Turpan, Urumqi, and Back 1
Well a couple of weeks since my last post. Back at work again; the holidays here are excellent. My students had mid-term exams last week. So no classess for me.
Two saturdays ago we headed out to see the trees in the desert – about an hour and a half from Korla. Headed out there in a taxi – 10.6RMB from the bus station in Korla near the Uighyr Hospital not far from our apartment. Then when we arrived in the town of X where we met up with a local guy who took us out to the desert in his beaten up old van (a 100RMB for about 5 hours).
The trees were at their golden best and we got a lot of photos, some nice ones across the water from a rickety old tower and of the sunset later on in the day.
They run microlight flights there, and while we didnt want to spend the 200RMB for a 5 minute flight, two of the other foreign teachers - Micheal and Camilla - did and they really enjoyed themselves.
We had a couple of days after that back in Korla. Splashed out and bought a pair of jeans - my first pair since 2001 in Thailand.
Then on Tuesday morning we took the 10am bus from Korla to Turpan (60RMB). The trip took about 6 hours, taking us down from about 2000 meters above sea level to below sea level (AFAIK). We checked into the Turpan Hotel - a nice place - got a 3 bed dorm room for 30RMB each per night. It is off season in Turpan now so we didnt have to share with anyone else (that hasnt happened to us yet in China - though we have only stayed in 3 towns). We hooked up with a Uighyr guy, called Abdul, who spoke good Japanese and he arranged a driver for us for the next day for 320RMB. We probably could have negotiated him down a bit but didnt bother.
Wednesday and we left early - around 9am Beijing time - about 7am local time. Our driver didnt speak any English or Japanese, so it wasnt until lunch time that we could actually communicate much but we managed to get by with the little chinese we have.
Our first stop was the ruined city of Gaochang. An ancient Uighyr city spread over 5 square kilometers, Gaochang is a fascinating couple of hours taking one hundreds of years back in time. Compared to the site of the ruined city we saw in Chie Mo there is much more of the city still intact - especially a couple of temples which are well worth checking out. Entrance is 30 RMB, and when you get through the gate locals offer rides on donkey carts. They are known to take people round the back and then charge more to take people back to the entrance again. We turned down their offers and walked. I guess the donkey carts would be good if you are pressed for time more than money. In one of the far corners we discovered a mostly intact building with the remains of some frescos still visible.
After Gaochang it was off to the Buddhist grottos at Bezelik Caves, a set of Buddhist cave temples that was apparently an important Buddhist center from the 6th to 13th centuries, and today house some rare examples of Buddhist mural art although they have been damaged to a large extent both by the locals with their prohibition toward the worship of images and by German archaeologists at the turn of the 20th century.
Then the driver took us to the flaming mountains - and another “attraction” 20RMB - which seemed to us to be pure bollocks - and which we didnt enter.
Then we had lunch up the grape valley. In season this valley has some fine views - but now, out of season the vines are gone so we couldnt see it as it should be seen. The driver took us up a side road so that we could avoid paying the entrance fee (60RMB?) for the car to go up the main road. Then we had a great feed of uighyr noodles (vegetarian by request) and a good chat with our driver.
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