Nikki (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} intothe_woods) wrote,@ 2005-09-14 12:03:00 |
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Turpan
Turpan
More pictures!
The city of Turpan was our next stop after Tian Chi. So, the city was 'eh' but still interesting, the best part was before we had to stay there.
Driving in was interesting. I really loved the houses. You could tell they were poor, like most of the other places we drove by, but they all had tall walls surrounding them and to get into the courtyard in front of the house they would have big gates. Some of them were beautiful! Really nice carved and painted wood, bright colours (still in mid-east looking area) or intricate metal work. Really surprising to find there. And they sleep on their roof's. And TONS of vineyards! Apparently the only good wine in all of China comes from this area. And they have the sweetest grape in the world, or so they claim. It was pretty good. And lucky us, the only one that was seedless. I bought some for the train before we left Turpan. Washed the with bottled water :P That was an experience in itself.
Stopped at a canal system/irrigation place for one of our education stops. Lots more pretty colours there, I took a few pictures. Mohammad (our awesome tour guide) rushed us through the whole place though. I didn't mind, we were lucky (our two buses had split up again). He rushed us through so we could go to wine tasting before we left!! So good. It was really hot, but it was so much nicer than how we left Beijing. It was a dry desert heat. Which makes sense. Turpan (and this canal) is a oasis along the silk road going across Taklaman desert (which means go in but don't come out).
*sigh* Another story of my weirdness. Went to lunch afterwards. The food took forever to come out, there were about 30 of us, but we went with one of the TBC guides, so they couldn't really leave without us. There was a chicken dish. Seriously haven't had chicken in AGES, so I could forgive it having bones. What can I say, standards get seriously lowered in China. Going good until….dun dun duuuun. A foot A chicken foot. That was far more than I could handle and I nearly broke down crying at the table. I had spinach and bread for lunch. Yay bread. Haven't had any since I got back in Beijing, lol.
The Village
This night was the village stay. Wow. Talk about immersion, this was really one of those little primitive villages that we saw along side the road during our trip. They use donkeys as transportation and have straw on their roofs. Dinner was nice and simple. Fruit and bread. The bread was AWESOME though. They had something that tasted just like sourdough. Best food so far, lol. Most people were sick by this time (not me!) so they didn't mind the simple food either. More luck. Right after our full moon at Tian Chi. The Uigers in the village were having a wedding! We all got invited to the party! So we all joined the village at the reception. Live music, and their dancing was fantastic. A lot different than us, you could tell when we went up to dance. They don't use their hips at all. It's all with the arms. Loved watching it. American dancing sucks, haha. Whenever they saw you weren't dancing they would push you onto the dance floor. And after the commotion with the scorpion on some kid, we went back around midnight to sleep on the floor of a dining room.
Flaming Mountains
Today we split up again, people who wanted to stay at the village and pick grapes could, and people who wanted to hike it up the Flaming Mountains to see some Buddhist grottos, could do that. I chose the latter. Drove about an hour to get there. I love watching desert go by, seriously. All the houses were made out of the sand/mud in the desert and everything blended into the sand and mountains. We had to walk through a little oasis town to get to the grottos. It was fantastic! Nothing but sand colour for so long, sand colour village, sand colour graves (eek!) and in the middle of all this sand colour was a RIVER and GREEN! Really neat looking, running through the middle of this village. We wandered our way through the village, which was almost the best part of this little excursion. It's like something you would see opening up the pages of National Geographic (as if the rest of the trip wasn't). The bus dropped us off above the town, so we got a nice areal view of it. Lots of gardens.
Very hot walking there. But that's why it's called the flaming mountains. After the village it was obviously a tourist spot. There was a wooden walkway (in good condition) all the way to the grottos. We didn't pass that many people though.
In the caves were Buddhist paintings from the 4th century. Really sad that most of them were destroyed. Honestly, if people were comfortable enough in their belief that their religion was the best, why would they bother destroying other peoples? It's sad, but as the trip went on, most of the things we saw were destroyed by other religions. Jerks.
Lots of singing on the bus on the way back to the village to pick up the others. God, I can't express how awesome this tourguide was. So cool.
We had a lot of free time in the city. And damn. Of all the places to have free time. This town had NOTHING to offer. Finding something to eat when we got there was rough. Went off in a small group. Some places wouldn't serve us because we were American, which was really the only problem like that we've had. We got desperate and ended up in this hole in the wall place. I NEVER would have gone to a place that looked like this in America, I don't know why I went into one in China. But…wow. Best food I've had on the trip so far! What a surprise! No meat in the entire meal (we had 2 vegetarians with us) and a huge table full of food! Only $1 in the end. I love this country. Things are so much cheaper outside Beijing.
Other than that….NOTHING to do in the city. Supposedly there was a market at night, but we never found it. We were there the next morning too. So boring. It was nice to finally get a shower at the hotel. But ugh…we just walked back and forth eating 5 mao ice cream (.50RMB) all day.
Heh. This is were it started though….and hasn't stopped. Western food. Chicken sandwich and fries for dinner (everyone went there, we cleaned that place out of food) and chicken nuggets at 'Best Food Burger' fast food place the next day for lunch. Watched a lot of Chinese soap operas that we couldn't understand. Of all the places to have so much free time. Ugh.
We were free until 4pm the next day. Then thetorture fun started. Lots of pain. I like to refer to this day of the trip as "Hell".
It was entirely the fault of the planning of the trip. For some reason, they decided to wait until the HOTTEST part of the day before taking us to this ancient city on top of a plateau in the MIDDLE OF THE DESERT. Searing, scorching sun. I don't know how we all managed not to pass out. Seriously. Fun. People just stopped caring after a while. It's like, hike it to the next shady spot behind a wall, wait there. Move again. Find shade. Don't pass out. Whatever redeeming value that place had was completely lost in the heat of it all.
Almost half way through the trip! I'll work on the pictures for the next part. There are just…so…many.
~Nikki
More pictures!
The city of Turpan was our next stop after Tian Chi. So, the city was 'eh' but still interesting, the best part was before we had to stay there.
Driving in was interesting. I really loved the houses. You could tell they were poor, like most of the other places we drove by, but they all had tall walls surrounding them and to get into the courtyard in front of the house they would have big gates. Some of them were beautiful! Really nice carved and painted wood, bright colours (still in mid-east looking area) or intricate metal work. Really surprising to find there. And they sleep on their roof's. And TONS of vineyards! Apparently the only good wine in all of China comes from this area. And they have the sweetest grape in the world, or so they claim. It was pretty good. And lucky us, the only one that was seedless. I bought some for the train before we left Turpan. Washed the with bottled water :P That was an experience in itself.
Stopped at a canal system/irrigation place for one of our education stops. Lots more pretty colours there, I took a few pictures. Mohammad (our awesome tour guide) rushed us through the whole place though. I didn't mind, we were lucky (our two buses had split up again). He rushed us through so we could go to wine tasting before we left!! So good. It was really hot, but it was so much nicer than how we left Beijing. It was a dry desert heat. Which makes sense. Turpan (and this canal) is a oasis along the silk road going across Taklaman desert (which means go in but don't come out).
*sigh* Another story of my weirdness. Went to lunch afterwards. The food took forever to come out, there were about 30 of us, but we went with one of the TBC guides, so they couldn't really leave without us. There was a chicken dish. Seriously haven't had chicken in AGES, so I could forgive it having bones. What can I say, standards get seriously lowered in China. Going good until….dun dun duuuun. A foot A chicken foot. That was far more than I could handle and I nearly broke down crying at the table. I had spinach and bread for lunch. Yay bread. Haven't had any since I got back in Beijing, lol.
The Village
This night was the village stay. Wow. Talk about immersion, this was really one of those little primitive villages that we saw along side the road during our trip. They use donkeys as transportation and have straw on their roofs. Dinner was nice and simple. Fruit and bread. The bread was AWESOME though. They had something that tasted just like sourdough. Best food so far, lol. Most people were sick by this time (not me!) so they didn't mind the simple food either. More luck. Right after our full moon at Tian Chi. The Uigers in the village were having a wedding! We all got invited to the party! So we all joined the village at the reception. Live music, and their dancing was fantastic. A lot different than us, you could tell when we went up to dance. They don't use their hips at all. It's all with the arms. Loved watching it. American dancing sucks, haha. Whenever they saw you weren't dancing they would push you onto the dance floor. And after the commotion with the scorpion on some kid, we went back around midnight to sleep on the floor of a dining room.
Flaming Mountains
Today we split up again, people who wanted to stay at the village and pick grapes could, and people who wanted to hike it up the Flaming Mountains to see some Buddhist grottos, could do that. I chose the latter. Drove about an hour to get there. I love watching desert go by, seriously. All the houses were made out of the sand/mud in the desert and everything blended into the sand and mountains. We had to walk through a little oasis town to get to the grottos. It was fantastic! Nothing but sand colour for so long, sand colour village, sand colour graves (eek!) and in the middle of all this sand colour was a RIVER and GREEN! Really neat looking, running through the middle of this village. We wandered our way through the village, which was almost the best part of this little excursion. It's like something you would see opening up the pages of National Geographic (as if the rest of the trip wasn't). The bus dropped us off above the town, so we got a nice areal view of it. Lots of gardens.
Very hot walking there. But that's why it's called the flaming mountains. After the village it was obviously a tourist spot. There was a wooden walkway (in good condition) all the way to the grottos. We didn't pass that many people though.
In the caves were Buddhist paintings from the 4th century. Really sad that most of them were destroyed. Honestly, if people were comfortable enough in their belief that their religion was the best, why would they bother destroying other peoples? It's sad, but as the trip went on, most of the things we saw were destroyed by other religions. Jerks.
Lots of singing on the bus on the way back to the village to pick up the others. God, I can't express how awesome this tourguide was. So cool.
We had a lot of free time in the city. And damn. Of all the places to have free time. This town had NOTHING to offer. Finding something to eat when we got there was rough. Went off in a small group. Some places wouldn't serve us because we were American, which was really the only problem like that we've had. We got desperate and ended up in this hole in the wall place. I NEVER would have gone to a place that looked like this in America, I don't know why I went into one in China. But…wow. Best food I've had on the trip so far! What a surprise! No meat in the entire meal (we had 2 vegetarians with us) and a huge table full of food! Only $1 in the end. I love this country. Things are so much cheaper outside Beijing.
Other than that….NOTHING to do in the city. Supposedly there was a market at night, but we never found it. We were there the next morning too. So boring. It was nice to finally get a shower at the hotel. But ugh…we just walked back and forth eating 5 mao ice cream (.50RMB) all day.
Heh. This is were it started though….and hasn't stopped. Western food. Chicken sandwich and fries for dinner (everyone went there, we cleaned that place out of food) and chicken nuggets at 'Best Food Burger' fast food place the next day for lunch. Watched a lot of Chinese soap operas that we couldn't understand. Of all the places to have so much free time. Ugh.
We were free until 4pm the next day. Then the
It was entirely the fault of the planning of the trip. For some reason, they decided to wait until the HOTTEST part of the day before taking us to this ancient city on top of a plateau in the MIDDLE OF THE DESERT. Searing, scorching sun. I don't know how we all managed not to pass out. Seriously. Fun. People just stopped caring after a while. It's like, hike it to the next shady spot behind a wall, wait there. Move again. Find shade. Don't pass out. Whatever redeeming value that place had was completely lost in the heat of it all.
Almost half way through the trip! I'll work on the pictures for the next part. There are just…so…many.
~Nikki
