Blogs from Xinjiang, China, Asia - page 7

Urumqi We have arrived in Urumqi, the largest city in Northwest China (5+ M). The drive down the new road could have been pretty much anywhere in the world, except for the new cities and power plants being built everywhere. There is a huge mall next door with all the most expensive stores, and a block away are the traditional hole in the wall shops. The contrasts are amazing. It is getting hot again We are expecting 100+ tomorrow in Turpan.... read more

A day at the DMV is pretty much the same everywhere. It took half a day to get our Chinese driver's licenses, and until 8 PM to get our "license plates".... read more

I still can’t believe it’s over. It’s actually been a while now. After cycling from Gansu Province to Xinjiang, then on to the Stans , Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, I am back with Becky in Beijing, China. I have a good job (back to teaching) and surprisingly often enough the sky is amazingly blue over the city. Of course there isn’t a single day when I don’t day-dream of being back on the saddle, with the wind in my hair, the sun baking my forearms. I miss the road and everything that came with it: the spectacular mountains, the never-ending deserts, the silent nights of camping behind a dune or by a blue river at high altitude, the elements I faced alone in my poncho (ha!), the flabbergasted looks on people’s faces when ... read more

My last day in Urumqi was spent wandering around the city. On the onset, Urumqi looks like any other Chinese city. A city that has been pumping up development, especially in the last few years and is relatively young. According to wikipedia it used to be a major part of the silk route and since the 1990's has been developed economically and is a transport node. It is the gateway into China from the West. More than anything else, Urumqi's unique location and its influence on the city, can be understood by taking a closer look at its demography. As I mentioned in a post before this,'The other side of China', there is a 75.3 % population of the Han chinese, 12% Uighers and others, Mongols, Kazhaks, Uzbeks, Russians, Tibetian, Manchu among others make the rest. ... read more

When this trip was first mentioned I had no idea what I was getting into. The landscape, the people, the food, the languages, everything is so unexpected and mixed up. Prepare to be surprised. The 5 hour flight from Shanghai to Urumqi crosses some of the most exquisite topography. If you are lucky to be flying there on a clear day, as we were, on the later half of the flight, you could see glimpses of the Tibetan plateau and the rugged mountains of the Tian Shan change into the forbidding Taklamakan (In Hindi one could translate that as bald man's house :P) desert. The significance of this region on the silk route suddenly rings loud and clear. This was the buffer zone between Europe and China. The traders, merchants and travelers all trans versed this ... read more