WALKING OFF THE MAP
Kashgar, Kuqa, Urumqi, Turpan.... if these names don’t evoke images of Arabian Nights, deserts, camels, silk, jade, nomadic shepherds and ancient cities, they should :-) Together these things embody the essence of Xinjiang, China's westernmost province and corridor of the Silk Road. At the end of my last trip I flew to Kashgar to meet my friend Spark and explore Xinjiang. From our first walk around that evening I was struck with the smell of smoke on the air from the outdoor street kebab stands (lamb on swords, mmm), the heat, and unusual combination of cultures. The people of Xinjiang are mostly an ethnic minority called Uighers (pronounced 'wee-gers'). Their culture and language are much different from the rest of China. Uighers are of Central Asian descent, their language is Turkic - totally different than Chinese - and some happy combination of genetics has given them the most beautiful olive skin, dark hair, and strikingly clear eyes. They are mostly Muslim and women wear head scarves. Mosques and minarets are on every street, you'd hardly know you were in China.
Spark and I explored Kashgar for a day, visiting the Tomb of the Fragrant Concubine, the old city, and the famous Kashgar Bazaar. The bazaar was food for the imagination, with heaps of spices and nuts in stalls, silks hanging from every surface, carved gourds, jeweled knives, and gaudy gold vases - it was so Aladdin! :-)
Our first (of four) overnight bus took us to Kuqa, and here we really did walk off the map :-) Well, we didn’t have a map so we drew our own as we walked around the city. We felt very Intrepid as we explored places our regular trips don’t go to, and earned our map-making Boy Scout badges, hahaha. We made friends with a local Uigher man, Mohammed, who told us some interesting things about local attitudes and ideas. They're a bit controversial for me to record here, but ask me anytime and I'll tell you about it...
We didn’t even have one night in Kuqa before we were on another overnight bus, this time to Urumqi. Our goal here was getting ourselves visas to Kazakhstan -- did I mention we went to Kazakhstan?? :-D hehehehe. Both Spark and I had a deadline when we had to leave the country and re-enter to reset our visa validity, so we opted to cross the border into Kazakhstan for a few days! And no, I didn’t tell my mom until I got back safely ;-) Our day in Urumqi was a bit crazy, running back and forth from the visa photo place to the Kazakh Embassy, to the bus station for tickets, back to the Embassy, and back to the station to take off the same night! <<That's 3 consecutive nights on buses, by the way>> It didn’t help our stress levels when, we got our passports submitted a half hour before the deadline for the weekend and were told to return at 4:00 to get them. We went to buy bus tickets on faith that we actually going to get these visas approved the same day, but when we returned to the Embassy they were closed...! They've got our passports and its a Friday afternoon, we may not see them again til Monday... boo. A guy was walking around behind the gate, he looked like a gardener, but he took the receipt we had for the two passports and disappeared.... pile on the stress. About 5 minutes later he returned with our passports complete with shiny new Kazakh visas! Hurray! and off we went to the bus!
THROUGH THE KHORGAS PASS
The road to the border took us through vast expanses of NOTHING.... not terribly interesting, but it does give quite a picture of what the ancient traders saw as they passed through these areas on camel caravans... awesome. Just before the border though in the Khorgas Pass, I woke up in time to see the sun rise over a beautiful long narrow lake bordered by mountains, and then soon after when we were in the mountains I found myself with a gorgeous green hillside dropping off on one side and a Kazakh yurt camp on the other! I almost fell out of bed trying to get a photo of it. (A yurt is kind of like a tipi, but flatter with a dome roof). They were scattered across the landscape like stout mushrooms with shorn caps. If I were the bus driver we would've stopped every two minutes for photos :-)
Crossing the border was an experience... the words 'outpost' and 'middle of nowhere' kept coming to mind. We got delayed on the Kazakh side because my passport looked suspicious -- stressful! The moment we crossed the border all Chinese ceased to be useful and suddenly everyone spoke Russian! I realize it's a former Soviet Union country, but it was still surprising because Xinjiang was so strong in the Muslim/Central Asian culture, that we were expecting that even more so in Kazakhstan, but instead found ourselves in what felt like Eastern Europe. We had no end of trouble trying to get from the border to Almaty, where we were planning to stay the few days. We bought a Central Asia Lonely Planet, but it was 4 years old -- helpful hint: a current edition guidebook is useful but subject to change; a 4 year old guidebook is a study in urban development! Not only could we not find anything we tried looking for, but the cost of everything listed in the book had gone up by 800%! Literally. The inflation was shocking -- to our budget too, haha. Case in point, the book said there was a bus from the border to Almaty for $3.50; in reality there was NO bus, and we paid $25 EACH for a taxi because there was no other option! The "taxi" hahahaha, oh my goodness, was an early 90's model Audi HATCHBACK that we travelled 350KM's, in 90+ degree weather, and there were FOUR adults in this Audi, besides the driver :-O If I never repeat that experience again I will be very happy.
When we finally got to Almaty the Russian feeling was reinforced. If I take anything from this trip (besides adventures) it's very rudimentary knowledge of how to read and pronounce the Cyrillic alphabet. Within a day and a half I learned to recognize that what I originally thought was 'pectopah' is actually 'restoran' (because a P is an R, C is an S, H is N... yeah) Of course being able to pronounce the words doesn’t mean I have any idea what they mean, but it did help that we could match the Cyrillic street signs to our English map -- much good that it did us considering most of the things we were looking for weren’t there anyway!
We spent our first night in the cheapest hotel available, inside the train station, facing the tracks, with no bathroom except the one downstairs shared by the whole station -- and even this room was 3 times more than we would normally pay in China, good lord. There wasn’t really a lot to see in Almaty, and we spent one whole day tracking down unfruitful leads in the Lonely Planet, haha. One of the few that did pan out was the Irish bar! It is truly amazing how these are the same the world over :-D I had a White Russian, it just seemed fitting, hehe. Being in Almaty gave me a good reminder of how culture shock feels. The culture itself wasn’t at all difficult, but not being able to speak the language or know how things operate, being reliant on someone else, being unfamiliar and uncomfortable, I'd forgotten those things.
After three nights in Kazakhstan we headed back towards China. Our bus this time was so posh! Air conditioned and comfy beds -- better than our hotels the last 3 nights! :-) Unfortunately all this luxury was offset by the fact that the ride was SO BUMPY that it felt like riding a mechanical bull flat on your back for 350km's. The sites on the way back were equally stimulating; the Lonely Planet summed up Kazakhstan in one line, calling it "Interesting and quirky sites separated by vast expanses of NOTHING." and it's true. Crossing the border this time we had no trouble, except getting 'tagged' at the border by some local guys. They were literally huddled in a crowd and ran forward to touch us as we walked by, like they were afraid of us! It was crazy.
TURPAN TAXI
Spark and I spent our last two days in Turpan and Urumqi. Turpan is officially the hottest place in China, and without fail it was 110 degrees the day we were there! Appropriately, one of the first sites we visited was the Flaming Mountains – so called not only because it is so incredibly hot, but also because at sunset it is said that the light plays over it like fire (we didn’t get to see this phenomenon). We did visit Buddhist cave paintings, more tombs, and stopped at a grape village for lunch. If you see my pictures you’ll see some strange and interesting looking buildings, all brick, that look like a regular house on the bottom, but have a 4 walled brick screen of sorts on the top level; these are used to dry the grapes that are the main industry of Turpan. Raisins and wine are big in this area.
The best part of the day was on the way to the grape village, our driver pulled over and asked if either Spark or I wanted to drive! We were riding in a regular taxi, mid-90’s Honda something, just Spark and I, our local guide Mardan, and his dad was the driver. I couldn’t pass up such a fun chance, besides I love driving, so I jumped at it! :-) Chinese drive on the same side of the street as we do at home, so I was perfectly comfortable, passing cars, the whole works – stick shift too, thank you very much! I can hardly say the same for Spark…. he was absolutely s-h-i-t-t-i-n-g himself! Hahahaha! I was driving with one hand on the wheel and the other resting on the gear shift, and do you know he actually said to me, “Two hands on the wheel!” LOL My immediate response was “yes, Dad” :-P (no offense to my real Dad ;-) ) I only drove about 15 miles, with Spark carrying on a constant chorus of “I’m going to die” and me hurling insults at him for backseat driving and not actually knowing how to drive himself – hahahahaha, it was great fun! :-D After I relinquished the wheel back to the real driver we also visited an ancient ruined city called Jiaohe that was really really cool (see photos).
One last bus brought us back to Urumqi, officially the one place in the world that is farthest from an ocean. Pretty crazy ey? (There are lakes, but no ocean). We walked around a fantastic park our last night there. Weekends in the parks in China are an awesome thing to see :-) The whole community comes out, and this park was particularly great because they had little electric cars shaped like animals riding around, a fountain light show, bumper boats in the lake, and best of all these inflatable tubes that kinda look like big hamster wheels out on the water that water for people to roll around in! It’s like a huge carnival, and all it is is a Sunday night in the park! I knew if I left my camera at the hotel I would want it, without fail, but it was still fun and funny standing by the lake watching these kids rolling around in the tubes and crashing into each other. :-)
Twelve days and two countries later, Spark and I haven’t killed each other, and better yet we’re still friends too, hahahaha. There are still a few places on the Silk Road I want to visit, like Jaiyuguan where the farthest western remains of the Great Wall are, and Dunhuang to see the Mogao Caves, but if I never lead an Intrepid Silk Road trip at least I got to see all these cool places myself. Hurray!
Currently Reading: "Don't Tell Mom I Work On the Rigs, She Thinks I'm a Piano Player in a Whore House" -- this book is strange and funny and feels like trying to dodge baseballs from a fast pitching machine!
