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October 2nd 2007

Published: October 2nd 2007

i had this all written out very nicely, and was nearing the end, when some silly woman pulled out the cord to all the computers, so therefore i lost it all. i guess that's a lesson in "backing up your work" or something. oh well.

actually, the other "oh well" moment today has been having my wallet nicked. there was literally no money in it, and nothing important at all, just the usual business cards of friends and acquaintances that i would've liked to have kept, as well as a holographic naked girl card that btrix gave me back in hong kong. i was a bit sad to lose that one! and losing the wallet was a pain in the arse as well, because i had to resort to putting all my small change in my "nerd belt" (as kt has dubbed it). but i've got a new wallet now, not quite as good but it'll do, and i might try to get a chain for it or something when i get the chance.

anyway, back to the beginning -
the early hours of yesterday morning:

the intrepid travellers kt funk and tegunkstar woke early (well, 8am beijing time, or 6am xinjiang time), quickly pulled on clothes, and headed out the door. they were on their way to the bus to turpan, an oasis in one of the largest deserts in the world, three hours away from urumqi and the second lowest basin on earth, after the dead sea. but first, breakfast...

we were pretty tired when we woke up, but after eating a mandarin, we set out to find something more substantial. after some fist-shaking at the window of the dough-ball lady, we found a place that sold us 12 vegetable steam buns for 6yuan (so cheap!), and continued on with full bellies. we found the bus stop ok, and settled onto the bus for the three hour trip to turpan.

the landscape on the way changed dramatically. we started out in the weird city vibe of urumqi, and ended up cruising through reddish-brownish-grey desert. so many rocks, so little vegetation. less than the nullabor, kt informed me. there were huge rocky dunes and mountains, as well as vast plains. it was pretty incredible.

finally we arrived at turpan, and were immediately ambushed by several different "tour guides", who would hire themselves and their cars out for the day to take us to see some of the local sights. after finding one who spoke pretty good english, we negotiated a price and an itinerary, and headed off.

turdi took us to a restaurant he knew first of all, so we could fill our shrunken bellies again. the meal we got, which was called suoman gush siz, was the best meal i've had since leaving hong kong, hands down. it consisted of handmade "pull" noodles with a chunky sauce of tomatoes, capsicum (kt is allergic, so she picked hers out and fed it to me), eggplant, green beans, garlic, onion, and lots of pepper. this was accompanied by red tea, which tastes a little like rooibos, but with a slight aniseed flavour. bellies well and truly full, we headed out to the flaming mountains.

the flaming mountains, kt told me (and the lonely planet, actually), were part of the "monkey" stories - i think there was a challenge for tripitaka to pass through the flames, and monkey was luckily able to put them out, maybe with a special fan? anyway, mythology aside, they were pretty spectacular. huge mountainous sandy formations with flame patterns etched up the sides by natural weathering. there were people going on camel tours with disgruntled-looking camels (i think camels always look disgruntled), and kids running around, and lots of people on scooters and motorbikes when we got to the tourist area. we just did a car tour of the mountains, because kt and i were both feeling pretty sleepy at this point, from the amount of food we'd just eaten, as well as the fact that we were still buggered from the day before.

after the flaming mountains, we headed back into turpan city to emin minaret. emin minaret is a mosque that stands somewhere in the city, and is pretty much just a tourist attraction now, rather than a functioning mosque, as far as i'm aware. we dodged the usual tourist traps of ridiculously cheap silk scarves and dodgy carvings that we couldn't take home anyway, and got to the minaret. another beautiful structure, this time man-made, it was all a sandy brown colour, with simple curved lines and no ornamentation. we climbed all the way to the top (actually not that far, but after the day before i wasn't so sure i wanted to look at a step again) and enjoyed the view out over the town and to the desert beyond.
on the way back, kt bought some local raisins (there are heaps of vineyards in turpan), which unfortunately weren't the kind we'd eaten in the yurt the day before, but were still pretty tasty. it was kinda hard to convey to the guy that we only wanted a quarter of a kilo, though.

emin minaret was followed by a trip to the jiaohe ruins. after seeing my first ruins, i can't say i'm a huge fan, but it's an interesting thing to see nonetheless. maybe it was just because i was too sleepy to want to walk around the several kilometres of ruined township that there was to see. kt was pretty tired too. we had a lacklustre sort of walk around and saw all sorts of partial walls of dwellings, as well as what used to be a monastery, and a large buddhist temple. all the buildings were made of the same brown clay, which made them blend together in front of our tired eyes after a little while, but there was a lovely sense of peace there, for all that it was another heavily-touristed spot.

the last thing that we went to see was a kariz, which is an old form of irrigation that takes a lot of skill to make. turpan has many kariz, with the longest being 15km. turdi informed us that the one we were seeing was probably only a few kilometres long. it used to be the only way for the citizens to collect water, but now they have tap water. we saw a few kids there, playing and drinking (we weren't really keen to drink from it, as there was algae and it didn't look like it was flowing too strongly), as well as a woman doing her laundry. the youngest of the kids were wearing pants with a slit in the middle, front and back - presumably, kt said, you get to wear sewn-up pants when you're old enough to pull your pants down before you shit. the kids were very cute, and of course, a bit interested in us. we said hello and then headed back to the bus.

mostly we slept on the busride home, being too tired for anything else. we sleepily found a restaurant where we could eat, and discovered it was a very new buffet-style place, with lots of vegetarian food. score! that made three meals in one day, for the first time in quite a while. three good meals, at that. happy and full, we went back to the hostel and settled down with a wusu (the local beer) and our instruments to have a little jam before bed.

this morning we had a blissful sleep-in, having decided to take a day off from being hardcore tourists. we bought some random sugary pastry and dough things for brekky, and headed to the park to play our instruments and consult the lonely planet to figure out our itinerary for the next few weeks.
in the park, we met some old men practising their instruments (most of them were playing a six-stringed instrument that i can never remember the name of - it has two single strings at the bottom, and two paired strings at the top, and is in a weird scale. the body is small and shaped like a mandolin's, and the neck is really long). we compared instruments and had a go at playing each other's. kt learned a traditional xinjiang melody that sounded very similar to a russian melody we know. then one of them got out the harmonica and started playing click go the shears! of all things. i worked out some chords and strummed along on guitar.

we decided to see if we could book a tour to lake kanas, which is in the very north part of xinjiang (practically in russia!). luckily, we managed to get in for the last tour of the season (soon it'll be too cold. as it is, it's snowing), which leaves tomorrow and goes for four days. it allows us to explore the lake and stay in a 3-star hotel and see some other sights. it was fairly cheap, as well - i think after we've bought food, we'll end up paying around $150AU (that's a conservative estimate. apparently our dollar is doing well today, so maybe it'll be less).

after this decision, we realised we'd better get some warmer clothes. neither of us had really come prepared for snow! luckily, one of the staff at the hostel knew where an outdoor equipment store was, so we went and bought matching windproof jackets and gloves, as well as getting some thermals from the stall in the subway. then later we headed to a department store to see what we could find by way of beanies (the ones at the outdoor store were just too stupidly cutesy). not much, as it turned out, but what we did find was a bargain bin full of kids' and adults' jumpers, so we grabbed two of the kids' long-sleeved tops (again matching - we will be twins in all our black-with-red-trim gear) and brought them back to the hostel, along with lots of snacks for the busride, to make crazy hats.

and that about brings you up to date. tomorrow we will get up early and catch the bus at 8:30am to lake kanas! after that, back to urumqi for the night, and then straight on to kashghar. kt's birthday is on the 8th, so it looks like she may be spending a bit of it on the sleeper bus - but hopefully most of it in kashghar!

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