre.  Our guide tells us that a "gobi" is any stony desert, not just one.  We drive past hours of gobi and the biggest wind farm in Asia.

We saw the thousand-turbine wind farm;
Crossed the gobi to get to Turpan.
It's a long way to go,
And there is one thing we know,
We're 4,000 k from Dalian.

Turpan is another green place.  Grape growing is the major industry and has been for a thousand years and more, assisted by an amazing network of underground water conduits developed over all that time.

The grape is the basis of Turpan. Who's a lover of grapes?  Well now, I am. And when they write down The list of who likes this town, First there's me, then there's Omar Khayyam.                 In this heat, the town comes to life after dark There are open-air markets, open-air restaurants, and open-air pool rooms.  In the main city park, where there is a stage for concerts, the manhole  covers have a treble clef design.

We take donkey carts through the 2000-year- old ruined city of Gaochang, then drive to Hami, the largest city near our eclipse viewing site.  Again, many hours of relentless badlands then a green city with tree-lined streets.  Much fruit is grown here and the city centre roundabout features The Big Melon Slice.  Until the eclipse, the main Hami tourist attractions  were the giant steam locomotives still working here. Every winter, train buffs from around the world flock to take movies of the engines spouting smoke and steam into the frigid Hami air.

Next day is eclipse day.  A very scenic drive to the smaller town of Yiwu, and then half an hour further to the official designated viewing site. On the way, the local council stops all traffic to charge each visitor a fee of 300 kwai, about 50 Australian dollars  ("kwai" is universal Chinese slang for "yuan").  They throw in a half-hour wait at no extra cost.

The official viewing area is a shadeless hell-hole gobi at Weizi Gorge, miles from anywhere, with a newly-built observing building which I reckon will never be used again.

We worry about the intermittent cloud for most of the afternoon, but the sun is visible for nearly an hour after first contact.  With ten minutes to second contact, cloud covers the sun and gloom covers the multitude (4,000 international visitors came to Hami).

The official viewing area.  You want shelter, bring your own	Seven minutes before second contact, we are pessimistic

Five minutes to go, the sun reappears, and the gamble of paying for our trip has paid off.

The cloud was a bit of a danger,
But the eclipse was as good as we wagered.
And we shouldn't be shy
About the 300 kwai
We paid Yiwu Council to stage it.

Mayor:  We won't make the budget this year.
Deputy Mayor:  What can we do?
Mayor:  Let's have an eclipse.  People would come from all over to see it.
Deputy:  Done deal.  We can charge them fifty bucks each.

We enjoy totality for a couple of seconds less than two minutes.  To me the corona seems more compact than during other eclipses.  With the naked eye I can see some prominences just before third contact.  The diamond ring at third contact seems to be a more concentrated single point than at other times.

Photo:  Hiroaki Kuwahara	Photo:  Norihiro Doshita

Our bus is one of the last to return to Hami because we stop for dinner by the roadside.  The final 80 km section is heavily infested with semi-trailers.  Some police say to our driver "follow us and you'll be back by midnight".  They lead us down the mountain, lights flashing, sirens shrieking, wrong side of the road, and save us (our driver says) more than an hour.  We never find out why.  Maybe they thought we were VIPs, or maybe they just invented an excuse to get home early.

At Dunhuang, we ride camels to 200-metre high sand dunes. Those with more energy than your correspondent climb the dunes and slide down on toboggans.  At dinner we eat many exotic delights including roast donkey and boiled camel feet.

The donkeys took us up to the ruins,
The camels took us up to the dunes.
When we see such cattle,
Should we look for a saddle,
Or pick up the forks and the spoons?

A day in Lanzhou.  Pleasant to sit at the top of the hill near the White Pagoda, watching hundreds of swallows, eating beef noodles and looking over the city.  We cross the river on rafts of pumped-up sheepskins.  

Lanzhou's an interesting town,
With the swallows all zooming around.
We eat noodles with beef,
And float on the sheep--
And the Yellow River is brown.

Looking across the brown Yellow River at polluted Lanzhou.  Note the swallow		We cross the river on this raft of inflated sheepskins

We go to Xi'an and see the terracotta army.  As amazing as you would expect.  Most amazing is what has been found recently and how much more they expect to find.  Also amazing is our day in the Hua Mountains; you thought those brush paintings were exaggerations, but no.

Three ways the mountain to climb.
The bus and the cable-car are fine.
For those with some pep,
The thirty thousand steps.
I would have walked them, but didn't have time.

Xi'an is the end of our tour, and we fly to Shanghai and home.  We had a great time and our memories of China are mostly good.  What do we remember the most?

The eclipse will always shine through.
The terracotta army, the mountains, the food--
The bus overtaking
Was simply breathtaking;
Alas, the toilets were too.

In outback China, except in the international hotels, expect white-knuckle driving and memorable toilets.  But also expect to see astounding things and meet wonderful people.  If you can find some excuse to visit Urumqi and Turpan, go there.  

Now we are looking forward to the eclipse of July 2009.

We also look forward to reunions with many old friends we see only at total eclipses of the sun.

You might think I'm a strange sort of dreamer,
Meeting friends by a totality schema.
But this year I'll see you
At Hami and Yiwu.
Next year, Kita-io-jima.

We intend to watch the 2009 eclipse south of Japan.  The centre line goes through the Tokaretto Islands (south of Kagoshima) and the island of Kita-io-jima (North Iwo Jima).

Previous eclipse, Mediterranean 2006