Ha Mi Hami

From Dunhuang we have to first hitch to a junction some 130 km north where the Gangsu-Xinjiang highway runs east to west and from there we will need to get to Xinjiang Province. The road out of Dunhuang going north is the first minor road we are taking on our trip. There are no rest stops and the one gas station we pass doesn't have any cars. The taxi driver who drops us off at the northern end of the town tells us there is a police checkpoint ahead ...

Wed. 3rd Jun. Dunhuang-Hami. 465ks. 10 Hrs

The Chief Blogger should be back on deck tomorrow. It was off to the Grottos this morning, where we spent about an hour and a half being shown around this favourite tourist spot. It is well developed and not what we expected. It was not possible just to drive up and explore, so we joined a group and compulsory guide and off we went. The pace was a bit slow, as always with a group, so we saw all we needed to and made tracks ...

June 13, 2008 I visited Jiayuguan in the morning. Here's what my Rough Guide had to say about it. "To some Chinese the very name Jiayuguan is synonymous with sorrow and ghastly remoteness. The last fortress of the Great Wall was built here by the Ming in 1372, over 5000km from the wall's easternmost point at Shanhaiguan, from which time the town made its living by supplying the needs of the fortress garrison. This was literally the ...

We had a really long driving day today, but we did find time to stop in the town of Hami. Here's what one previous visitor wrote about the welcome you can expect to find: "I give you my word that if a stranger comes to a house here to seek hospitality he receives a very warm welcome. The host bids his wife do everything that the guest wishes. Then he leaves the house and goes about his own business and stays ...

My second soft sleeper probably wasn't that necessary as the car to Dunhuang wasn't even full. This time it was a four person berth for three people; me, my friend, and another Chinese young man who was returning from a trip to Kashgar. Chinese people really love to travel. They also love to play Big 2, though they have their slight variations on the game. In Mainland big 2 suits don't ...

Anyway, 13 tourists, 3 Mandarin Chinese and 2 Turkic merchants get on a bus... So we are three hours out of Jaiyguan on one of the bumpiest roads I have ever been on in my life when our bus comes to a grinding halt. Everyone on board thinks it's a flat and immediately jumps off the bus to have a look at the Gobi desert that is surrounding us. It is about this point where our resident American, Zac, points out that the bus has thrown its ...

My trip took a major turn for the better today. Not that it was that bad before, but today I finally got into the hills of rural China. I took a day trip to a town called BaLiKun, and just checked the place out. The drive to BaLiKun went over through a really cool, narrow gorge then up into steep green pastures before ending up ...

Xiahe to Dunhuang Journey The massive trip from Xiahe to Dunhuang via Lanzhou takes almost 40 hours from start to finish. The bus ride to Lanzhou is about 5 hours and comfortable. At one of the Lanzhou bus stations, I am approached by a taxi driver, who tells me that the bus to Dunhuang departs from another bus station & offers to drive me there for an iinflated price. I ask one of the bus station officials, who points to a bus about 50 ...