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Published: October 2nd 2007
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The trip to Turpan (Pronounced Turfan)...
Bellies full of steamed vegie dumplings we took the local bus to the station and managed to find a bus to Turpan. The 3 hour drive was packed with barren desert scenery excitement and sore knees from small seats... Unsure of the itinerary or arrival time, I kept asking the girl next to me "is this Turpan" and she'd say "no, this is the WC" or something... So much rubbish surrounding the petrol stations and toll gates. fluttering plastic bags impaled on barbed wire like prayer flags.
We eventually got to Turpan, even wider streets strung with bright coloured flags, strange and bright flower arrangements in the streets for the national holiday. As soon as the bus arrived, people jumped on board to try and get our business. One of them was Turdi Tursan, who ended up being our guide. Turdi has always lived in Turpan, and speaks pretty good English. Recommended.
We finally decided on a price and itinerary, and headed off to get some lunch. Hand-made vege noodles, kind of like pasta, the best meal I've had in China. Yumm! Turdi is in Ramadan so didn't join us, and went off to
tinker with his battered old car's engine instead...
We headed straight off to the Flaming Mountains, famous as part of the Tripitaka/Monkey story as being a huge wall of flames that had to be passed. Monkey eventually used a magic fan to put out the flames, ensuring that Tripitaka could reach India to fetch the scrolls. It was bare out there. Rocky cliffs, stony hillsides and the occasional sand dune. In summer it would ROAST.
We drove through to the entrance to the Bezeklik caves, but the touristy vibe was too much for us. After watching a few brightly adorned camels stagger around under heavy tourists we headed back through the hills.
On the way we passed a huge sculpture kind of like a broken egg, which has a giant thermometer inside it. Turpan is famous for being the hottest as well as one of the coldest places in China, and you can see it in a human-sized thermometer out there in the desert
Our next stop after a lengthy drive was the Jiohe Ruins, which was pretty amazing. An ancient city, abandoned some 2000 years ago, it was built as part of China's western defences. Carved into the rock
of a plateau between two rivers, what's left of it almost looks like it was made by the wind. We walked through the remnants of offices, markets, houses, watchtowers to a giant monastery and stupa, which still contains Buddha carvings. The treasures have all been taken to museums now, but the place is amazing in its ancient-ness.
On the way out, big groups of people sit in the shade munching on giant slices of watermelon. We sat and had cold tea, and waited for a while.
The Emin Minaret was build in 1777, by Emin Hoja, the ruler of Turpan. It's a mosque & prayer tower, and it's beautiful. Heaps of hawkers at the gates with tables loaded down with raisins. The Minaret is surrounded by "grape valley", an amazing desert oasis of tangled grapevines. We walked inside the mosque & took a walk upstairs to enjoy the view.
The last stop on our tour was a Karez. There are touristy karez and local ones, and Turdi took us to one which is still in use. The Karez are an amazing system of irrigation, underground tunnels channelling water up to 15km from Tian Shan to Turpan. There are 518 karez
in Turpan, averaging 10km each, so that's about 5000km of underground tunnels, dug by hand.
The karez still flow, and we saw kids playing and a woman doing washing. However, all the houses have plumbing nowdays.
Turdi took us back to the bus station, and tried to convince us to pay him to drive us back to Urumqi. We went with the bus, and settled in for the long drive home... only one new thing, an amazing desert/mountain sunset as we passed the windfarms back into Urumqi... an amazing day.
Today was a day off... we ate breakfast in the park, watched some dancing, jammed with some old blokes. One of them whipped out a harmonica and played "Click go the Shears" no word of a lie. Then James get ready for this - they started playing "Jaya mama" the Indonesian fishing song that James plays everywhere he goes... Tegan and I gave them a rendition of "Girlfriend" in two part harmony with ukulele and little guitar. Thanks, Avril.
One of the guys let us play his Zhaopu, a stringed instrument with a long carved neck, and taught me how to play a traditional Xinjiang melody... sounds a lot
like Russian/Eastern European gypsy melodies to me!
Today we also organised our next adventure, a 4 day trip to Lake Kanas, where it's been snowing... got some warm gear together and off we go!
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