Central Hotel ( Yi Tian Yang) Urumqi

... in the world.

25th October:

Our last day in China, and we ended on a high note with a journey into the snow-capped mountains to visit Heavenly Lake, 2000 metres up in the Tian Shan mountains. We had read about this lake in 1987 in Vikram Seth's travel book From Heaven Lake. We had never imagined that one day we would visit it ourselves! We were so lucky. Two days before it had started snowing, and the whole area had ...

After breakfast, we left for Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang Autonomous Region. It was a most exciting drive; through the Gobi Desert, in very windy, stormy conditions; on a fantastic highway [312] which stretches all the way from Shanghai to the border with Russia in the ...

In July riots broke out between the Chinese Han and the Muslim Uigher ethnic groups resulting in the province in the far north west of China being closed to the outside world. Tensions are still high and the province in under heavy military control. Internet access has been shut down completely and txt messaging and international calls are also blocked. It is impossible to ...

My last day in Xinjiang was spent mooching about Changji with LX and Ma Jun. It was exactly the kind of day of doing nothing much in particular that I needed in order to wind down from too many days of seeing and doing way too much! First we went off for a big lunch at another Hui restaurant. Then as we dawdled towards a video arcade, Ma Jun saved me from having to buy a new back pack by getting the old one repaired (the one where the zipper busted just as I ...

... Chinese people show their affection through food. She was pretty keen on me and wouldn't take no for an answer. After I got back, LX and his friend Ma Jun (who is Hui) took me to a Hui market area selling traditional foods. The food was good but we got harassed continuously by two wasps that were pretty keen on sharing our meal with us. Plus I got stared at a lot again. After being mistaken for being Kazak or Russian (?!) for the past few days, I was not particularly phased, but I ...

... family. There was much muttering outside the temple from travelers who complained that the whole thing was a capitalist venture poorly disguised under a cloak of religion. Whatever, even Daoist monks need to make a living, I guess. However, feeling scandalized by the cost of incense did not stop us from making a donation so that we could beat the **** out of a huge bell overlooking the lake. It was supposed to be lucky. And let's face it, hitting noisy stuff is fun. On the way back we ...

... her to help me send a message to my Mum telling her I was fine, could not call out and to tell her the hotel number. JV was one of the few people in China who knew for sure where I was, which was why I called her. I didn't want to go getting even more people worried about me being here in Xinjiang. She readily agreed, but unfortunately while I could talk to JV and JV could talk to my mum, Mum and I still couldn't manage to talk to ...

... on ne parle pas la langue et on doit s adapter encore a une nouvelle culture. Hormis les pickpockets, les chinois sont tres sympas et vous font sentir que vous etes bienvenus. Ils m epattent car tous les gens que l on a rencontre, ne semblent jamais stresses ou fatigues. On dirait qu ils arrivent a maintenir leur energie au meme niveau toute la journee. C est peut etre du a la nourriture qu ils mangent et toutes les plantes avec lesquelles ils se soignent.

... in Xinjiang, the food of Wulumuqi is also lovely: perfect dried fruit, flatbread as round as one's face, da pan ji, and lovely la mian (stretch noodles) everywhere. Pomegranate juicers are all about. We stepped into a little shop and drank the richness down. The ruddy-faced workers wanted to learn some English: how difficult the word pomegranate. 3. The Ughyer section of the city felt like another country. We saw very few Han Chinese while there. More to follow ...

... much we just bludged off Tiffany's (main claim to fame - weird, dwarfish Han-Chinese men run up to her, pinch her arm, and then run off) hospitality, feeling rebellious in that we hadn't registered with the PSB. Our flight leaving China was for the following Friday, so we booked a plane from Urumqi to Shanghai for Thursday. After the Kashgar train trip and back, there was not a reason in this big wide world that was going to get us on a 50hr ...