The Memory Box: Traversing the Silk Road (III)

Day 5: Hami >>> Turpan

The next day, we woke up early to visit the mausoleums of Hami Uyghur Royal Family. Nothing special here, it's just that the Uyghurs' are Muslims so the buildings were built in Islamic style. Also we got there so early, the Mausoleum's tour guide had not even clocked in for work, so the security guard ended up taking us around... we only bought the tickets when we were leaving at the end of the tour.

Then we were back on the road on our way to Turpan to visit the infamous Fiery Mountain. The Fiery Mountain are mentioned in the "Journey to the West" about the Monkey King traveling west wards with his master and two other disciples.

On the way, we stopped at another grotto, and got a glimpse of some impressive landscapes. At the Grotto of A Thousand Buddhas, our local tour guide was a young 16-year-old boy who showed us around the different grottos. He explained that many of the paintings and wall carvings have been removed by foreigners and are now in museums. In a way, it's a shame that we cannot see them here in the original setting, but then again, if it wasn't for them taking the paintings away, they might not have been preserved at all.

Next we visited the Old City of Gaochang, we entered the old city by donkey carts, and the city was like ruins, all the old buildings were built from the soil and had been weathered away. There is a building in which Monkey King's master had lectured in, but they had rebuilt that, so that's why it looks so nice and new.

Behind the Old City of Gaochang, we can see the Fiery Mountain, and our next stop was to the Fiery Mountain itself. There we see the Monkey King's rod as a thermometer, and other famous murals and statues of scenes/stories from the Journey to the West. In the story, the Monkey King stole the Fan Princess's fan to put out the heat of the Fiery Mountain, and the Fan Princess is the wife of the Devil Bull King. Ahhh, brings back memories of all the stories that I heard as a child.

Then we visited this "local family" who planted grapes and produced raisins. The host was the "clan leader" and he told us he had specifically stayed behind for us. He also then went on to introduce all the different types of raisins and what good they will do for our body if we take a couple of each every day - some were good for the liver, or for curing asthma, or for strengthening etc etc.

When he finally finished talking, all the ladies in the tour group went crazy and started buying things. I have to admit the raisins all tasted pretty good, but they may have been too sweet.... and I just thought they were quite expensive.... so in the end my mom and I didn't buy any.

When most of the ladies had bought all the raisins they wanted, then the clan leader revealed another pile of "more superior" raisins..... hahahaha.... all the ladies then started to complain and the clan leader said what made these raisins more superior is because they were dried on the vine. These were even more expensive, and we saw that he also had almonds and goji berries as well. But my mom pointed out to me that the goji berries were too bright and red! It looked like they had been dyed.

So in China, never believe anything....

Day 6: Turpan >>> Urumqi

In the morning, we visited another Islamic mausoleum first, then started to make our way to Urumqi.

Finally I can show you what our "natural restrooms" look like.... men can just go without cover, the ladies have to crawl into the hole there, or use an umbrella to shield ourselves. It was definitely difficult at first, it was so weird that you might have trouble going at first... hehehe....

Along the route to Urumqi, we also passed by the largest Wind Power station in China.

When we got to Urumqi, we experienced the traffic congestion that is very well known. Of all the cities we went to, Urumqi was the only one that had congested roads ALL THE TIME! However, I was surprised that this city was very developed. There were lots of new high rises and residential buildings. They even have an advance bus system called the BRT and their bus stations look really nice!

We passed through the city and continued on to Tianshan Tianqi (heavenly mountain and heavenly lake). This area is high in the mountain and looks very much like the rocky mountains and surrounding areas in Canada.