Hong Xin Hotel Urumqi

... in the world.<br><br>25th October:<br><br>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 ...

... game. The highlight of the my afternoon was kicking LX's butt at the air hockey table. Unfortunately that attracted a bit too much attention from the mostly male video arcade hangerouters (on top of the usual "which minority group is she?" curiousity) so, feeling slight unnerved, for the rest the time we spent in there I took to hiding behind Ma Jun and LX while they played some kind of mortal kombat game that they used to play when they were in ...

Finally it was time to go back to Changji. We stopped at a couple of shops (including a farm for deer antlers, boo hiss) on the way back, but arrived a lot earlier than I expected. The tour to Kanas was fun, I'm glad I went on it. Not only was the scenery spectacular, but I was forced to speak in Chinese for the whole time and I learnt how to split melon and pumpkin seeds fairly quickly, thanks to the auntie sitting across the aisle from Lirong and I who kept showering us in the damn ...

... enough money to the tour guide fund! Seriously, we paid almost 100RMB for something that later cost me 5.8 RMB in Jinan. And I got a lot more of it in Jinan!!! Going to the temple ended up being a double edged sword. We went in, and sat while the priest chanted, blessed us and then sprayed water over us to get rid of bad vibes. The priest then told people to stand up one by one and gave us some advice after doing stuff to our hands. LX got an extra long lecture and a piece of paper ...

Fri.5th June. Turpan - Urumqi. 4 hours.<br>We left at 10am.The wind had cleared the smog making for a lovely drive out of Turpan.<br>We have learned to be extra vigilant when purchasing bottles of water/drinks. Helen was caught out ...bought a fake bottle of water yesterday at a small supermarket and it just goes to show that anyone can buy a bottle sealing machine!<br>So far we have been really lucky and ...

... gets very little international media coverage. That night I went over to the girls' apartment for dinner. A few girls, a few guys, a couple of bottles of wine, and great food led to a late night out dancing. I saw the sun rise before I finally crashed on the living room floor. I woke up too late to get my passport that day. That would be the theme for the rest of the week. I checked out of the hotel and slept on Shamsiya's couch with her ...

... les infrastructures et l economie, les relations entre Uighurs et les envahiseurs Han chinois n ont jamais ete tres bonnes. Il y a eu plusieurs rebellions dont une recente en 1997 pour la separation et la creation d un Uighurstan. Pour eviter tout separatisme, un nombre important d emigrants Han s installe au Xinjiang. De 90 pourcent de la population dans cette province, les uighurs ne sont plus que moins de 50. Leur langue est le Uighur qui fait partit de la famille turque ...

After what was a wonderful overnight train ride - at least in comparison to a sleeper bus! - we arrived in Turpan. Turpan is one of those famed Silk Road destinations located in the middle of the desert. It's steeped in history and our first stop in Xinjiang - a province quite different from the majority of China in terms of people, food and religion. Due to the region's silk road legacy, there's a great mix of ethnicities with lots of Uighers (from ...

... and we go. It is a fair walk to our "Peafowl Mansion" (think someone got Peacock and Peafowl mixed up), and takes forever for the desk girl with a little English to sort out our visa details. Needs the help of a mature-age Chinese English-speaking guest to convince her we have 60 days from when we came in. Meanwhile, MP has a fruitless loo search in the lobby, and is pleased to finally reach the room. For Y178, it is not as good ...