It's a two hour minibus ride to the Liuyuan railway station -- the closest to Dunhuang. Our minibus exemplified the cliche that there is always room for one more person on an apparently full bus. Robyn and Todd (a thirty-something Canadian financial analyst) entertained the crowd by playing a game of chess that lasted most of the distance. Todd was surprised when Robyn easily defeated him, and the promised rematch never occurred (Todd left from Kashgar to go back to work, he was the only one in the group not going on to Islamabad).
We had become old hands at train travel, and settled down to sleep soon after we boarded the train. At Turpan we found a welcome surprise -- our very own 31-seat coach, with air-conditioning. Along with Chen, the driver, it was to be ours all the way to Kashgar. Even with some of the packs occupying the back seat we each had a double seat, and Chen took good care of us -- making sure we ate, stopping for photo and toilet ops, and avoiding numerous potential collisions with everything from donkey carts to army trucks.
The first day in Turpan, Alan (the Kiwi chef) organized a trip to the second lowest lake in the world -- Aiding Hu, 505 feet (154 meters) below sea level. I had severe doubts about the wisdom of this expedition, which unfortunately turned out to be justified (I should have listened to my intuition...) It took two hours in a stifling minibus over a very bumpy gravel road through unrelieved sand and scrub to reach a marker beside a waterless depression. I made some bad puns about the low point of our trip... There were some points of interest: an abandoned factory and signs of surface mining near the "lake"; salt crystals edging brackish water nearby; a view of the Tian Shan and the "Flaming Mountains" (pretty red rocks) on the two hour drive back, and working oil rigs -- nodding donkeys -- along the main road. The high point of the expedition was a stop at the driver's home in a small village just outside Turpan. His wife was angry because she was surprised, but she picked us grapes from the vine that shaded the side courtyard of the house. The bed and kitchen were in the cool courtyard, which was reached through heavy wooden doors in a blank wall. I took a photo of the driver and his youngest child -- the instant reply on my digital camera's LCD screen was a big hit.
Turpan is supposed to be the hottest place in China, and we saw a number of beds set up beside, or even over, the irrigation channels that line the streets. One of the things I love about China is the trees that line the roads everywhere there is water. Turpan's water, like that of the other Taklamaklan oasis towns, comes from the mountains, along one of the hundreds of karez that serve the city. Karez are underground channels, dug by hand, connecting a series of vertical wells, fed by gravity. Above ground, the water in the irrigation channels is directed by means of metal gates.
The second day in Turpan (or Turfan) we went with a local guide to visit the ruined city at Jiaohe (not much left, but a wonderful Masada-like setting); a karez; the Emin Minaret (a severely plain mosque with an elaborate minaret); "Grape Valley" (a good lunch stop), and the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves -- so desecrated by Muslims, Western archaeologists and the Red Guards as to be hardly worth the drive. No doubt they were once as spectacular as the caves at Dunhuang.
While I enjoyed Turpan, it hardly matched the picture I had gleaned from the descriptions in the Lonely Planet and assorted tour brochures of a small town with streets shaded by grape vines. There are a few streets that match the description, but Turpan is more of a city than a town, with little charm remaining. Like most of the other oasis towns it now boasts wide avenues with concrete and tile buildings, several stories high. The use of white rectangular tiles, laid vertically, is particularly unfortunate. It doesn't take long for the prevailing dust to turn them dingy, while the mud brick of the older homes ages more gracefully.
The road to Urumchi was new and good and guarded by toll booths. The divided highway ran through the desert before turning into the hills beside a wide river bed -- a narrow band of fast-running grey-brown water carved a convoluted path through a wide wilderness of stones and gravel. Later, crossing a flat green plain, mountains appeared to the north, clouds drifting across their snowy peaks (these were the Tian Shan, or Heavenly Mountains). We passed more windmills, I quit counting at 50.
Aside from an incongruous Ferris wheel (there's a new one at Kashgar, too) in a hillside park, Urumchi, where we ate lunch on the fourth floor of a big department store, was eminently forgettable -- big, noisy, modern. Heavenly Lake (Tian Chi), where we spent two nights in yurts, was eminently memorable.
I love mountains, and I knew it was going to be good as we started climbing beside a rushing steel grey river, We began to see yurts, and tall pine trees closed in around the road. We entered National Park territory (60 yuan each) and picked up the English-speaking owner of the yurts we would stay at, who got the coach past the guards who wanted us to ride the new (and hideous) cable car instead.
The yurts said Mongolia, and the mountains said Switzerland, but we were still in China. The tourist end of the lake was spoiled not only by the cable cars, but also by pink concrete walkways and fake pink wooden bridges. I winced at the concrete pavilions with seats in the shape of mushrooms and peppers -- a Chinese Disney at work!
Sleeping in the yurt was fun -- it had a raised wooden platform padded with carpets and quilts -- a couple of quilts, my silk sleep sack and thermal underwear kept me plenty warm. Eating was marginal -- rice & veggies, noodles & veggies, plain noodles, more noodles... Sanitary arrangements were abysmal -- you could wash in the lake, which felt like the snow-melt it undoubtedly was, and the toilet was an environmental disaster area up the hill under the trees where the ground was littered with toilet paper.
I passed up a couple of hours on a horse to spend a long morning walking round the lake, then scrambling up a ravine and sitting on a grassy slope looking at blue-green water framed by picture-perfect mountains. Splendid isolation -- apart from the motor boat that roared round the lake at irregular intervals. After surviving an energetic morning intact, I turned my left ankle walking on the loose rocks beside the lake. After spraining my right ankle badly in Turkey two years ago I felt jinxed (or very careless!) but this was less serious and prompt action meant that it was mostly back to normal in a couple of days -- I dunked it in the lake in lieu of ice, rubbed it with arnica gel, and Robyn did Reiki for me. All that plus an ace bandage kept it under control, although it did prevent me walking out (20-30 minutes) the next morning. Instead I got a boat ride with the packs and a sheep bound (both senses) for slaughter.
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