Dusty Mornings in Korla
It looks kind of like Christmas out the window. Only it isn’t that glorious gift to humanity - snow - it is sand. Not a sandstorm as such just sand hanging in the air, covering the cars parked down below our apartment, window ledges, our floor and everything.
I have never seen anything like it. The light is wonderful, everything has a kind of evocative muted glow to it.
The news wires are carrying a story from the Xinhua News Agency about 100 odd tourists being rescued from a sandstorm near Turpan. Turpan, known as Turfan in Chinese is one of the major tourist attractions in Xinjiang and although it is low season right now, Turpan sees high numbers of both domestic and foreign travelers. There is a Turpan railway station but as it is about 50? km’s from Turpan nightbuses are the main form of transport.
The storm swept up the desert sands on Sunday in the Xinjiang autonomous region, leaving four buses stranded on a highway across the Gobi Desert near the oasis town of Turpan.
“Twenty-one officers … rescued the Chinese and foreign tourists using military all-terrain vehicles,” Xinhua said. “On their way to the site, they also rescued 11 villagers from the sandstorm.”
North China is hit by sandstorms every spring. Neighboring South Korea suffered its worst “yellow dust” storm in four years at the weekend, hit by sands originating in the Gobi.
The story doesn’t go into too much detail, but I imagine the passengers had quite a long wait. Surprising too that the bus drivers actually stopped.
Better go and mop the floor again.
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