Ehm, I think I've just eaten some Sheep's 'Balls' - Xinjiang Province - Urumqi and around


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Asia » China » Xinjiang » Urumqi
June 14th 2007
Published: June 14th 2007
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Urumqi Night MarketUrumqi Night MarketUrumqi Night Market

John, Hee and Georgio

XINJIANG, CHINA - (June 2007)



Sat 9th - Fri 22nd June 2007 - (Urumqi)
After an over night train from Dunhuang during which time Hee gained an admirer which unfortunately for him was a middle aged Chinese man who wouldn't leave him alone, we arrived in Urumqi the capital city of China's north western desert province, Xinjiang.

Xinjiang has in the past been known as 'Eastern Turkestan' but is now known as the 'Uighur Autonomous Region'. Like Tibet, the majority of the population are not Han Chinese but Uighur who are more central Asian in out-look than Chinese. Like the Tibetans, the Uighur have a completely different language and seem to get a bit of a raw deal out of China and according to who you speak to, seem to be treated in some instances as second class citizens finding it difficult to get government jobs and having to pay more for University education than Han Chinese.

Unlike Tibet, there has, in the past, been some limited armed resistance to Chinese rule which has been put down ruthlessly by the Chinese especially post 9/11 on the pretext of crushing hard line Islamic extremists.

Xinjiang comprises 16%!o(MISSING)f China and consists of vast deserts with oasis towns, towering mountain ranges and abandoned Buddhist Silk Road cities along with newer Muslim towns. The Xinjiang deserts are also home to Chinese nuclear test sites and are reportedly home to many of China's secret gulags.

Until fairly recently, I don't think many tourists travelled to Urumqi. The LP only contains a couple of hotels to stay at within Urumqi all of which don't seem to be particularly nice while 'hostelworld.com' only lists two hostels in the whole city.

Upon arriving in Urumqi in the morning we decided to try and find one of the two hostels mentioned on ‘hostelworld.com’. What followed was a very long and expensive taxi ride after which we still didn't arrive at our destination. The taxi driver hadn't heard of the hostel that we were looking for but instead of just taking us to the correct street and then looking for a number, he proceeded to drive to various parts of Urumqi asking people if they had heard of this hostel. This included his girl friend who could speak a bit of English who we picked up during our 'trip' who also didn't know where the hostel was.

After about an hour and 45 Yuan later, the driver finally gave up. Although being very apologetic during which he said how wonderful England and Korea were, we were dropped off in a random part of the city. Fortunately, and not with any intention on the taxi drivers part, he had dropped us off on a street near to the hostel. After a 20 minute walk we found the hostel which was apparently only a 5 minute and 6 Yuan taxi drive from the train station!

After checking into the hostel we decided to have a wander around the city. Urumqi is a large city, much larger than I thought it would be, and is supposed to be the furthest place in the world away from an ocean (2250km). The city's population consists of Uighur's, Han Chinese, Kazakh's, Russians and Persians amongst others, something which is quite evident when walking around.

One good thing about Urumqi is the night markets where you can get cheap Uighur food, which is good if a bit meat orientated. However, one night we mistakenly eat some 'sheep's testicles'. It wasn't until I was half way through my first one that I realised exactly what I was eating. However, it tasted quite nice and I finished it off and proceeded onto my second one. It was only when I was half way through the second one when my mind clicked as to what I was actually eating and at which point I could eat no more. Hee on the other hand managed to munch his way through 5 'balls' in total!

When eating at the night markets, beer is in plentiful supply. You could even get beer at a night market where we went to which was next to a large mosque which didn't seem to bother the local Muslim population who were happily drinking there as well!

There is not a lot to do in Urumqi other than visit the 'Xinjiang Autonomous Region Museum' which contains a large exhibit of silk road artefacts and preserved bodies including one body that is reportedly 4000 years old. Unfortunately, I was rather underwelmed by the museum.

However, the main reason why we were in Urumqi was to get our Chinese visas extended and for me to get my Kyrgyzstan visa. Now this was where my love hate relationship with the hostel owners started. At first they said that we couldn't extend our visa in Urumqi and would have to go to another province. This was quite plainly untrue, the real reason as we were to find out later, was that they weren't a registered hostel and when applying for a visa extension you need proof of where you are staying - hence the reason why we had to check into another hotel for the night just to get some form of proof of where we were staying.

They also told me that there was no Kyrgyzstan consulate in Urumqi, something again which according to the Lonely Planet On-Line Travel Forum was not true. After I'd eventually found the consulate, the hostel owners then proceeded to say, "or yes, we thought you were talking about the Kazakhstan consulate of which there is not one in Urumqi", something which again is untrue. In addition, on the advice of the hostel owners we were to spend three times as much going to the nearby Tian Chi Lake than we needed to. However, the hostel was very clean and reasonably cheap and very convenient to everywhere where we wanted to get to, so unfortunately, it was the ideal place to stay.

As with a lot of Chinese bureaucracy, getting our Chinese Visa extension was far from easy. The visa office was hard to find, being at the back of a big building in what looked like a construction site. There were no signs in English and you had to walk around scaffold and over a ditch using a makeshift wooden plank bridge only to be greeted by an iron prison like door and once actually inside, Chinese police officers who spoke virtually no English and shouted at everyone! They even threw the passport of a Kazakh family who were in front of us on the floor when we were queuing up!

Two visits and a change of hotel to get proof of where we were staying later, we finally deposited our passports with the correctly filled in forms together with all the relevant documents. We were then told to return in three days to collect our passports.

Three days later we arrived back at the office to find it closed with a long queue of people lined up, or more correctly, I should say a Chinese queue which
Urumqi skylineUrumqi skylineUrumqi skyline

I thought this place was a small city in the middle of the desert!!
is just a group of people all bunched up together determined to be first in line even though they'd arrived last!

There was no sign in either Chinese or English saying why the office was closed. After around 30 minutes, someone appeared from behind the door to 'shout' at people after which everyone disappeared. We found someone who could speak a bit of English and she said that the office was closed this particular afternoon because the staff were 'studying politics' - How to treat your customers would have been a far better way to spend the afternoon!!

The next day we returned only to be told (i.e. shouted at) to come back the following day, which we did, only to find our visa extensions were still not ready. Luckily we found a member of staff who didn't always shout and could speak a bit of English. He then tracked down our passports and judging by the time taken, told them to process our visas there and then, and around 90 minutes later we had our visa extensions.

Having to get a visa extension while in China was not lack of planning on my part but yet again another case of Chinese bureaucracy. I'd say that about 90%!o(MISSING)f backpackers (as opposed to normal two week package holiday tourists) while in China need to get a visa extension. Because even though when applying for a visa while outside your own country (i.e. I applied for mine in Vietnam) and you tick the 'I want a three month visa', other than people who have applied in Hong Kong, I have never met a single person who has got more than a months visa. In theory, a visa extension is always given, its just sometimes a pain to get!

After getting my Chinese visa extension it was off to the Kyrgyzstan consulate to get my Kyrgyzstan visa. Which after the trouble with the Chinese bureaucracy was a pinch of cake - an official who could speak English and who genuinely appeared to want people to visit his country!

Tues 12th - Wed 13th June - (Tian Chi)
Although in theory it’s illegal to travel in China without your passport, while our passports were with the Chinese police waiting for the extension, Hee and myself decided to travel to 'Tian Chi (Heaven Lake) for a couple of days. Again the information given to us by the hostel owners proved to be rubbish! Tian Chi is a very touristy place in the middle of the Tian Shan mountain range around a 2 1/2 hour bus journey from Urumqi. The LP, quite rightly as it turned out, said you could get a local bus there easily. Our hostel owners differed and said that sometimes the public buses didn't leave and we would be better getting a Chinese tour which would cost slightly more but would at least get us there. We wanted to stay the night which they assured us would be no problem, we would just get the tour bus back the following day.

After paying our money for both directions of travel (i.e. there, and back the following day), and arriving at the Lake much later than the public bus because of the number of stops the bus made to such things as a Chinese herbalist and other 'none' places, we arrived at the bottom of the Lake. We then tried to find out where we were to meet the following day to catch the bus back. Our Chinese tour guide then promptly forgot all the English he knew and had used earlier on and pretended that he couldn't speak English, waved us away and rushed off up the cable car with the rest of the Chinese tourists. The following day we ended up catching the local bus back to Urumqi for far less than the price we had already paid for our return journey. A lesson to everybody - the Lonely Planet is always right!!

The LP says that it is easy to stay the night, just find Rashit and he will take you to his Yurt (a kind of round tent). Exactly as LP says, Rashit found us more or less straight away as soon as we had got off the bus and told us how to get to his Yurt. The Yurt was a couple of hours hike away and a short distance along the lake away from the main Chinese touristy bit.

Hee, myself and Giorgio, who had come along with us from Urumqi, then started on a pleasant couple of hours hike up the hill to the lake and then onwards a bit to Rashit's yurt. The hike up the hill in the magnificent surroundings was only spoilt by the cable car over head playing Chinese 'Pop' music rather loudly all the way up the hill.

Unfortunately, the views of the lake and surrounding mountains were less than perfect due to the rain and mist. However, staying in the yurt for the night was a good experience. After one night at the yurt we walked back to the 'public' bus stop and caught the 'public' bus back to Urumqi with no problem at all.


Fri 15th - Mon 18th June - (Turpan)
Once we had arrived back in Urumqi and picked up our passports from the Chinese police and I'd deposited my passport in the Kyrgyzstan consulate, Hee and myself then left Urumqi again and headed to a town called Turpan. Turpan is a Uighar oasis town along the old Silk Route and is located in the Turpan Basin and at 154m below sea level, is apparently the second lowest depression in the world after the Dead Sea. Which meant that is was very very hot.

The bus journey from Urumqi took around 3 hours. About 5 minutes before we arrived in Turpan, a man boarded the bus and proceeded straight towards me - the only westerner on board - with offers of hotel accommodation which I said I would think about. At the bus station, the man was still hassling me but the price for the hotel was ok so we followed him to the hotel. The hotel was fine so we checked in but before we had a chance to check in the guy then tried to sell us a tour while proceeding to introduce us to his female colleague.

We said we just wanted to settle in and then we might think about it in a couple of hours. He was insistent that if not now, we arrange a time to meet, which we did. After checking in, we ventured out trying to find a western restaurant which was mentioned in the LP and which apparently also ran tours. Unknown to us, we were being followed by the tour agents female colleague who, five minutes after we had found the restaurant, joined us at our table telling us that we walked fast and she had had trouble keeping up with us! While we were at the restaurant, I'm certain she had several telephone calls from the tour agent guy for the latest report on our whereabouts!

Later on, after a bit of negotiation about price, we booked on one of 'his' tours for the following day which involved four of us being taken around in his car by a driver to some of the sights around Turpan, namely the Jiaohe Ruins, Tuyoq, the Flaming Mountains, and the Grape Valley - some of which were good, others less so!

The Turpan Basin is famous in China for its grapes and everywhere we went we saw lots of lattices full of grape vines. Most of the grapes aren't used for wine but are apparently stored, dried, and turned into raisins.

After the first site that we visited (the Jiaohe ruins) we drove back to Turpan and picked up the driver's daughter who looked about 8 to 10 years old. Being a Saturday with no school to go to, she was to stay with us all day. The car was already full but she squeezed into the front seat with Hee. However, when we had to go through the occasional police check point, the car stopped before the check point and she was promptly put into the car's 'boot' until we'd gone through. - I'm sure the NSPCA would have something to say about that in England!!

The trip also involved a night at a typical Uighar family’s house in the middle of the desert where after seeing a fantastic sunset, our driver started to play some old Scorpions songs in Chinese while claiming that they were Eagles songs. The day after, we drove back to Turpan where Hee and myself visited the Emin Minaret and mosque which dates back to 1777. The LP claims that the mosque is one of the prettiest structures in Xinjiang, and on this occasion it didn't disappoint!

After two further days in Turpan, we left and headed back to Urumqi where Hee and myself were to unfortunately go our separate ways. Hee to Xian and myself to Kashgar.


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