Silk Road - Xinjiang Urumqi II, modern or Erdauqiao

As everyone thought Xinjiang as the most western province, land lock, mainly cover with desert and plateau, it is a natural assumption that it will be original and authentic. My first impression when I arrived at the airport 5 nights ago, the check in point after custom was human-less.  When I got to the boarding gate, there was only a scanner hang there, I scanned my boarding pass, walked in. Get you start thinking, right.  Well, believe it, Xinjiang is one of the richest province even it is land lock.  On top, most petroleum, largest land, least population (less than the population of the city of Shanghai alone), making every head worth more.

Our 1st night, we were looking for the "old" Urumqi, you will find it at Erdaoqiao.  Here, is best to come at night, making the bazaar looks mysteriously Ali Baba time. The Islamic architecture is unique to the culture and ethnic of Uyghur. When we were there, there was a performance - a stunt man was walking a wire from one building to another in the middle of the square.

More than just an old market, Erdaoqiao is like a cultural center.

The rest looked a bit like Kaxgar.

Well, back to the modernity.  The signature landmark in Urumqi is Hong Shan - the red mountain. You probably can see it from every angle in the city. A quick hike will bring you to the top, there, you will be able to see Urumqi from a whole new perspective.  How modern is Urumqi? It was catching really fast.

Far end tall building in development, front is the completed one.

We were talking to a local about the fast development here and she said - that tall building was not there 2 months ago and it would be completing in a month time. The completed one was not there a year ago.  Imagined, back then was 2004.  The city looked fast track. We also found out from the local that the hostel we were looking for up and down the street for many times, was torned down a couple months ago, making room for more new buildings.

However, even with the fast development, Urumqi was a very nice city to visit.  The one thing I couldn't help but to notice was almost all the public city bus drivers, are women.  It shown how hard was the lady worked here. In fact, we were told that there were more women working than man.

It was only 1 weeks, we both started to feel like we didn't want to leave.  Every stop in Xinjiang was a charming spell, comes with feel and thought.  As its name said so, Urumqi is the "beautiful pasture". 
We were not leaving so soon yet, we would be heading north to the border of Russia.

End Note - My sister, who has been following my blog, told me I have many photos of everything but not enough photos of myself.  Normally, photos of the journey are what I am interested in.  But for Urumqi, my friend had been really good in capturing some of the moments.

Hong Shan - spectacular city view of Urumqi.

Surprising modernity.

A day that my mood was light and good.

Zoom in you will see, all the lovers come here, lock theirs heart for each other.

Silk Road - Xinjiang Urumqi I, Kaxgar to Urumqi.

Kaxgar again, after the long bus ride.  We tried to get the same day train to Urumqi, but turned out all the train tickets were fully sold because it was the season of harvesting in Xinjiang.  Before I go on, Xinjiang (most people thought desert, plateau and vast dry land) is a major agriculture province as well as the province with the most reserve in petroleum, natural gas and copper in China.  Its agriculture in fruit - pear, grape, fig, honey dew and its production in chili and cotton are amongst the most in China.
We were offered to ride in the wood cargo train, illegally, with a fee.  Well, I was tempted but my friend said No.  I guessed I like to feel young and dangerous, :-).

No choice, we would have to stay another night since it was evening time. So, we were free and so looked for food.  Funny, we were looking for fish. For all the odds, walking in the pleasant evening breeze, no hurry in our minds, we found a really nice dinner.  Well, Kaxgar is not exactly the place to look for seafood, plateau, desert, land lock, except in the lake.  But, it turned out to be pretty good.  We had one of the best meal in our journey. I had a picture to prove it.  The fish fillet stirred fry with black fungus, cucumber and carrot.  The specialty, the 8 Treasure Pumpkin - stuffed with dried fig, honey date, red date, green and black raisin, grape and corn, steamed till it becomes soft.  We ordered a quarter, I had not found another since then.  The last dish is simple cold dish - carrot, raddish and cucumber slices to the thinnest, dressing with sesame oil and soya sauce.

2 thumbs up!

The next day bus was not your normal bus.  It was a bus with double decker bed, total 18 beds in it, not those 1st class couch, but a normal bus with iron rod double decker beds :-), back to childhood time. The distance from Kaxgar to Urumqi was 26 hours non-stop, passing by the oasis cities of Khola and Kuqa. One of the major issues riding on bus in Xinjiang is "dust".  It was so dusty we had to wear mask most the journey. Two other challenges were water and toilet.  Water is scarce and the local looked fierce when we washed our hand. Toilet is to the basic, can't any more basic. The scenery is flat desert most time, people seem to live a normal life here. My longest bus journey as at today.

A passionate Uyghur lady invited us to her house.  Grape tree is used to shade houses here.

Kids, already working along the highway.

This cook, content and cooked with a happy touch.

We arrived Urumqi safely in the afternoon.  The immediate issue we faced, we couldn't find the hostel suggested in our guides.  Carrying our backpacks up and down the same street many times, I was so exhausted and finally gave up.  I walked in the Bogota Hotel, uh uh, we were not staying in the hotel.  I have read the hotel is open for the army and they had a couple rooms in the basement with 10 beds for backpackers, good thing I speak Mandarin.  The hotel reception was skeptical, looked at us, Chinese but backpacking in China.  They seemed resentful. Well, did not matter, we checked in with RMB20 per night per bed, no shower. It was the cheapest stay in the journey, very clean bed, shower with RMB5.  If you have not known, most Uyghur or Kirghis live out of the city in the high altitude and cold region, they only took shower twice a year.  Water is scarce, also, too many showers too clean actually caused damage to their skin.
In the basement of Bogota Hotel, we met Tony and Ronald, who were doing their second 6-months round the world trip in Asia.