Xinjiang is the most western province of China, and is an autonomous region (not that this means much in practice). There is a large minority population of Uyghur people, and there have been international claims of genocide by China against the Uyghurs. From my research of Xinjiang, I had been expecting a tight, surveillance state. However, while this may have been the case a few years ago, it seems to have relaxed considerably since then (in my experience). There was a lot of police around the cities, but not so many that I would have taken notice if I wasn’t looking out for it. I never had my passport checked when walking around, and didn’t see locals having their ID cards checked.
It was strangely familiar to be in the cities of Kashgar and Turpan. The people looked the same as in Uzbekistan and Kyrgystan, and the women wore the same scarves around their hair. A lot of the food was the same - plov/pilaf and samsa. And even the infamous Uzbek bread resembled the Nang bread here, although the bread here had more flavour. This pleased me a lot, and it was satisfying to see how Central Asia drifted into China, again with no hard boundaries. The scenery was similar to the steppe - dusty and barren.
In Kashgar, I explored the old city, which was not at all like I expected. I was expecting old buildings and little else, but was met with a Disneyland-esque situation with little tourist buses and loud speakers. The buildings looked fake, and the old city had indeed been destroyed and then rebuilt. I found the whole thing amusing and quite a pleasant change from the completely non-touristy Pakistan. I enjoyed buying melon from the little fruit stalls, very happy to find that my QR code worked for paying for things, and looking at the cute streets. I stumbled across a lovely little cafe and had an iced americano with apricot puree and people watched out of the window, later chatting to a botanist who had recently visited Oxford University for a conference. I also worked out what I would do next, to catch up with my other trains. I booked a flight for that night to the city of Turpan, and then a hotel which had 24 hour check-in, not too mad that this meant I had to book a nicer hotel with a private room. I continued my exploration of the city, visiting the largest mosque in China, which was very small compared to the huge mosque I’d visited in Islamabad, but was a nice yellow colour. I brought and ate a new variety of fig, larger and completely green. I caught a taxi over to a mausoleum and was again surprised that it had been Disney-fied. But again, I quite enjoyed this. I liked the beautiful gardens that had been built around it, filled with swinging chairs. The mausoleum and mosques were beautiful, with similar mosaics to those in Uzbekistan and the older style mosques with wooden columns outside. I was quite shocked to find an ostrich with a little saddle on it for riding, but enjoyed the plaques describing Uyghur culture and the replica houses built around the gardens. Back at the hostel, I packed up my bag and went to eat some dinner before travelling to the airport - a big plate of square noodles with veg and meat. Delicious and so much better than the food at my last homestay in Pakistan which bordered on dreadful.
A smooth flight, with the exception of my powerbank being confiscated because of a crack on its case, led me to the very nice hotel in Turpan. The following day I decided to hire a driver for the day (costing £35) so I could squeeze in all of the places I wanted to visit before my train the next morning. The driver was definitely better than my first experience in China, but was still a bit odd as he wanted to hold my hand all the time. In my jam-packed day, I visited:
- The flaming mountains - just some red hills, I waved us onwards after 5 minutes here.
- Tuyoq Village - a traditional Uyghur village surrounded by vineyards, complete with little workshops of the local people doing various local crafts. Very pretty and interesting. There were several mosques and the whole town was set into the sand coloured hills.
- Buddha Caves - ancient mediation caves with murals of Buddha inside. Cool to see, but in every cave the murals had been stolen by either a German guy and were now in a museum in Berlin, or a British guy and were now in a museum in London…
- Karev museum - a museum about the major irrigation project in western China, one of the three major ancient projects along with the Great Wall of China and the canals in the east. Mildly interesting.
- Jiaohe ruins - huge ancient city from around 100 BC, now in ruins and reminded me of Pompei. It was an important point on the silk road. Very cool to explore, especially seeing the old Buddhist temples, stupa and caves.
A full but fun day! I moved my bags to the hostel and met my first fellow western traveller, an american girl called Mar. We got on immediately and when I said I was going to find beer and ice cream to celebrate the fact that I became a qualified lawyer today (actually felt like a huge moment!) she asked if I’d like some company and I happily agreed. We wandered around the city and spoke about our travel experiences and lives. We found ice cream and settled with beer from the supermarket back at the hostel, where we joined some Chinese guys. It was a lovely evening and reminded me how nice it is to spend time with other travellers, which was something that I didn’t have the opportunity to do in Pakistan.
The following morning I caught my first train in China and found the whole process a very calm and stress-free experience. Once off the train in Liuyanan, a train station literally in the middle of a desert, I caught a shared minibus into the city of Dunhuang, along a completely straight road from Liuyanan for 2 hours. I wandered around the city for a short while before catching the bus to the desert - the main thing to do here. It was, unsurprisingly, Disney-fied but again I didn’t hate it. It was a lot busier than the previously places I’d visited, but everything was very organised so I didn’t notice too much. I saw the camels and decided that I’d actually quite like to ride one, as they were the prettiest camels I’d ever seen. I slightly regretted my decision about 5 minutes in, when I remembered how uncomfortable they are to ride. It was also funny to ride a camel with so many other people also riding camels. The camel ride ended at the bottom of a huge sand dune and I started climbing up to the top, eyeing up everyone else wearing brightly coloured “sand-free shoe protectors”. At the top, the view over the sand dunes stretching into the distance was crazy. How was this China? Looking back towards the city, there was a strange, fake-looking “crescent spring”, which was a little oasis lake and a temple. Pretty, but very Disney-esque. I watched the sunset and then made my way over to the crescent spring before heading for the exit. Right on time, as a show of sorts had started in front of the dune, and everyone on the dune had light-up sticks. There were even projectors making patterns on the dune. Cool but not my scene. I caught the bus to the night market and couldn’t believe my eyes with all the insane looking food. I settled on some Dunhuang specialties - roll shaped dumplings and something akin to fajitas but with completely different flavours. Both just incredible. For dessert, I had an incredibly refreshing passionfruit jelly pot with bursting bubbles and fruit. Will be keeping my eye out for those!
I returned to the train station the next day, although for an unknown reason the shared car I was in decided to drive off road in the dirt, alongside the lovely straight road, for most of the way. I travelled for a total of 21.5 hours on two trains all the way to Chengdu. The scenery on the first part of the journey was beautiful as it changed from desert to green plains with snowy mountains in the distance. I changed to a sleeper train in Xining and slept surprisingly well. Unlike the sleeper trains in Central Asia and India, the lights were turned off at 11pm and everyone was quiet after this. There was even a little sink area to brush your teeth in each carriage and I admired the chinese women’s skincare regimes. In the morning, I chatted and shared food with two girls from Xinjiang which was lovely. At midday, I arrived in Chengdu.