From 0 degrees to 35!
Even though we get up early and return to the hotel late. The time goes quickly. We have a flight to Turpan. Our guide says that it is 35 degrees Celsius in Turpan. Oefff, that is hot. Kind of a surprise for me, I was more afraid for the cold than the warmth. Turpan is a city at the foot of the mountain. In summer the temperatures raise even more. We have a new guide named AJ. The driver brings us to the hotel and we will meet him tomorrow morning.
Ancient Village
We go to see a real ancient village. AJ, our guide is from the Uygur minority and speaks very quickly. We need to get used to his American quick accent.
On the way to the ancient village, we first climb a mountain barefoot. Our guide insists to do it without shoes. No problem for us beach volleyball stars. It consists of sand and stones and the sand is getting hot already. Marloes and I go up and a few minutes later, we see that AJ is also going up. He can’t stay downstairs if two woman are walking up. ‘Losing face’ he explains us later.
Turpan has a lot of nuts and grapes. Everywhere we see grape drying houses. They are sold as raisins, long ones. We buy them to take home. What a large grape, the raisins are at least three cm long.
The fundaments of the ancient city are dug into the ground because of the high temperatures here.
We also visit a museum and we see mummies, they are well preserved because of the dryness and heat. We see the skin and even some tattoos on it.
Outside we walk slow, and around five we are finished with our program and the guide advise us to do a little nap like the locals do too. People sleep during the day and the city awakes around 19:30 when it is cooler outside.
AJ says that people say that the Turpan people are lazy. It is too hot, you can’t do a lot. Our guide wants to move with his family to Urumqi when he saved enough money. Where you don’t have to stay inside because it is 60 degrees outside in summer.
We also visit Buddha caves but we don’t see a lot of wall paintings of Buddha anymore. When the Islam settled, they destroyed all gods and goddesses.
Bullet Train Urumqi
We have a bullet train to Urumqi. We will have one day with a new guide, and this city is the end of our Silk Road. Our man is Victor, a Chinese guide. He welcomes us with some dried fruits. It is interesting to see different background of our guides, We had one from Tadjikistan, An Uygur Chinese, and now a Chinese man.
