Blogs from Xinjiang, China, Asia
April 2nd 2012
Now I am back to my journey, I went to Xinjiang, the province of China from extreme west, gateway to Pakistan. Xinjiang province has huge area, also a Muslim province, so people there are different from Han ethnic, they are Uyghur, and the most of them look like western people, even some of them has green eyes. This time I went there with Hao, a friend from last company where I was working in China, she got a 9 days vacation, we got a train from Shanghai to Lanzhou, then tried to get a train from Lanzhou to Turpan, but that was impossible, because of holiday so many Chinese were moving, there was no train ticket for next 5 days, so we had no choose, only by bus for a 22 hours of journey. Just to ... read more
November 21st 2011
SILK ROAD TRIP 2010 TULUFAN-East Xinjiang. Another highlight of the silk Road is the old area of Tulufan, which is the third lowest depression in the world and below sea level. It has very little snow or rain, but plenty of underground rivers from the snow mountains a long way away for growing lots of food. Grapes and melons from the Mediterranean area especially grow well here. The area is also very Islamic and cosmopolitan also, with many of the older woman dressing like Italian movie stars out of the 1950s with lots of, scarfs, eye makeup and sequins. There was a lot to see in this area, so spent a few days here; deserted ancient ruins, coloured stony desserts, villages, orchards, markets, tombs, Mosques, Buddhist stupas all in the one area. The pictures show the ... read more
November 21st 2011
SILK ROAD TRIP 2010 URUMQI, KASHGAR AND WESTERN BORDER AREA URUMQI Arrived at Urumqi in middle of night in terminal that was like enclosed bus shelter without seats, so sleeping there not option. only paid about 20% more than expected in hotel with clean sterile white walls ,so next morning with help of the same taxi driver, moved to a youth hostel style hotel with writing all over walls. There were no other westerners here, very westernised young Chinese traveller-backpackers from all over China. This is the first time I had seen so many Chinese travellers outside the tour group setup. It was very encouraging to see. URUMQI This is the most inland city in the world, (It’s a long way to the beach) URUMQI, the capital of Xinjiang, is a typical ethnic Han Chines city, ... read more
August 31st 2011
When I arrived in Kashgar first, before I went up the Old Silk Road, I had a good look aorund the fabulous Youth Hostel. I saw on the notice board a request from a Uyghur young woman saying something like, “I would like to take you on a free tour of my home town of Kashgar. I will improve my English while I tell you about Uyghur culture and customs.” I had noted her number and called her that evening. When there was no answer I sent her a text message. As luck would have it, just when I was groaning to myself about 2 ½ more days in Kashgar Sofia rang and arranged to meet me! Sofia is Uyghur, 30 years of age and does not look Chinese. Her features reflect the deep central Asian ... read more
August 27th 2011
Before I began this trip I had bought my flight tickets from Moscow to Urumqi and from Xinjiang Province back to Beijing, so it was handy to have that sorted. My next step was to fly to Kashgar. The day after my trip to Turpan I got to Urumqi airport early and had time to look around. In fact I was far too laid back and ended up missing my noon flight to Kashgar – gr-r-r. It wasn’t a tragedy though because the next one was in two hours. It took all of that two hours to reschedule my flight, get my luggage back and check it in again. Each of these steps were very difficult because none of the airport staff spoke English. It was obvious that they were Han Chinese and this supported what ... read more
Turpan, the Uyghur Heartbeat in North Xinjiang
Published: August 24th 2011Asia » China » Xinjiang » Turpan
August 24th 2011
To continue with my dramatic week in Xinjiang Province - Once the hostel in Urumqi was sorted I hopped in a taxi to go across town to the bus station. I had heard that Urumqi is just another big Chinese city, so it’s best to get out of it asap. I wanted the next bus to the Uyghur town of Turpan. One had just left and the bus station staff were trying to advise me as to my options. The next thing the bus station manager arrived on the scene. He is obviously not Chinese, so I presumed that he is Uyghur. He demonstrated that he had very good English and said that it was his responsibility to sort out Western visitors. I asked him where he learned his good English and he said that last ... read more
August 22nd 2011
The last week of this month-long trip around northern Asia certainly was the most challenging. After three weeks in Mongolia and Siberia, I had anticipated that Xinjiang would be very different from Beijing or Russia, but I hadn’t imagined it would be such a different world. In ways it was amazing, particularly the scenery on the Old Silk Road, but in other ways I found it depressing. My background is in sociology and I find this blending/clash of ethnicities in China, and the role the government plays in promoting it, to be very interesting. I’ll try to explain as I tell you about the week day-by-day. But first, a little background courtesy of The Rough Guide: “Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region” is one of the most exciting parts of China, an extreme terrain, more than 3,000km ... read more
August 3rd 2011
After spending the night in Urumqi, the capital of the Uighur minority Xinjiang province, we headed 2 hours out of town to Tian Chi – Heavenly Lake. We arrived to the most spectacular sight…a huge lake in shades of blue I can not describe, rolling green hills covered in Fur trees and snow capped mountains on the horizon. We quickly escaped from the tour group masses and made our way down to the rocky shore line, from there we passed the concrete touristy yurts (traditional round tents used by Kazakhs) until we were totally alone in the beautiful quite wilderness. After around 2 hours as we rounded another lush green cove there was a simultaneous gasp as we saw across the lake the place we would spend the night. A perfect green valley dotted with trees, ... read more
August 1st 2011
Not sure if it was a donkey or horse cart that we climbed upon to ride around the town this evening but it was a funny way to finish a very interesting but very hot day which apparently reached 46 degrees! We started the day at 8am Beijing time which unofficially is 6am local time. The whole country is forced to operate on the one time zone which means the sun doesn’t go down here until around 10pm and it stays really hot right up until then. So first on our agenda was Tu Yu Gou a small traditional Uighur village (Western Chinese minority descendent from Turkish traders) built out of mud bricks and covered in grape vines and mulberry bushes to keep cool. It has long been a pilgrimage site for devout Muslims and is ... read more
July 30th 2011
Leaving Kyrgyzstan we realised that China would mean a few things. For a start, it's huge, it's modern, it's not modern, it's full of people and it's really really foreign! Out of all the places we had managed to visit on this trip, we also realised that China would be the first real attack on all of our senses. Driving along the Touragurt Pass we were warned to expect the worst from the Chinese border control. Thanks to that entry point being a rare place for foreign tourists to visit we were expecting full bag checks, hours of questioning and who knows, maybe the odd body search but alas it couldn't have been smoother. We were issued with immigration cards, our bags were x-rayed and we were welcomed in as if disembarking from a plane. That ... read more
