The Xinjiang Uyughur Autonomous Region is in Northwest China just north of Tibet. It has borders with Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. It lies at the crossroads of the Karakorum, Kunlun and Tianshan Mountain ranges and has been an important route of the Silk Road for centuries. Once known as Chinese Turkestan, Xinjiang has been fought over for more than 2500 years. Eventually coming under Chinese rule under the Qing Dynasty and finally the People’’s Republic of China. There’s so much history here it’s hard to know where to begin. I spent a week by train traveling the route of the ancient Silk Road from East to West. My trip had plenty of ups and downs but overall I’d say it was a rewarding experience. The first place I went to was Kumul.
- Kumul/Hami
Kumul, known by the locals as Hami was my first stop. I was coming from Xining and it’s about a 7 hour train ride through some really gorgeous mountains. In Xining everything was about what you’d expect in terms of the normal nightmare procedure of boarding a train in China with security checks, long lines, people cutting in line to get their tickets etc., but when I got to Hami things were a bit different. This is the first fair sized city in Xinjiang and until recently passengers had to have special permission to visit the region so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the police waiting at the train station were very suspicious. I was taken to a little room in the police station for about an hour and a half while a dozen or so police, military police and train security looked over my passport. They all took photos of my info page, various visas and entry stamp. We communicated with a translator app, many phone calls were made and eventually they were satisfied enough and escorted me to my hotel. I’ve been to sensitive security areas in the world where my passport was constantly looked at but this is the first time I’d gotten a police escort to my hotel!! Luckily my hotel was only across the street, but they escorted me inside and even assisted with check in! Now it happened all over again, the hotel security and front desk people all took photos of my passport, phone calls were made and eventually I was able to go up to my room. I was curious if I should risk going for a walk outside since it was such a fiasco just to get into the room, but I’m glad I did. I didn’t have any problems at all walking around Hami, it was a beautiful mid-sized city not all that much different than other Chinese cities, but by this time it was starting to get later in the evening so unfortunately I didn’t have time to visit several of the places I’d hoped to.
Hami is known for their sweet Hami melons. I already knew this little side note and decided I had to try one. When I was out walking around the city I found a man selling different fruits including the Hami Melons out of a cart, now I was all set! Only problem is I didn’t have a knife to cut the Melon. After a nice walk around the city I found a restaurant near my hotel that served delicious Chongqing style hotpot cuisine and they offered to cut my melon for me!! Once you get past all the bureaucracy the locals in Hami are very friendly.
2. Turpan
The next morning I got up early and took the train to Turpan. This time it seemed like the normal kind of ridiculousness at a Chinese train station, several hours in line for what could be taken care of in 15 minutes or less if they allowed mobile ticketing you could actually use to get on the train, nothing out of the ordinary here. The train ride to Turpan was only 2 hours and it was a nice ride through eastern Xinjiang. There are a lot of historic sites to visit near Turpan so there are a lot of local people trying to offer guiding services to tourists the moment you step foot in the arrivals area. This was definitely in sharp contrast to the Hami train station. After talking to several guides and comparing prices I found one I liked, we agreed on 500 RMB for the day and off we went to see the sites.
The first place we went to was Flaming Mountain. The Flaming Mountains also known as Gaochang Mountains are giant red sandstone hills that have eroded over time and look like flames depending on the time of day/angle of the sun. This is the hottest spot in China, with temperatures frequently reaching 50 degrees C/ 120 degrees F. While I was there it got up to 105 degrees F and stayed that way all day. Regardless of the heat, the mountains were beautiful.
The next place we went to check out was the Karez Irrigation System. This was considered one of the three great ancient projects in China, the other two being the Great Wall and Grand Canal. This was fundamental to the success of the people of the Turpan region. It is a series of vertical wells, underground canals and above ground canals used to distribute water from the Tianshan Mountains to the inhabitants and water their crops. There was over 5000 km of irrigation earning it the title of “The Underground Great Wall.” At the end of the tour they give you a drink from one of the 600 parts that are still used today.
The next place we went was Jiaohe Ancient City. This was definitely a highlight of the region! The ruins of Jiaohe are amongst the best preserved ruins in the world and very photogenic. This city was built by digging down instead of building up and it exists on top of a plateau with a river surrounding it. This was convenient because it made it so that they never had to create a city wall, they had a natural one! It was extremely hot (107 degrees Fahrenheit) when I was up there and there’s no shade. At least I had the foresight to buy a hat off one of the local vendors at the bottom of the site otherwise Id be pretty burned.
The last place we went to was the Emin Minaret. This mosque was built in 1777 in honor of the heroic Turpan general Emin Khoja. This is the tallest minaret in China and photography wise it really doesn’t have a bad angle. This was definitely a cool way to end the day.
3. Urumqi
Urumqi is the capital of the Xinjiang region and also the biggest city at 2.5 million. It also claims to be the farthest inland city (away from the ocean) in the world. There are many international and domestic flights to Urumqi but I took the train. I prefer train travel and this should have been a mellow 2 hr train ride from Turpan, but due to several things outside my control, I missed my train. At least this was a day where it didn’t matter much with Urumqi being so close to Turpan. After about an hour and a half in the ticket line I finally was able to get put on a later train. The train was three hours later than my original, that meant another three hours in the Turpan Railway Station. Ugh. Well it turned out ok, because these two adorable little kids kept me entertained. They followed me everywhere up until it was time to board 🙂
The new train I was put on was a bullet train so the journey was only an hour! After an additional hour of police, military police, and train security taking photos of the contents of my passport I was on my way into the capital! By this point it was late afternoon so I didn’t get the time to see everything I’d wanted to, but I did get to see a few of the sights.
The first place I went to was Qinghai Mosque. This is a beautiful old mosque, built in 1868 supposedly by one person from the Qinghai Province. They wouldn’t let me inside, but it’s supposed to be pretty amazing in there. I was allowed to go into the bottom part which was essentially a bazaar.
The next place I went to was the famed Grand Bazaar. Specifically the Erdaoqiao Market. This is supposed to be one of the most amazing bazaars in the world but today they had most of it closed except for the street, which was lined with carts selling different foods from all over the Xinjiang Region!
The first spot I tried was a cart selling “Rice Dumplings Stuffed with Honey.”
This was pretty great. It was a rice dumpling with honey drizzled on top as well as some fresh raisins from the Turpan region, sunflower seeds, and yogurt.
The next spot I decided to try was the Xiaoyang Daxia Roast Stuffed Buns cart. They are these awesome stuffed buns that seem to be all over the Xinjiang Region. While in Turpan my taxi driver made a random stop to pick some of these up for us and I was hooked. It basically a bun stuffed with minced lamb meat and spices.
I did not try the “Lungs Stuffed with Gluten in Sauce” cart. This one looked a bit too adventurous for me. I’ve learned it’s better not to get too crazy when trying exotic foods, especially when you’ve got a lot of traveling to do the next day.
The last cart I tried was the “Tianshan Lamb Barbecue” cart. This was pretty awesome. I got two Lamb kebabs. Can’t go wrong there.
After dinner I still had one more mosque I wanted to visit. It’s only about 2km from the Grand Bazaar to the Tartar Mosque, so it’s a pretty easy walk. This mosque is a special one for the region. It was built in 1897 by the local Tartar people entirely by donations. This is the center for Islamic activities in the region as well. Unfortunately I didn’t get the opportunity to go inside but it was pretty nice on the outside.
4. Aksu
My train for Aksu didn’t leave until 7:57am but I got up at 5:00 am and headed straight for the railway station because I couldn’t risk missing this train, the ride was 13 hours and I didn’t know if there were any later ones. It was pretty uneventful at the railway station, I got in there pretty quickly, with enough time to get some noodle soup for breakfast. They didn’t have any drinks though, so I had to use a vending machine later. I ended up getting what I thought was a water but turned out to be some kind of clear fruity soda. When I opened it, it exploded and I got it all over myself. I was already in line for the train at this point and it was beginning to board so I didn’t have enough time to go change my shirt. The morning was now off to a good start.
Due to the length of the train ride I opted to pay for a soft sleeper which gets you one of the bunks in the cabin. There are twelve bunks in each train car and all the people are sharing two toilets, two sinks and one hot water spout for soup or tea. I knew what to expect because I’d ridden on a Chinese sleeper train from Beijing to Dandong in ’17 when I went to North Korea. The two first two hours were ok, there were only two other people in the room and we kept the blinds drawn and tried to sleep. By the time we got back to Turpan one of the people from my cabin left and a family of six moved in. Yep, that’s six people sharing two beds and now eight people total in what was already a tiny room. At first this annoyed the hell out of me but then I realized this is really what traveling is all about. The family was really sweet. There were three generations here. You could see an uncanny resemblance between the three generations of women.
At one point the father asked me if I had any children of my own. I told him I did not, he explained he had four children and didn’t know what to do with all of them.
Eventually we got to Aksu, this was where I’d be getting off. My lovely but brief travel companions would be traveling on to what I believe they said was either Kashgar or Hotan.
After getting off the train I was attempting to leave the train station and a policeman asked to see my passport, he immediately asked me to follow him to a little police station where he asked me a series of questions and took photos of my passport and most of the visas. All the questioning happened with a translator app, as I don’t speak Mandarin and he didn’t speak any English. While he did this about ten heavily armed military personnel, as well as two plain clothes policeman all stood over the two of us watching intently. This was kinda strange because everyone was very nice, if I looked at them they would smile back awkwardly. It wasn’t really a menacing interrogation or anything, in fact at the end a female police officer came over and said “Sorry for bothering you, hope you have a nice day.” However something strange happened, she gave me a phone number and asked me to call it when I got to my hotel to verify that I had checked in. By this point it was around 9:30 pm so it was too late to do any exploring and I was feeling pretty tired.
I checked in to my hotel, it wasn’t exactly a smooth process but we managed to get through it. I called the number I was given by the police and a man answered that didn’t speak any English. I explained that I was told to call this number after I checked in, he didn’t say anything, I told him goodbye and hung up the phone. This seemed very unusual, even for a police state like Xinjiang. I was hungry and saw a little restaurant next to my hotel on my way in so I headed down there.
Everyone was extremely friendly in the restaurant, I got some of the best noodle soup of the trip. This was a nice reminder that even though you can easily find yourself swept up in the bureaucracy of a sensitive region, it almost never represents the people. As I was leaving my server and cashier wanted to take a photo.
Then all of the staff came over and wanted to take a photo outside. It’s the little things that can make traveling special.
It was now around 11:00 pm and I was feeling pretty tired so I headed back to my room to go to sleep. I was almost asleep and at around 11:30 pm I heard a knock at my door. I got up to see who it was and about six armed police men as well as two plain clothed policemen were standing at my door. With a translator app one of them said sorry to bother you but we need to see your passport again. I handed it over and he took plenty of photos once again. These were different police then the earlier ones at the train station. Eventually he told me that they were there because the hotel I was at was not supposed to have foreigners and they were there to escort me to a different hotel. I told him I had already paid and was very tired, I didn’t want to leave, I just wanted to go to sleep. He walked down the hall, made a phone call and came back and said that would be ok. He apologized once again for disturbing me and left.
I got back into bed to go to sleep and about twenty minutes later I heard another knock on my door. This time it was only the two plain clothes policemen. At this point I was starting to get a little pissed off, he showed me the photos he’d taken earlier of my passport and visa and they were pretty terrible, you couldn’t read the information. So he needed to take them again. Ugh. I let him take the photos again, he apologized and left. I got some sleep. Finally.
5. Kashgar
The next day I had a six hour train ride to Kashgar. Nothing too crazy happened at the train station and the ride was pretty pleasant. They expect more tourists in Kashgar just like Turpan, I think that’s why the police are a little more laid back here. No photos of my passport this time. Kashgar is a pretty amazing place, definitely a highlight of the region, I knew this before going so I made sure to have two nights here.
Kashgar is an important city of over 2000 years on the Silk Road between China, the Middle East and Europe. It has close borders with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. It really is a melting pot of all these cultures, Uyughur, Kazakh and Han included. I felt much more like I was somewhere on the Arabian Peninsula rather than China.
The first place I went was Id Kah Mosque. This is the biggest mosque in China and it’s right in the central square of Kashgar. The mosque was built in 1442 and can hold up to 20,000 worshipers. There are beautiful poplar trees growing right behind the mosque.
The next place I went was Handicraft Street. This is an old street in central Kashgar where for hundreds of years local artisans have sold handmade crafts. It also has a few restaurants so I decided to stop in for some lunch.
I ordered some beef and noodles and this little girl decided to sit down and help me with my meal. I bought her some fried chicken and she was pretty psyched about it.
The next place I went was to take a photo of an enormous statue of Chairman Mao. This seemed like it was so out of place here. Kashgar really doesn’t feel like a part of China, it’s obvious that the government is trying to change that. This statue would have felt more at home in Beijing. It’s a beautiful statue nonetheless.
The next place I went was Kashgar Old City. This was really cool to walk down the winding streets lined with shops from local artisans and restaurants. It’s a huge maze of Islamic and Uyughur style. All the old houses were so cool.
The last place I went to was Apak Khoja’s Tomb. Architecturally speaking this was a highlight of the Xinjiang region. This masterpiece of Uyughur architecture was built in 17th century as a family cemetery for the Islamic leader.
Overall I enjoyed my travels of the Xinjian Region. The trip definitely had its ups and downs but often times the most rewarding travel is the most challenging. The next day I went overland from Kashgar to Osh. Going through the Irkeshtam Pass to Kyrgyzstan had its own set of challenges, but I’ll save that for another post…
Leave a Reply