Torch Hotel Urumqi

... going on to Kashgar. The most fascinating part was the exhibit on the numerous different ethnic minorities in Xinjiang province, complete with models of yurts, home interiors and examples of traditional dress and musical instruments. The government must have also agreed that this was essential viewing because an armed squadron of about 40 PLA troops was taking in the exhibit as we visited! Witnessing this after our visit to Kashgar ...

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.

... he was supposed to burn for extra luck. When he got outside he was told he needed to burn 60RMB worth of incense, which he declined using the excuse that he was there with his teacher who was a heathen atheist and disapproved of such things. Chuh. He should have been thankful. Another woman was told she needed to burn incense worth 198RMB!!! The priest was not game to lecture me, or flog off expensive incense in my presence. He just looked at my hands and wished happiness to me and ...

... Jinan, I had been short on sleep every night, almost died of exhaustion after hiking Huashan and had felt quite off in Jiayuguan from the difference in food and water. I was a bit worried. I went back to the hotel room to rest. Boiled some tap water and drank it, which turned out to be a mistake. Tap water is supposed to be safe in China if it is boiled, but the stuff in Xinjiang is quite hard. I learnt this the next day from a ...

... and that what westerners had written about it was biased and insensitive. I told him that I had not had any access to western news for the last week and so had no idea what reports he was talking about but that he should realized that there is no uniform western view of anything. For every 10 westerners you ask about any issue, you will likely find 10 very different, often opposing, views. I told him that I was not sure which reports had been publicized in the news here, but ...

... meal so we bought some beer and wine (somehow we could always manage some alcohol...) from a tiny local store and ordered room service. And then went to bed.

The next day we explored our old haunts of the Erdaqiao Markets and bought some beautiful Uighur scarves and some small gifts. We always find these markets friendly and interesting. And as mentioned earlier in this travelogue, we did not detect a great deal of tension nor any indication of the deadly ...

... other city on the planet. It's also in the least-populated area of China and is surrounded by desert. Dull and ugly, you might well expect; I did. Somehow, though, a couple of million people have managed to create an oasis that I wish I'd had more time to explore. Other than our brief stop at the museum and another for dinner, we only got to see Urumqi from the bus, but we caught glimpses of bustling streets, outdoor markets ...

This is for my friends and family whom I am unable to contact via my usa.net account. In China, all Internet providers go through the national defense ministry which blocks thousands of web sites. This means, I am unable to get to my email account. Anyone who wants to contact me, please use gobidesert2006@yahoo.com. This will be my temporary account while travelling in China.

... tower attached to a mosque I think). Emin Minaret looked vaguely interesting, and different for China. In theory, it is 300 years old, but it seemed to look in fairly good shape. Not that we could tell, as we were too cheap to go in and check it out - it was 30RMB to get inside the compound (at the cafe, we had assumed that you only had to pay if you wanted to go inside the actual building).Just getting sooooo sick of those Chinese entry fees - its ...