Around China in 100 Days

[Roadrunner]

Shanshan – Day 61

We were both quite hung over the next day, baijiu being what it is to the drinker's stomach.

We had a slow breakfast with Snow Fox and his family as we all got ready to go to the wedding.



The wedding was more similar to a western wedding than I had expected, with a wedding march down the aisle, and a pronouncement of man and wife etc. They weren’t married by a priest though and, as a custom, all of the important friends and family gave the couple red envelopes of money (红包) as wedding gifts.



For the second time in two days, we were drinking baijiu again. As the only foreigner there, I was asked to drink with all of the people at the table at least once, and as the bride and groom made their way around the tables to drink with the guests, I was asked to chuck back two glasses for the health and good fortune of their marriage. Lulu was smarter than I, and somehow managed to avoid drinking a drop.

Everyone got well and truly plastered. I was sitting next to the manager of the Kumtagh desert tourist centre and got along well with him until he got so drunk and paranoid that wanted to take me to the police station to register as a foreigner, which is apparently what I need to do each time I stay in a town according to the letter of the law (who the hell does that? Seriously!). Thankfully Snow Fox talked him out of it. That would have been a real pain in the butt.



We all went back for a mid afternoon siesta for a couple of hours. The weather had been noticeably warmer in the past couple of weeks and we knew it would only get hotter. Just before dinner time, a couple of guys from the local motorcycle club turned up after seeing Lulu’s posts on a Xinjiang motorcycle forum. They had some seriously nice bikes and I wondered what I would be like to drive a VMAX around China. I rode to dinner on the back of a BMW1200GS. It was a monster compared to my little bike. I felt like adventure touring in China on that thing would be like trying to drive a two-wheeled tank. If I could keep it up straight I could probably crush Lulu's bike (I would never crush my bike) flat with it, monster-truck style.



It was another action-packed day, courtesy of the hospitality of the kind people from Shanshan. Special thanks to my liver for putting up with the abuse.

[Roadrunner]

Shanshan to Turpan – Day 62

My stomach was burning again. I was still feeling terrible and the culprit was baijiu, again. Lulu was feeling much better than me, having skillfully avoided drinking at the wedding the day before.

We drove to the Kumtagh desert tourist area and the tourist manager that we met the day before let us take the bikes in so we could drive instead of walking through the area. We drove along brick paths among the sand dunes with plaster statues and replicas popping up here and there.



Some of the guys who were hanging around the Buddhist temple plaster replica wanted to try out our bikes. They had driven over the sand dunes on a scooter and we were all very impressed with their skill in driving through sand and made it look easy, so I thought I would give it a go. Driving through sand was so much harder than I thought and I got stuck very quickly. In my state I was unable to get it up the dune I was aiming for, so I enlisted
the help of a couple of friends after almost collapsing from trying to push it up.



Our Uighur friends, bored with mucking around on the dunes, wanted to hitch a lift down the track a bit.
We wandered around the tourist area, dotted here and there with plaster statues and stalls offering ATVs for fun in the sand. We passed up the offer; we had our own bikes to destroy.





After a couple of hours at the tourist area, we drove back to Snow Fox’s house for lunch and a mid-afternoon snooze. I set the alarm to give us enough time to get up and ready to leave by 7.30. As usual, we started off later than planned, mainly because we had to tape up the front instrument panel fairing as the plastic had broken off after the bike fell over the day before. And, yet again, we had to say goodbye to some great people who had been so generous and hospitable to us during our short stay. We met as strangers and left as friends.

It was a short but amazing 90 km drive to Turpan, particularly the gorge beside the flaming mountains about 30 kms from Turpan.

20 kilometres from Turpan, Lulu reached 10,000 kilometres on her bike. It had served her incredibly well up until that point, managing to survive two crashes, numerous drops, constant day-to-day riding and other varied, and regular, forms of abuse.



It was dark before we got into Turpan. Lulu had arranged a place for us to stay in Turpan through couchsurfing and we drove around trying to find where the main street was so we could get to the restaurant where they were waiting for us.

After dinner, they took us to their shop and we set up our sleeping gear on the floor. They owned a wedding studio so it was a nice place to stay. The floor was quite uncomfortable though.

[Roadrunner]

Turpan – Day 63

I woke sore from the wooden floorboards and a continuing hangover. “What the hell is wrong with my liver?!!”



There was plenty to see in Turpan, which has been a very important location in the past, as a political centre and a staging post; providing food and water to merchants traveling the Silk Road. We first visited Gaochang, city ruins which were first built in the 1st century BC and used to be the capital of a small kingdom over 1500 years ago.

We decided to drive around the city walls and found a path leading up the side of the southern wall. Climbing to the top we could see that there wasn’t much city inside the walls, but it was still impressive to know that it once housed 10,000 people. Adding to the scene were the flaming mountains in the background.



On the way to the Buddhist Bezelik grottoes (made with the same intentions in mind as those in Dunhuang), we stopped for a break and noticed significant holes and structures carved out of the rock beside the river we had been driving along. They looked like they must have been a small town, maybe part of Gaochang long, long ago.



We got to the Bezelik cave tourist centre and figured out that a lot of the grottoes had been vandalised in the past couple of years, which was a shame. We continued riding through the magnificent sandstone canyon, which opened out to a plain dotted with settlements and vineyards, with the peaks of the Tian Shan in the distance.





We tried making it to Tuyoq, a well preserved oasis village, but we got lost and had agreed to meet our hosts at 4pm to travel around Turpan. But when we got back nothing eventuated because they were busy with work, so I went for a drive by myself to sort my head out.



We had Xinjiang barbecue again, but I wasn’t feeling hungry at all and left most of the food on my plate.
That night we stayed with their mother and father in a spare room at their house, not far from the studio. Thankfully, it was much more comfortable than the wooden floor from the night before.

[Roadrunner]

Turpan to Urumqi – Day 64

I didn’t sleep so well, with a couple of visits to the bathroom. I was starting to think I was sick and not hung over.

We talked with the parents in the green-dappled light of the courtyard under their grapevine covered trellises. His father was an 18 year old soldier with the PLA from Shaanxi province when Mao Zedong asked the Chinese people to help make a “New Xinjiang” in the 1950s, and got a job placement working for the railroad in Turpan. He has worked as a policeman and businessman among countless other jobs before retiring.



They gave us two big bags of sultanas, one of big sultanas and one of small, to take home with us. The small sultanas were delicious and would be a welcome snack later in the trip where we couldn’t find places to buy food on the road.

We said goodbye to our hosts and started on the road just after lunch. We were told that Urumqi was only 190 kms away on good roads and should get there in a couple of hours.



We missed the turnoff for an ancient city ruin that I really wanted to see, the Jiaohe ruins. We continued to pass masses of wind farms. The Chinese government has recently pushed hard for the development of the production of renewable energy and we could see the results in hectares upon hectares of gigantic, white steel flowers in the arid land along the road.

I realised that we had accidentally taken the G30 expressway to Urumqi when I saw the G312 on the other side of the gorge. We got off the expressway as soon as we could, not only because we could be fined for being on that road, but also because it was dangerous with all the trucks on the road. Not long after we got back on the 312, Lulu hit a pothole again and crashed. This time on asphalt, but it was much slower and again came away with no injuries. That woman is made of steel, I swear.



We drove through Urumqi at rush-hour, even though road signs warned us that motorcycles aren’t permitted until after 10pm. Our destination was another couchsurfer host who had offered us a place to stay, and we found it after an hour or so navigating the streets at dusk.

I was completely shattered, more from feeling sick the whole day than the riding, and was intensely grateful for the soft couch-bed in the lounge.

[Roadrunner]

Urumqi – Day 65

We had a couple of places to visit on out rest day in Urumqi, and the bus system was fairly good, so we used it to get around, rather than get lost on the bikes. Lulu definitely wanted to visit the museum, which turned out to be very interesting, even with the various bits of historical and political propaganda written in the side-notes.

We walked around the market quarter, looking for bargains, checking out the Muslim architecture with the Azan (the prayer call) providing a very Middle Eastern soundtrack to our walk through the streets and the feel if the place reminded me very much of Karachi in Pakistan. Despite feeling as though I had crossed into the Arab world, my stomach was feeling particularly western (if still a bit grumpy), the craving for some McDonald’s that I had had since Beijing became an obsession and I walked around, looking, until I was tired enough to settle for KFC. Someone told me a week or so later that McDonalds is afraid to get established in Xinjiang because of the tensions there. I'm not sure if this is true though.





We met Fiona, Snow Fox’s daughter, at the music school she studies performance piano at in Urumqi. We talked with her and her friends about their life here in Urumqi and played some music.



It was late by the time we got back to our hosts, but they hadn't been waiting for us. They work late at a tea shop they own, where they serve the tea that they ship from their family’s plantation in Fujian.

I retired early to get a good night’s sleep so I could recover from whatever was wrong with my stomach.

[bigdamo]

"Someone told me a week or so later that McDonalds is afraid to get established in Xinjiang because of the tensions there. I'm not sure if this is true though."

Not true.We asked McDonalds about a franchise in Xinjiang a few years ago.They plan to put one in but it will be company owned and run.Xinjiang is way down there list on China dominance.There is/was a copy of McDonalds in Urumqi about ten years ago.Did a pretty dam good job of copying everything including the taste.

I have seen people fly in McDonalds to Urumqi.

Um Xinjiang time-Beijing time thing.Interesting while the sun doesn't set until 10.00pm in summer it doesn't rise in winter until 9.30am at it's peaks.

Here's a tip don't touch the rugs if you don't plan on buying one in the bazaar.Some dealers get pretty upset.

[MJH]

Can we make request and or challenges?
If you post the link to the charity your sponsoring, sorry If you already have and I missed that.
Some may actually submit donation for meeting specific challenges?

Here would be mine….
http://toolserver.org/~geohack/geoha...type:waterbody

Aka Heavenly Lake.

The lake is accessible by Provincial Highway 111 from Fukang City.

I do not believe that Fukang city is far from Urumqi?

[bigdamo]

Cheers BigD,

We took a little longer than 3 hours to do the Urumqi - Shihezi main road. The road crews had torn it all up and there was a detour posted in Chinese to the 快速 (kuaisu). I wasn't sure whether we could go by that route without risking a fine so we kept going on what was left of the national road.

We were told a couple of times that motorcycles can go on the expressways in Xinjiang, and we even found ourselves on one on the way to Urumqi. Do you know if this is true?

Depends who you speak to.Officially no.Unofficially well plenty of motorcyclists do it.Just depends on what is going on at the time.

[bigdamo]

Can we make request and or challenges?
If you post the link to the charity your sponsoring, sorry If you already have and I missed that.
Some may actually submit donation for meeting specific challenges?

Here would be mine….
http://toolserver.org/~geohack/geoha...type:waterbody

Aka Heavenly Lake.

The lake is accessible by Provincial Highway 111 from Fukang City.

I do not believe that Fukang city is far from Urumqi?

Heavenly lake is not that far from Urumqi.Well not by Xinjiang standards.About an hour from Urumqi.

[Roadrunner]

Urumqi to Dushanzi – Day 66

Despite my efforts to get a good night’s sleep, I was still sick and at most I got a couple of hours. Lulu and I had a stupid argument about watching TV, because we were both cranky and stubborn, which wasn’t a good start to the day.

We had trouble getting out of Urumqi and finding the national road and when we did, we were riding on asphalt for a good hour before it turned to gravel for a couple of hours. There were detour signs to go on the expressway, but because it was likely that motorcycles weren’t prohibited from using the expressway, we decided to keep going along the G312. Lulu was still giving me the silent treatment up until lunch time.





We followed the snowy ranges of the Tian Shan west on the G312, while the plains of northern Xinjiang spread out to the right. Passing through Shihezi, Lulu mentioned that it’s known as being one of the most beautiful areas in China. It was nice enough, but couldn’t see what the hype was about from the road.

We drove past Kuitun and its gas and oil refineries.





Our aim was to cross the Tian Shan on the G217 and the last major town before the crossing was Dushanzi, a town that looked like it existed just to service the gas and oil fields, with 中国石化 (Sinopec) present on most buildings. The road into Dushanzi ran up into the snow-capped mountains in the distance, and I got a real feeling of trepidation. I was very excited about the next day’s ride.

We didn’t have much trouble finding a place but I had to stay out of sight of a policeman when his patrol car that pulled up to the curb outside the guest house, just in case he got curious and decided to check the guest-house’s license to see if they could house a foreigner. Luckily he just wanted some dumplings from the shop downstairs.