Royal International 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 ...

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 ...

... the curiosity was even more noticeable when walking around with LX (Han) and Ma Jun (Hui) than usual. After being very nice, but glancing at me surreptitiously when she thought I wasn't looking, the waitress finally couldn't contain herself and the question "Which race is she?" burst out from her lips. I can see if I come back to Xinjiang I am going to have to have a t-shirt made with this information printed on it in order to stop people from dying of curiosity regarding my heritage.

... but that it should be easy to fix and if I rested and took medicine to help make me stronger, the dizziness and blurred vision would go away. He told me which roots I needed. I think LX was surprised by how readily I agreed to follow the doctor's instructions, but what the doctor had said made sense to me. I started drinking the medicinal tea I was prescribed that night and have not felt dizzy since, despite overdoing it and still not getting enough sleep. Placebo. Perhaps, but ...

... capital city of Urumqi. <br><br>Xinjiang, known as East Turkestan by the local Uighur population, is yet again another country within a country. Bigger than Alaska, it consumes about one sixth of China's territory. It borders with the eight countries of Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Kashmir and Pakistan. With a long history of dissent and a largely Muslim population desperately wanting independence, it is no wonder that ...

... ruecksichtslos sein, habe in der U-Bahn beinahe ein paar Chinesen ueberrannt, da diese kein Konzept erst aussteigen dann einsteigen kennen, man stuermt die U-Bahn sobald die Tuer aufgeht). Urumqi ist eine recht grosse Stadt, ueber 4 Millionen Einwohner und wie bereits erwaehnt 4500km von der naechsten Kueste entfernt. Keine andere Stadt der Welt ist weiter von einem Meer entfernt. Dennoch gibt es hier einige Seafood Restaurants. Ich ...

... farmland (cotton, hops and grapes) and snow-peaked mountains reaching higher than 5000 metres. It was rather strange to even come across a large frozen lake. There is some skiing in these mountains, but to reach the top slopes, you and your skis get on a horse! Even the Chinese refer to this region as their "wild west"! Finally today, another charming sign. I was assured that this does actually mean "keep off the grass"! Tomorrow we hit Kazakhstan

... also had washed my hair & face and brushed my teeth by the time we got out of there. Yes, wunderbar, but I am a bit upset that they introduced corn salad as a side dish instead of fries and give you some gross fruit drink instead of Pepsi. You gotta pay exxxtra for fries. EXXXTRA!

... condition is not a good idea. Wednesday 13 July- Urumqi MP drags DP out of bed at 9.45 to see what breakfast has to offer. She is feeling very lethargic, and feels she may have got an infection from the freezing airconditioning blowing on her during the night on the train. MP settles for boiled potato, boiled rice, some weird hot rice curd milk people seem to be using as a breakfast drink, and tea. DP goes more exotic, gets a wide ...