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Published: July 11th 2022
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Timezones
This was now day three of our tour. We had started to get familiar with police checks, covid checks, long drives and late arrivals at our accommodation. This province is a long way west of Beijing. China time is based on Beijing and the country does not recognise internal time zones. So according to our clocks the sun was rising about 8 am and not setting until 10pm. Everything runs later here. Office workers start at 9am or even later. Many people were just going out for their evening meals at 9 pm when we were all ready for bed. Therefore to the tour guide and driver there was nothing strange in arriving at the hotel at 10 pm at night. To us it was an issue as our body clocks were saying that we had missed dinner time, no one was keen on eating so late.
Heavenly Lake
This day after breakfast we headed to the Tianshan Mountains and Heavenly Lake. The tour guide happened to mention a coffee shop at the top of a cable car trip up the mountain. My ears pricked up. Coffee!
On arrival we decided on a trip up the
Cable Car to get the Panoramic views and then a lakeside walk or boat ride afterwards. So up the cable car and we joined an already sizeable crowd taking pictures with the mountains and lakes in the background. The air was cooler here, the day sunny and the views spectacular. Below us a lake with deep blue waters nestled in a valley. Surrounding us high steep sided mountains with snow caps. Visually spectacular.
After a while I noticed the coffee shop and decided to investigate. This was a gem, a find, one of those things that you don't expect in such a location. A little bit of confusion on the order was quickly resolved. I wanted black coffee, the person serving seemed reluctant to give me black coffee. I was offered trimix coffee which is a sachet of instant coffee mixed with creamer and sugar. You can buy this in supermarkets. Any way my black coffee came out. It was a superb coffee made in a traditional way, the type of coffee I go searching for. Meanwhile we had distributed ourselves in the Cafe lined up alongside the windows to get the best of the view. Once again one
of those rare moments of unexpected bliss.
What could be better, a stunning lake and mountain view, comfortable chairs and excellent coffee? Nothing I thought until someone discovered the wine list. We changed from Coffee to Wine and felt like it was truly Heavenly Lake and a Heavenly experience.
It is worth remembering that we had just finished school semester a few days ago, we were tired from a hard school year and this was the first real relaxation we had had. That just amped up the magic of the place.
Eventually we had to relinquish paradise for the lake proper. I took a walk around part of the shore as I felt the need for exercise, others took the boat tour. We found our tour guide and headed back down the mountain to the airport.
We were off to Kashgar that evening.
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