Eating bread and drinking weird tea near Kazahkstan

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I just finished a really nourishing meal consisting of a piece of fried flat bread covered in sugar and bowl of milky tea that tasted like a cross between cream and beef broth. Despite the funny taste, my mouth was so happy to eat something that WASN'T Chinese food!

We're in XinJiang, the most western province in China, and the people are a mix of Uighers, Kazaks (because Kazakhstan is just a bus ride away) , and Han Chinese. I was definitely expecting something a bit more desert-like, but the capital city is green and clean.

We arrived on Saturday night at around 2 AM. When I came down for breakfast the next morning, who should I run into but two of our friends from Yangshuo?! Colin and Jose left Yanghuo months ago but have been slowly making their way across China. Anyway, they've been talking to a bar owner here who said he could set us up with tents, sleeping bags and maps if we wanted to explore the mountains on our own! SO of course, yesterday we went shopping and with any luck, we'll be getting a ride out tomorrow morning! The hills are full of Kazak villages and we're planning a 3-4 day trip out.

For anyone trying to get visa extensions in Urumqi: Alex and I both had an 6 month F visa that was due to expire on the 21st of August. We went to the PSB (near the Silver Birch Hostel, NOT the one in the LP) yesterday with a letter of invitation from our school, our flight information for when we leave China (November) and two passport photos each. The woman at the counter said foreigners are only allowed to extend their visas twice : the first time for 1 month, and the second time for 10 days. Since we entered on a L visa (tourist visa) and then got a F Visa in China from our school, we were able to convince her that we had not in fact extended the visa. She claimed that the L visa was extended already by turning it into a F visa, but after talking to her boss, she relented and gave us a one month extension. We really lucked out because I've heard some horror stories about the red tape needed to get an extension in a "sensitive" area like Xinjiang.

Keep in mind that THIS IS CHINA. Rules can vary from province to province, person to person, even from hour to hour. We got lucky. Apparently the PSB here hasn't been giving extensions AT ALL lately, not even for 10 days. I think the letter from the school really helped us.

So now we just have to get an extension again in a month. But after the Olympics are over and we're in a much less sensitive area, we should be just fine. The regulations are rumored to change after September 1st.

That's all for now. I promise to blog again with photos after the camping trip.

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