New Territories

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Since we last spoke, I was getting ready to go to the Mogao caves, which were in Dunhuang, Gansu province. They were allright, although the fact that I only had a Chinese guide didn't help my understanding of the history much. I got up late, went to the caves, then bascially came back, packed up, and caught my minibus to the Liuyuan train station, from which I caught my train to Turpan, Xinjiang. In the mini-bus, I met two other foreigners, Miles, an American, and Saskia (sp?), from Germany. So, as of now, we've been traveling together, though our paths will split tomorrow.

Getting to Turpan --

Unfortunatly, there were only upper-bunks on my train, but it turned out not to be all that bad, and I actually got a half-decent night's sleep. The train was a little different from others that I'd been on before, in that I think it was older, and was more dirty that usual.

Arrived in Turpan at around 9:30 in the morning, and got a taxi to the city center with a taxi driver named Warez (again sp?) As it turns out, Warez proved to be a great help down the line and a really good guide. After we got the the city, we checked our bags into a hotel, and made plans for the day that included going to the ancient city ruins of the Silk Road town, JiaoHe, and then staying the night in a Uyghur village.

Side Note:
Xinjiang, literally "New Territories" is cheifly inhabited by a minority known as the Uyghur's who are as different from ethnic Chinese as foreigners are. They are stockier, have brown hair, taller noses, facial hair, are mostly Muslim, and actually resemble Kazakhs.

So, strangely enough, after checking our bags, I turn around and see Scott Herman, a guy who I was in IES Beijing with, coming out of the hotel on his vacation. What a small world it is...
After this we got another cab, and went to JiaoHe, which was interesting, even not knowing the history, but was extremely hot. I am sure it was over 100 degrees, and the sun made it so much worse. After wandering around for an hour or two, we were exhausted and ready to go back to Turpan. When we got back, we relaxed in a fast-food restaurant, mostly for the fact that it had air conditioning. Then we just wandered around a bit more, taking some public busses, buying some "nan," which is flat bread, and wandering thru some villages. Around 6, we called Warez, who came and drove us to dinner. Actually, before driving us to dinner, we went on this ridiculous 1.5 hour drive which included getting stopped by the police, dropping off some of his friends, switching cars, buying fruit, and who knows what else. The final result was dinner at a large Uyghur restaruant, where we ordered this chicken dish, some cold vegetables, and then some tea which was really good.

After this we began the drive to the village, TuLuGu. It took more than an hour to get there, where we passed the Flaming Mountains, which supposedly got to 70 degrees Celcius that afternoon. You can do the conversion, but thats really hot, probably actually hotter than it was, but it was still obviously sweltering there. Made me glad that we were in JiaoHe instead of the Flaming Mountains.
We got to TuLuGu, and entered the park area, and then went directly to the house where we would spend the night. This definitely, along with the Overhanging Wall in Jiayuguan, have been my favorite experiences so far. We sat around with the people who lived there, and ate some dinner of bread, tea, raisins, and fruit. Xinjiang is famous for its grapes, so everywhere sells many different sorts of raisins. It was hard to communicate with the people, as they either didn't speak Chinese, or they spoke very little. This is very strange, as it is the first place I've been in China where the locals cannot speak Chinese. Instead they speak their own language, which is completly different, and has a written system which looks to the untrained eye like Arabic. When it was time to go to bed, we went outside, up a ladder, and found our beds on the top of their flat roof. It was an amazing way to fall asleep, I could see so many stars, which is a rare thing in China, with its prevalence of polluted cities. It was a great night, and was so peaceful, so much different from the night on the train just 24 hours before.

We woke up early, at 6:30 Beijing time, which is 4:30 Xinjiang time.
Note

OK, well, my money is almost out, so Ill continue later, maybe day after tomorrow,

Later,

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