Still in China: Xinjiang

First stop after we officially closed our Peace Corps service was Xinjiang province, a huge chunk of China stretching North and West to the far edge of the country. Xinjiang is not what you picture when you think of China, guaranteed. The people there are Uyghurs, and are a huge ethnic mix, most with far more Middle Eastern features than Han. The language sounds like Arabic. Even though everywhere in China is officially on Beijing Time, Xinjiang is so far away that the locals mostly live on Xinjiang Time, 2 hours later; you had to be careful when asking "What time?" So yeah, it was very different, and very beautiful, with all the important cities marking oases towns along the Silk Road.

We arrived in the provincial capital, Urumqi, dug into some pilaf and mutton, and spent the day getting our bearings. Tidbit: Urumqi is roughly the farthest place on earth from any ocean. While in Urumqi we visited some nice parks, ate some great night market food, and went to the museum, which I was REALLY excited about because of the silk road mummies. Mummy exhibit was closed when we arrived. To be fair, we'd only gotten in that day because we looked like we belonged to a tour group. After Urumqi we went to Turpan, 2nd lowest place on earth and hottest spot in China. Day 1 was HOT and we mostly spent the day being miserable because there really isn't any way to get around without hiring cars from the touts who were, as they are wont to be, pushy, and therefore bottom of the list of people I want to give money to. We ran into some fun folks that night, however. Two of them were the stingiest people I have ever met: they snuck into every attraction they went to, and if they couldn't sneak in, didn't go. The guy was, appropriately, a top-notch bargainer and got an extremely cheap van for all 10 of us who were milling around at the time.

The van took us to Tuyoq village and the Jiaohe ruins. The whole region is extremely famous for it's grapes and melons, and Tuyoq was a traditional grape-growing Uyghur village. Despite the entrance fee, collected, along with our passport numbers, at the gate by Han Chinese military, most of the villagers were extremely friendly, gifting us with bags of grapes, and inviting us in for tea and bread. While I wandered around, Ben sat with a man who was cleaning out the innards of a goat, chatting and learning about the village. Because Mandarin is the 2nd language for the Uyghur people as well as for us, it was actually easier to communicate that we'd thought it might be.

The Jiaohe ruins were set on a loess plateau that sat far above criss-crossing stream valleys in the shape of an arrowhead, and date back to 100BC. While the remains of the town were rarely more than earthen walls, they stretched out far beyond the official observation point where the tour groups stopped, and we had practically the whole of the plateau to ourselves for the time we spent there.

Next stop was Kashgar, a legendary silk road oasis town, and just a few hours from borders with Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, etc. A much smaller town than Urumqi, Kashgar is famous for its markets and is a jumping off point for camel treks, border crossings, and trips up the Karakoram highway. Unfortunately for us, because of Olympic security measures, a new permit process had just been put into place, making any of those trips more hassle than we'd anticipated. Having done a desert overnight with camels in Dunhuang last year, we got together with two other couples and hired a van to take us up to Lake Karakul, serenely located at the foot of snow-capped mountains, and sitting a few hours up the Karakoram highway. The trip there was gorgeous, and we spent the afternoon hiking halfway around the lake, cooling off with an icy dip, and then hurrying back to the warmth of a Kyrgyz yurt where we spent the night. Our Kyrgyz family wasn't the friendliest, but we did our best to share what we had, and enjoyed the company of the others we had made the trip with.

After returning to Kashgar, Ben got sick. Really really sick. He left the bathroom long enough for us to switch rooms in search of air-conditioning. With Ben tied to the toilet, I went out to the Sunday morning animal market. While there sometimes felt like there were as many tourists as locals there, it was still one of the coolest markets I've ever been to -- the donkey carts and sheep with bustles on their behinds and intense negotiations were the highlights. That afternoon I also swung by the famous Sunday Market, but wasn't overly impressed. I think it's considered a big hit because it sells a lot of normal stuff, daily supplies, things locals are buying, as well as some of the usual touristy stuff; I've seen most of it before. The size was impressive though, and there was great people watching.

The morning that we were catching the train back to Urumqi, there was an attack on the police station down the road -- grenades and knives wielded by two Uygher men left 16 men dead, and 16 wounded.

After a much delayed train, we arrived in Urumqi 12 hours late, and after getting to an internet cafe to let moms know we were fine, we crashed. Both feeling slightly ill at this point, we spent the day arranging tickets out, catching those mummies at last, resting.

For photos: go HERE.