Kunlun 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 ...

... heading into Huashan) by a shoe repair/key cutter guy. A whole 2 RMB and my bag was as good as new. Then it was time for video games. Except for a period of time in Taiwan when I took to playing on the drum machines after work to cool down after a particularly stressful class, I have never been that into video arcades. Having said that, this didn't stop me from playing a shoot and kill zombie thing, then getting blisters from an over-excited bout on the ...

... 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 ...

... that I have become much too impatient since I moved to the PRC. After this incident I really must agree with her. While it is all very useful to possess a glare that can scare off military police, it does make me wonder what the guy would have done if confronted with a knife-toting terrorist instead of an English teacher. I guess his training didn't cover impatient women. We went out for coffee, before heading back to the hotel to meet with a travel agent to book me in for the Kanas ...

... with us for most of our 30 or so day's travels. And the thought of food - or even alcohol - was nauseating.<br><br>The Hoi Tak Hotel puts on a great evening Smorgasbord, with special treats such as Russian smoked salmon and caviar, lavish seafood (despite Urumqi being known as the city furtherest away from a coastline in the world) a great variety of meat and poultry dishes and a wonderful display of both Asian and European foods. <br><br>Neither of us could face such a ...

... when we arrived. We then spend the next 2 hours trying to locate a hotel room for the night: one had no hot water and wanted ¥270 for the night; another had room when we called but did not have it any more when we arrived. Sigh... not a good start for our trip. We finally settled for Homeinns (&#22914;&#23478;&#24555;&#25463;&#3720 2;&#24215;) located on Aletai Road (&#38463;&#21202;&#27888;&#36335;27&#21 495;). Time to zzzzzzzzzz..........

... have no idea how to dispose of them in an environmentally friendly way. So they are dumped and get carried by the wind until they catch on something and out here in the desert, they are everywhere. In fact, we passed one village on the train that I am convinced is the plastic bag capital of the world, or at least where all the used ones end up. A remarkable site! Our destination was Dunhuang, a key oasis city on the silk route. At the present ...

... train system and failed. We were planning on continuing West to Kashgar, but the system being what it is we decided to give it a miss for fear of being stuck in the desert. For some reason, you can only book 5 days in advance, but if you try and book for the fifth day all tickets to places like Xi'an and Beijing are already mysteriously sold out! Anyway, we managed to book a train ticket out of the place (although not to anywhere we wanted to go!) and ...

... so walk on to a drinks stand, where DP gets a Pepsi to help inject some energy, as she is feeling quite weak. Walk to one of the only two Restaurants recommended in the book. This one rejoices in the name of "Vine Coffeehouse", is run by a black West Indian woman, and specialises in fruit drinks, coffee, and salads, not our first choice, but order a salad and an omelette, plus sprite and a peach juice, which never materialises. Get out ...