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Published: October 2nd 2007
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It's been a crazy week, of finding our feet on the road, working out some Mandarin, trying to decide on an itinerary (me and Tegan?? decide things?? ha!) but Xinjiang is truly spectacular.
Beijing was kind of a blur. We'll have to go back if only to meet up with Andy the crazy German and learn some salsa. It was so surreal to stand in Tian'anmen Square and think about democracy protests, Falun Gong, Mao's legacy... such an amazing place. People trying to hawk postcards, little red books, long strings of kites, capitalism making a stand. And in the giant building in the centre of the Square lies "pickled Mao"... apparently the police presence is all in aid of the National holiday in the first week of October.
So we took the train to Urumqi. 40 hours of sleeping, listening to other people's snores, eating instant noodles, playing "Cho Dai Di" with the Uighur people in our cabin, talking about Tegan's hair, being bored.
It was ok. This time, there was no wall between the cabin and corridor, which meant I had to share my top bunk with my luggage, a bit squishy!
Outside we zoomed past farms, farms,
farms - bundles of maize tied to roof beams, spread along door steps ledges roof eaves... bright yellow against the browning autumn. Donkies, doors set into cliff faces, bicycle harvesters, torrents of school kids in matching tracksuits, shepherds and flock, handmade haystacks, old men on battered motorbikes... Then we were suddenly somewhere else, with high steep cliffs of melted-looking rocks, and churning brown rivers. There was tunnel after tunnel, it was almost not worth looking outside for a while. And then desert, barren plain stretching out to the toes of snow-topped mountains in the distance. It looked really cold out there.
Our Uighur friends got off the train early, before we woke up on the second day. By then we were well and truly in the desert. Not much happening either side of the train, but the occasional factory. We got out our instruments, and suddenly we were surrounded. Lots of women asking us if we knew how to play this hymn or that, an old guy who pulled out some Django-style gypsy tunes on Tegan's little guitar...
Then a huge windfarm, and suddenly we were in Urumqi.
In the hubbub of the train station, we were fortunate
enough to be looked after by the Han Chinese man who also shared our cabin, and he shared a cab with us to our hotel, making sure we made it! He works in oil in Venezuela, and was coming home for a holiday after 5 months away...
Our cheap hotel room turned out to be pretty swish, with king-sized single beds and hot water and a real flushing toilet. wahooo!
We set out to see Urumqi. First we wandered the Peoples' Park, hoping to pass some time before the museum opened. The park was amazing! Truly full of people of all ages, but mostly older folk playing music together or separately, learning steps to a dance, smoking on park benches in the sun. So pleasant after the claustrophobic train ride and hustle of Beijing. We sat and watched a couple of different musicians. One old guy playing accordion, a man in an immaculate suit, singing along. So many battered and mis-matched suits, skull-caps, golf caps, battered straw hats, scarves, anything.
We made it to the museum, practising our Mandarin - "bowuguan zhai nar?" and spent a few hours checking out ancient artefacts from a hundred different cultures that
have all called this place home.
The museum has about 6 mummies, exhumed from various tombs in desert ruins around Xinjiang. Fascinating to see reconstructions and collections of what was buried with whom, etc...
More fun to be found looking at the collections of musical instruments from all the different ethnic groups around here, sadly they were firmly locked away behind glass. Every bit of information was loaded with "motherland glory" though and after a while it was all too much... China has a vested interest in keeping Xinjiang, especially after the violent separatist movement of the late 90's. China's interests in Central Asian resources, namely oil, are not to be underestimated.
Urumqi has wide streets, with never-ending roadworks and construction. The footpaths are paved with tiles, and frequently used as extra road space by impatient drivers. People pushing carts everywhere selling hot coal-roasted sweet potatoes, boiled maize, roasted chestnuts, raisins and grapes from Turpan, and the ubiquitous water bottles.
We braved the night markets, assaulted by shishkebabs on all sides, and even a whole roasting goat. Old style juicers squeezing fresh pomegranates (SOUR), beggars, old ladies selling packets of tissues (essential for toilets here), young kids pointing
at Tegan. We ate hot and delicious eggplant, capsicum and green-bean kebabs, yum...
The next day we locked up our luggage and headed off to find the bus to Tian Shi, or "heavenly lake". We made it, got a ticket and scrambled for a seat for the 3 hour drive to the northern side of the mountains. With a bewildering stop at a centre for traditional medicine, we eventually made it to the extremely touristy entrance to the park. The queue for the chairlift stretched down the road and wasn't moving fast, so we decided to take a bit of a walk up the hill instead. The track was about 4 or 5km long, and went up to an altitude of about 1700m. It was cold in the shade.
Along the way there were Kazakh women selling saffron, weird looking roots and mushrooms, cheap jewellery, and kebabs. We made it, and the first stop was the Deep Dragon pool, also called "little heavenly lake", spectacular reward for our efforts. Just above it was the "Suspended Rainbow waterfall" and then - we were there. Coming around the corner the view was staggering, a huge clear lake between pine-forested slopes of
snow-topped mountains. The sun warm on the skin but the wind was pretty chilly. We sat and contemplated, then went to explore. By the lake's edge were racks of Kazakh costumery for those inclined to dress up and take photos. Their colours were amazing! Kazakh men kept coming up to ask if we wanted to go for a horse ride up along the mountains, and I would have loved to but we had to take the bus back that night. We strolled around and found a performance of traditional dance along with a cranking bass beat that would be at home driving along freo's cappucino strip.
We walked further up to the village of yurts perched on the hillside overlooking the lake. Perhaps not as traditional as they could have been, some of them wrapped in plastic & made with metal poles now Our companion was Pierre, an Italian professor of ancient Aramaic scripts with a passion for nomadic civilisations, in China for a conference. He was full of information about yurts & nomadic life, and pointed out the proper place for men's gear and women's inside the yurt, where we had hot milky tea and dried plums.
Eventually we
had to go, and we queued for ages for the chairlift, a silent and speedy ride back down the hillside it took us 2 hours to climb!
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