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Subashi Temple, A Quest for the Taklamakan, and the Road to Kashgar

Writer's picture: Simon DeSimon De


At the time of writing this I am now in Ishkashim, Tajikistan with a head cold (and at the time of publishing, in Qual'ai Khumb, with both head cold and something gastrointestinal) which I suppose shows (1) how behind I am in these posts, and (2) the impact of the relentless travel schedule. I suppose past travellers may have had more time, but significantly worse food and other conditions, so I shouldn’t moan. By this stage I think I have covered at least 5800km by car/train (very likely more, I will do a precise calculation later) so I suppose it’s not surprising that I’m a bit under the weather and now have a some lazy hotel days to write/finalize this.


Subashi Temple

About 20 km northwest of Kuqa lies the ruins of Subashi Temple, which I was determined to visit. During the drive I managed to finish reading a great book, thank you Will for this kind gift! It seems I am largely following in the footsteps of Francis Younghusband with my northerly Silk Road route!


An excellent book:


I cannot recall if I first read about Subashi Temple during my various Silk Road readings, or whether I simply found it on a map during my long hours scouring satellite imagery of the Silk Road (yes, I use satellite imagery to plan many of my holidays – I am a strange person, but I like to know what to expect). I was still a bit elated at getting to see both Jiaohe and Gaochang earlier, so as we drove up to Subashi Temple ruins and it appeared to be both open and in an impressively scenic location, I was pleased. Not only that, but it also had only a small number of tourists and tourist facilities, which was great.


Flowing down from a cleft in the Tian Shan mountains behind the site (which lies at an altitude of around 1150 meters), the Kuqa River bisects the Subashi site, which is itself significant in size (it covers around 190,000 square meters). The name “Subashi” apparently means “water source” in the Uyghur language, which I suppose is not surprising given its controlling position over the Kuqa River. It seems the Buddhist monks were not all about religious practice perhaps… On one side of the river are most of the above ground ruins, temples, stupas, monastery buildings etc., and on the other lies a small cliff face, covered in grottoes and caves akin to a mini Mogao Caves – given the distance and time of day, I did not visit this side of the site. However, I spent a lot of time at the main site to the West.


Subashi overview from small museum adjacent to ruins, click to see full images:



There are several impressive buildings at the main site which I managed to snap a few photos of, after waiting for other tourists to get out of the way of course. There was a great hall of impressive size, I wonder if it looked similarly to the halls of Tongren Monastary in its heyday?


Subashi itself:



One of the buildings looked a great deal like a ruined ziggurat (yes, the type of Sumerian/Middle East origin) which I found amusing and will have to do more reading on once I have access to a library/archive. From what I have read, this “ziggurat” is actually an impressive pagoda and the only one of its type in the region. I will have to look to see if there are any artists’ reconstructions of the site (it would be interesting to see the same of Jiaohe and Gaochang also).


The ruins of a unique "pagoda" at Subashi whic I felt was a ziggurat (slideshow):



During the entire visit to Subashi, it was impressively windy, which made the heat more comfortable, but frustrated video audio efforts and to some extent my second attempt at flying the drone. Wind warnings be damned, I flew the drone for about a minute for a quick panorama before managing to land it awkwardly, albeit without incident. That footage can wait for future edited videos.


Future Drone Video(s) here:

 

History of Subashi Temple

First constructed during the Wei-Jin Dynasties (220-420 AD), Subashi reached its zenith during the Tang Dynasty (618-907), when it was allegedly home to around 10,000 monks and countless pilgrims. Subashi also welcomed the travelling monk Xuanzang who I wrote about in my prior post on Gaochang.

During the high point of Subashi’s existence, which also coincided with a period of peace and general prosperity, the increased administrative importance of nearby Kuqa, allowed Subashi to play a key role in the spread of a type of Buddhism allegedly peculiar to Kuqa/Subashi. By the 13th century AD, as Kuqa and other nearby regions declined, Subashi did as well, and ultimately it fell into ruin / its present state.

In 1903 Subashi was partly excavated by the Japanese Buddhist and adventurer Count Otani (who one reads about in Silk Road literature), and later by Frenchman Paul Pelliot.  Both Otani and Pelliot rediscovered and then removed various masterworks of Buddhist art from the site, including some impressively decorated “Sariras” or Buddhist relic boxes, which display a Tocharian art style. These items now reside in Japanese and French museums respectively. The Subashi site is also known for what came to be called the “Witch of Subashi”, which is a mummified corpse of a woman found wearing pointed hat. I did not see any of these on site so will need to do more reading into them when I have a reliable internet connection / library access.

 

The Quest for the Taklamakan!

Seeing the Taklamakan and being able to look upon its vastness was one of the key goals of my visit to China. Although, I am sure many a Silk Road traveller rightly would have sought to avoid it (hence the routes that run north and south of it). However, its reach has increased over time until recently it seems, swallowing cities such as Lop Nor which Sven Hedin and Aurel Stein explored, meaning likely many other Silk Road sites now likely sit within it.


For such an enormous natural feature, one would think that it would be easily accessible, even on a schedule as regimented as my own. However, as the reader will find out, getting to the Taklamakan is surprisingly difficult without enormous detours and days added to the trip. China’s enormous efforts to reclaim land from desert through irrigation and planned planting of certain types of trees/shrubs has resulted in vast swathes of land which was previously desert now either becoming arable land, or in the process of so becoming. Military sites also occupy large areas adjacent to this wasteland, and for obvious reasons I could not venture near to these. What this means is that one must drive through a considerable buffer to get to the desert proper. My options were, (1) visiting the site near to Aksu which the tour company had advised, or (2) taking the road straight through the desert from Aral/Aksu to Hotan, or (3) my subsequent alternative (en route to Kashgar). After realizing the first option was touristy and verboten, I had thought we would take option two through the desert to Hotan en route to Kashgar (as sure chance of vast dunes, just look at satellite images); however, my driver changed this plan last minute without clearly communicating it (but understandable, as it would have been a long grim journey), resulting in another attempt to reach the desert en route to Kashgar the following day.


The plans to see the desert:


As mentioned, the first site of the dunes of the Taklamakan was unfortunately at a form of tourist site (which from this point on I needed to more clearly veto) which seemed to be under construction. I ignored all of this rubbish and walked through to the other side of the construction site where, fortunately, dunes were to be found. This visit rather confirmed my growing sense of western China/Xinjiang in general, that rather than a desert waste of romantic golden hues akin to fanciful images of Arabia, the deserts of China/Mongolia are colder and significantly more grey/hazy, in large part thanks to the altitude and unceasing winds throwing up dust (A few have mocked my sunglasses, I say to you, they are essential in this environment (and now Tajikistan as well) to minimize dust in the eyes as well as sun!). I had already gained this sense during the drives to Khara Khoto and Dunhuang, this confirmed it. The greyish sands of the Gobi in Mongolia and the Taklamakan fill the air, and this results in what one could confuse as smog, but what I think is that exact dust which blankets China’s fields and plateaus, and which fills its rivers with silt. It also gives a peculiarly sombre feel to some of its sites, it is little wonder that Silk Road travellers would complain of evil spirits on the winds.


My view on this is I think confirmed within this excellent quote from the equally excellent book Tournament of Shadows[1] (thank you Andrew for the recommendation!):


"Reckoned by geographers as the second largest desert in the world (320,000 square kilometres), the Taklamakan remains a vast uninhabitable waste. In Turkic Taklamakan means "Go in and you won't come out. Whipped and sculpted by unceasing winds and surrounded on three sides by mountains, it forms an ever-shifting shroud over the ruins of the Silk Road's vanished cities.


Sir Clairmont Skrine [Clarmont Percival Skrine, b.1888, d.1974, was British Consul in Kashgar from 1922-1924] who lived next to it in Kashgar graphically evoked its special terrors: "The yellow dunes of the Taklamakan, like the giant waves of a petrified ocean, extend in countless myriads to the far horizon... they seem to clamour silently, those dunes, for travellers to engulf, and for whole caravans to swallow up, as they have swallowed up so many in the past.""


What more needs to be said?


Here are a few shots of the endless dunes, although, I admit to being irritated at the proximity to a tourist site:



Given the slight dissatisfaction with this visit, I resolved to visit the desert again the following day, ideally from a position where Sir Clairmont Skrine himself may have looked upon those dunes. That said, given the amount of land reclaimed from desert through China’s efforts described above, the chance of this is I think slim, as there is over 100km from Kashgar itself to the edge of the desert in Makit County (where I had planned to go as Option 3, once again using satellite to plan the journey). This required a significant detour whilst heading from Aksu to Kashgar and resulted in us arriving at the hotel in Kashgar at around 11:30pm.

This was one of the longest periods of driving on the trip to date which I can’t say was terribly exciting, however, it did allow me to see the numerous areas of cultivated land and many small villages each with their own unique feel (also, irritatingly festooned with speed bumps, which should be physically removed along with the bureaucrats who likely argue for them).


We had some difficulty finding the best spot to access the desert, but when we finally arrived, I must say I was a bit shocked irritated with myself, to have found what turned out to be a large tourist site called N39. I had thought it was just some industrial site we could drive through. We did try a detour of another few kilometres, but the roads were blocked with bushes and scrub (perhaps intentionally). Given it was 7 pm and we still had several hours drive to Kashgar, I resolved to check out the damn tourist site. However, all was not lost when I read a bit more about the site and got a chance to glimpse the desert beyond. The curious name “N39” is apparently a reference to the line of latitude on which Sven Hedin, the famous Silk Road explorer, first embarked on his own failed attempt to cross the Taklamakan from West to East. The actual desert dunes (without tourist paraphernalia) were in fact a couple of kilometres from the main tourist buildings and other sites, which was promising. There were a few options to get out to it, and I had to settle on the dune buggy for a paltry 200 yuan. It wasn’t exactly the leisurely Silk Road camel pace, but I must admit I enjoyed it a lot and captured all of it on GoPro. About 10 minutes, at least a mouthful of sand and a few near barrel-roll moments later, we were at the dunes. In the far distance I could still see some scrubland in certain directions, it would have to do. I think Daniel (my driver) seemed to enjoy the dune buggy ride as well 😊.


Taklamakan, attempt No. 2:

 

Given the time of day, I managed to capture the sunset as a bonus. Curiously, it too was not the golden rays imagined, but the sombre dusty grey which I now know is the true essence of the Taklamakan. Perhaps this realization, not quite one of disillusionment, but rather of seeing the world as it truly is, not through a lense or a filter, may become a theme or one of the raisons d’etre for this little blog.


Sunset in the gloomy Taklamakan (unedited):



History of the Taklamakan

It's a desert, it's been rather sandy and cruel.

 

Onward to Kashgar

After leaving the desert we continued onwards to Kashgar, but given the time of day, I haven’t much to say about the drive as it was dark. We did stop briefly for fuel, where, to my amusement, I found bottled Tim Hortons coffee (as expected, it was as bad as in Canada). On the highway we spotted the speed cameras emitting strange multi-coloured beams into space, satellite data perhaps. Curious. The lights of metropolitan Kashgar were, as is frequently the case I find in Chinese city centres, quite impressive.


A few random snaps from the late night drive to Kashgar:


 

Next up, Kashgar and an introduction to the Great Game!


[1] Tournament of Shadows, by Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair-Brysac.

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