Turpan

... where the carpets were at least clean - at least there were no hairs on the carpet!

The one good thing about this hotel is that it is in the heart of a market area, and from the windows it was possible to see ordinary people going about their day to day lives.


Xinjiang is an autonomous region in ...

... systems that bring clear cold clean water down from the mountains. The systems used are exactly the same as the Qanats in Iran. Teams of men descend down holes dug into the desert to maintain these waterways. This is an ancient system that has proved so reliable that it has not been replaced.

There are some photos that give a good idea of the ancient system. Unlike Iran we were able to walk alongside the waterways. The only jarring note was the larger than life ...

... himself by being called upon by the tour guide to act as translator for a French couple on the tour. Indeed I think most of the people on the bus thought LX was my translator. The guide needed to explain why she had to appropriate their passports for the military police at the road block. Then the bus got delayed again because one of the naughty little tourists on the bus had taken a photo of the road block as we drove through. Military police yelled a lot. The person who had taken the ...

... 1488;תרי 01; המעני 97;נים שנמצא 97;ם בקרבת העיר.
ראשון, הגענו לכפר כורמי 01; קטן ועתיק שנקרא טויו ...

... going to Urumuqi and Mr. Chen decides to give me a ride to Turpan on the way.

I ask Mr. Chen about the long trip he makes from Jiangsu to Xinjiang. He says when driving he spends at least 20 hrs per day in the truck, rotating with his partner when one gets tired. The cost of driving the 4,000 some kilometers is staggering: 9,000 yuan for toll fees, 9,000 yuan for gas, and 2,000 yuan for overload fines. For each trip he makes ...

... 30 deg with sunglasses and sun hats on at 8pm. Yesterday, it was 37 degrees.
This morning we set off at 9am, through poorer villages on the outskirts of the Hami. These villages appear to be geared up for the trucking industry - 98 percent of the vehicles on the road are heavy, mostly overladen trucks.
Half and hour into our journey we were pulled over for speeding and fined, on the spot 100 yuan ...

... tree- and ivy-lined streets full of laughing children and bustling street markets surrounded the 5-kilometer city walls. But inside those walls we found only dust and crumbling buildings, going back to the dust and mud that they were once constructed from.

What had caused these people to build again outside the city walls but not again within them? Luckily for us, as visitors, they hadn't.

We didn't have too much time to ponder the history ...

... br>
Tips for other travelers:

*Bargain with the taxi drivers-we asked around and found huge variations in price

*The park stays open at least until sunset

*Getting to Turpan from the train station (which says it's Turpan, but isn't) can be negotiated with a taxi driver. Usually it's 20 RMB per person, and the taxi takes four. There's also a local bus which stops somewhere near the train station parking lot. It costs 7 or 8 RMB.

... clever I know. We left Korla today following the secondary road out of town instead of the highway, which was a lot nicer as you saw lots more and travelled through small villages. Graeme was going way to fast for me, so I cycled the whole day on my own. Initially I wasnt particular happy about the situation but soon found it actually quite pleasant. Lots of locals on their silent scooters (using electricity) were waving when flying past and giving the thumbs up. I ...

... it stopped again. The heat was unbearable. I had no water. Luckily, the next gas station was only 10km away. It was the first one I had seen in 130km. I only lost an hour, and I had more than enough time left in the day. It's just frustrating to make the same mistake twice. The next city was only 40km away. I drove into town and found a softserve ice cream dispenser on a street corner, less than ten cents a cone! I ordered ...