We are in Kaifeng, Henan, now. This area is steeped in history, as most of China’s dynasties have called the cities of this region their capitals. The Henan capital, Zhengzhou, about 80 km wwest of here, was the capital of the Shang dynasty 3500 years ago. Xian, with it’s terracotta wariors from a couple thousand years ago, is west of Zhengzhou. If you include Beijing, about 300 km northeast of here, almost all China’s governments have been here. Kaifeng was the capital, off and on, for hundreds of years. Little remains of anything more than a few hundred years old in kaifeng because it has a history of flooding eveery few years, and much of the acncient ruins are under several meters of sediment. There are no highrises here because they know there are ruins deep underground and don’t want to drive skyscraper supports into them. The nicest thing in Kaifeng is this temple, built in the 1600’s. You’ve seen so many temple pictures, so here is just one shot of part of it.
The best thing in there is this thousand eyed and thousand handed Avelokateshvara, or Guan Yin. She is the goddess of compassion who sees the suffering of the world with a thousand eyes and lends a thousand hands to help.
An hour and a halaf west of Zhengzhou are the famous Longmen Caves. This place is one of those World Heritage Sites that deserves the billing. It’s no Ellora or Ajanta in India, but it is the third best rock carving site of this kind I’ve ever seen. The earliest of these were carved out of the mountain in the late third century AD, The latest was in the 11th century, just like at Ellora and Ajanta.
We can feel the end of the China phase of our travels coming. Myung’s about had it with
China, and is looking forward to Pakistan and Iran. We haven’t heard back about our “reference numbers” for Iran yet, but we are hopeful. Right now, we are hanging around Kaifeng until our train leaves for Taiyuan, Shanxi, at 8-something tonight. We’ll go to the museum there, at least, tomorrow because it’s supposed to be the best provencial museum in China. Then I will go to Pingyao,, about an hour and a half southwest of there. It’s a famous old city. “Raise the Red Lantern” was filmed there, if you want to picture it. I’m sure it’s on my cctv link under “Shanxi”. Myung may not go because she’s been there and resents the admission costs. That’s understandable. Over time, these exorbitant fees take their toll. Other than that, China’s not too expensive. Then we will likely hang out in and around Beijing. Myung wants to bag Beijing and stay in Tianjin even though there is nothing in particular to see there. I haven’t decided. Then we’ll head out west, stopping at Xian.
I’m still debating whether to go to Pakistan. I think it’ll be alright, but how good is “I think…”? there’s a fatwa out against americans, but I don’t plan to go to any real hot areas. Mehenjo Daro and Harrapa are pretty close to Pashtun, so I may stick to those big tourist sites. Yeah, Swat Valley is out. Myung is particulary looking forward to taking the Karakoram Highway through the Hindu Kush from Xinjiang to Islamabad. That would be beautiful, and having just read “Three Cups of Tea”, well…. I think I will tentatively go and get the lay of the the land, then decide whether to stay. Maybe I won’t stay long. The other thing is that Pakistan is between China and Iran. If I can get into Iran, I hope not to have to fly there.
Nothing is easy.
That’s about it for now. Be well, all of you.