Blogs from Xinjiang, China, Asia - page 2

Jiaohe Jiaohe aka Gaochang is an ancient, now abandoned, city. It was built on the banks of a river. By creating a canal the city was made into an Island in the river. This was done for defense. The current climate is arid, hot and harsh. The people who inhabited the city must have been hardy types, used to heavy manual labour and ready to defend their city. Fortifications are seen in the city, with supplies of stones, narrow, easy to defend, passageways and slits for windows. The city is made from mud, over time the mud deposited, the level of the river fell and what is now the present city was above the surrounding river. Houses and other buildings were made by tunneling down into the hardened mud. A huge map at the grounds entrance ... read more

Travel Day This day was a travel day, memorable for very little other than getting from Hefei, where I currently live, to Urumqi where I was to meet my companions and join the tour. The flight was a direct flight about 4 hours long. The airline food was not spectacular. Out of the window I could see lots of dry arid land. The normal signs of human habitation, roads and buildings, small towns. At one stage a series of what I took to be wind power generators and oil fields. On the approach into Urumqi there were snow capped mountains. (It is currently the height of summer). Back on the ground I was first off the plane, called out by the airline staff while the other passengers waited. It was my first introduction to the local ... read more

Tashkurgan is totally different to Pakistan. Dominated by big concrete buildings, many behind barricades, and while only a small town it’s main road is a big 4 lane highway. There was barely anything on it as we walked down the side, we wondered where all the life was. The only other foreigner on the border bus was a Korean woman, also heading to K2 hostel (which is where all the travellers in Tashkurgan go), we had said we could head there together. There was no sign of any form of transport we could take and everything we had read said the town was walkable. The map we had didn’t extend as far as the immigration office so we asked a couple of young Pakistani guys on our bus, who are studying in China to become doctors ... read more

We are now at Ruoqiang; it is probably fair to say that we are no longer in a position to savour the cultural aspects of this trip, as bureaucracy has moved from a peripheral to an overwhelming level. This is disappointing, since every aspect of our trip was agreed in detail and submitted to the Chinese authorities before we were issued with our visas. After two nights in (very attractive) Ruoqiang we move on to Dunhuang, which may be less taxing. Woke up in Qiemo to a brilliand sunny, cloudless day. No breakfast but Yudu Hotel courtesy car had us at the bus station by 08.45 am, Maghnus managed the tickets rather well and we left the smart, modern bus station in a very comfortable bus at 10.00 as scheduled, £7.50 each (61 yuan). Driver was ... read more

Actually not Minfeng, but Qiemo is not yet listed. We had decided to go by car (700 Rmb plus gratuity), so as to travel in daylight, possibly faster than the 20mph achieved by the bus, partly to avoid delay to other passengers at administrative controls, and largely so as to arrive before (possibly 4am). Our driver turned up on time at 10.00 and everything went well; at the mid-point of the route (about 13.30hrs) we stopped at a rather gruesome WC halt amongst the sand dunes, and were transferred to another car, a taxi that had come out from Qiemo; we reached our hotel, the excellent Yudo Hotel, at 5.30 pm, having averaged 27mph across 315km. We were unable to communicate with either driver verbally or in writing; fortunately it did not matter, the first one ... read more