World China Xinjiang Turpan

Paul & Rebecca's Travel Journal - A Brief Break

The End of Our Silk Road - Turpan Jul 5, 2008

The next stop on our Silk Road journey was the City of Turpan (pronounced Tulufan for some reason?) We finally crossed into the Xinjiang province, China’s most Northwestern province, which borders with Kazakhstan, Pakistan, India, Russia, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan (I’m still not convinced that the last one is really a country!).

Turpan is situated in the Turpan Depression – the second lowest place on Earth after the Dead Sea. As a result of its location, the place is an oven in the summer, with summer temperatures that regularly exceed 40 degrees. The area experiences the hottest temperatures in all of China. It’s a dry, desert climate, with a strong sun and vivid blue skies. Due to its northern location, the winter temperatures are also surprisingly harsh and normally dip to 20 below. Turpan is clearly a place of extremes.

The city is off the train line, so we had to take a mini bus from the train stop to the city. It seemed like most of the train’s passengers were doing the same and we were herded like cattle through the gates to the waiting buses. We caught glimpses of other backpackers, but the glimpses must have been only illusions, since we once again found ourselves as the only Western tourists in the area. After dealing with one of the train stewards, we felt even more like national trailblazers. The steward, staring at us in amazement after boarded the train, finally got up the courage to ask Rebecca where we were from. The exchange went something like this:

- Hello, where you from?

- Canada

- Korea?

- No. Canada.

- Korea?

- No. Canada. Ca-Na-Da. Canada.

- (Puzzled silence) Korea?

- Nevermind.

The mini buses made a strange stop at a ticket office where we had to go through security. This was a strange development since it was a private bus company, and we had never been asked to pass through security on a mini bus trip before, and during the trip the bus proceeded to pick up passengers along the roadside anyways – one of whom was carrying a very suspicious-looking microwave. Regardless, the security was very thorough; they even went into my kit bag and sprayed my shaving cream to test its legitimacy (it passed the test). Apparently, the area, with its Muslim population, is home to a separatist movement and there have been some terrorist attacks in recent years. With the Olympics coming up, we’ve heard news reports of terrorists being rounded up throughout the Xinjiang province. The government has also offered $75,000 US for any tips that led to arrests, and I am sure that the Chinese police probably arrest first and ask questions later. Coincidentally, Rebecca wants me to grow my beard and keeps dressing me in long robes with army vests. I wonder why??

The Turpan area is known as grape valley due to the abundance and quality of grapes grown there. It used to be known as peach valley until some Emperor from long ago decided that he liked grapes better than peaches; so he tore up all the peach trees and replaced them with vineyards. As far as we could tell, the grapes were grown for eating, and not for making wine. We were able to try some of the early season grapes and they were delicious. Despite the emperor’s best efforts, the area still produces peaches and other fruits such as nectarines, plums and apricots and we were able to buy fresh fruit daily straight from the farmer’s cart. Although we have had to bargain down the price in other cities, in Turpan the farmers either used scales or gave a very reasonable price right off the bat, so we have come to regard the place as more honest (or less dishonest, rather) than some of our other stops.

Arriving in Turpan we felt that we had left China and entered a new country. The people are mostly Uighurs, a Muslim minority group. They look different and dress differently than the Han Chinese; some wore robes, headscarves, and skullcaps; and some had lighter hair, Caucasian eyes and long beards. We heard Uighur spoken on the streets and saw it written on signs. We passed mosques instead of temples or pagodas. Overall, it did not feel like we were still in an Asian country. As a result of Turpan’s location on the Silk Road, it had become a melting pot of converging cultures and races, and this unique and interesting history is revealed in the faces and appearance of the city’s inhabitants. You could take almost anybody from the area and put him or her on the cover of National Geographic.

We met a couple from Portugal who had worked in Shanghai for years, and they disagreed with us. They expected Turpan to be a non-Chinese city, and were disappointed by Turpan’s Chinese elements. The construction, for example, and the Olympic signs are dead giveaways. Nevertheless, after traveling through China for more than a month, arriving in Turpan really felt as if we had arrived in a new country.

When we pulled into the bus station a local tour guide jumped on board and talked us up about where we were going to stay. The guy had blonde hair, a Russian-looking fat face, and spoke English effortlessly and without an accent. He claimed that he was only 23 and a local, but he looked about 45 years old and sounded as if he had spent significant time abroad. I came to the conclusion that he was a Russian KGB agent, decommissioned and left over from the Cold War times. Whatever his story, both of us got a weird vibe from him and decided that he was not to be trusted. But we hadn’t booked a place to stay so we followed him to the first hotel near the train station. The room looked decent, and at $15 per night was a reasonable price, but we decided to try our luck and went to check out a few of the other hotels nearby. The only one that looked better did not have the necessary permit for accommodating foreigners, so we had to return to the hotel first recommended by the KGB agent. When we returned, he was sitting in the lobby waiting for us. Spooky.

That night we went to the food market situated right across the street from the hotel. The food market was covered, open at the ends, with a corridor of shops in the middle, and stalls throughout. Walking through the market we noticed that most of the stalls were run by Uighurs, and the food being sold was definitely Uighur food and not traditional Chinese. We stopped at a family-run stall. A massive, pot-bellied, Turkish-looking dad was running the bbq and the kebabs. The women, granny, mom and daughters – looking like gypsies in long dark dresses and headscarves with colourful decorations and eye make up - were in charge of the rest of the food and the service. The son acted as the busboy. They understood Rebecca’s request for vegetarian food right away and delivered a deliciously spicy noodle dish with spicy peppers, tomatoes, onions and other veggies. I had the same, but with some lamb mixed in, as well as some lamb kebabs. It was an excellent meal.

The area around the hotel was undergoing major construction – the sidewalk bricks had been ripped up and were being replaced. The main street was dug up, creating a huge dirt mound and gapping hole in the main intersection for traffic to navigate around. The result was excessive honking, dust and chaos, all of which contributed to the feeling that this was a frontier town. We sought refuge in an incredible central avenue that is completely covered by a canopy of grapes. The avenue under the canopy was cool, shaded, and filled with people strolling, old men playing cards, and lined with small cafes and other shops. It was a nice, quiet escape from the rest of the town. Following this street, we found the Turpan location of John’s Information Café, and it was there that we ate the majority of our remaining meals and met up with some other travelers.

There a number of sights around Turpan, and given the temperatures, it is better to hire a driver and visit all the sights in one hot, busy day. We did some research and decided that we only wanted to see 4 or 5 of the main sights, so we decided to hire a driver for only an afternoon. We spent the morning going through the fruit market and loading up on peaches, nectarines, some local bread loafs that looked like naan, and bottles and bottles of iced tea and water.

After looking for alternatives, again we were forced to book our tour through the creepy Russian. Throughout that morning and the prior day he had set up camp in our hotel lobby and every time we passed by he bothered us about taking a tour. After some haggling, we finally agreed to a price and were picked up at 2:00pm by the Russian’s brother, who looked old and Asian and nothing like our KGB agent.

We were relieved to see the brother pull up in his brand new, air-conditioned Honda, and we set out for an afternoon of sightseeing. The first stop was the Flaming Mountains. The mountains are jagged, red rock peaks that rise up from the desert. The erosion from wind and the melting winter snows have caused vertical crevasses that almost look like flames. The temperature in area this can be a blazing 55 degrees Celsius, and we stopped next to a park and museum with a huge tacky thermometer proving this claim. We stopped for about ten minutes, and the heat convinced us that we could appreciate the views just as well from the comfort of the air-conditioned car than with our shoes on the sand.

We kept on driving; passing little towns and vineyards spaced intermittently between rocky outgrowths and sand dunes. The small houses were very basic, usually made of mud bricks, and most had some kind of mud structure with holes in the walls looking like lattices, which we believe was for storing grapes. Interestingly, the people had moved their beds outdoors, usually under the shade of a big tree near the road, and would spend the night there, instead of in their hot, stuffy homes.

The next stop was further up, out of the Turpan depression, and in the valleys of the surrounding mountains. The attraction is the small village of Turoq. Turoq is rumoured to be the first and oldest Muslim settlement in China, and is the site of the Mazar, a symbolic tomb of the first Uighur Muslim. As a result of the Mazar, Turoq has been a Muslim pilgrimage site for centuries. The devout believe that seven trips to Turoq is equivalent to one trip to Mecca. There are still inhabitants going about their daily lives, and as we walked through the small village, passed the mud homes and small gardens, we couldn’t help but feel like we were touring an exhibit in a human zoo, complete with admission gates and everything. Regardless, it was a very interesting experience to see a place so different from home. On the mountain slopes above the town are various tombs, but we were yelled at by an old man when we went to explore them, so we decided to respect his wish and admire them from afar. A mountain spring runs through the town, watering the town’s small plots of orchards and crops and creating a ribbon of greenery that intersects the town’s brown mud dwellings and dusty alleyways. The only decorated building in the town is a small mosque, with faded green, white and blue painted walls and domes.

We then set out on a wooden walkway, through the blazing heat, to find some caves hidden deeper in the mountain valleys. The caves used to contain Buddhist sculptures and paintings, but most of the significant works were cut away from the walls and taken by western ‘archeologists’ in the early 20th Century. Unfortunately, most of the ‘archeologists’ were German, who took the works of art back to Berlin, where the works were subsequently destroyed by Allied bombing in World War II. The Muslim locals then defaced whatever remained in the caves by scratching out the eyes of the Buddha’s. We walked for about 20 minutes into the mountain gorge, but our water was getting low and we still couldn’t find any signs to help us find our way, so we abandoned our search for the caves and returned to the waiting driver.

Our next stop was to see the Karez irrigation system. The ancient system involved digging underground tunnels from the water source in the Bodga mountains leading to the town. There are wells dug every 20m for access, and the underground channels reduce water loss from evaporation. Some of the Turpan tunnels are more than 2000 years old. There is a Karez museum in Turpan where one can take a guided tour of the tunnels, but we heard that it was pricey, touristy and filled with touts selling useless trinkets. Instead, our driver took us to a part of town where the Karez is still in use by a local neighbourhood. We thought it would be cool to see the system still active, so the car pulled up in the middle of a quiet neighborhood, and we jumped out and saw the Karez. The locals are probably still talking about that strange day when two foreigners arrived, waded through their garbage, and took pictures of where they go to the bathroom. I’d recommend going to the museum.

We then headed the other direction out of town to the Jiohe ruins. This is arguably the most popular and significant sight in the region. The ruins are from a 2000 year old Chinese garrison town that was situated on a plateau above two rushing rivers. Official records indicate that the town was once home to over 6000 citizens and almost 2000 soldiers. The rivers then turned to small trickles, and the garrison town was abandoned due to lack of water. Now, after years of erosion, all that remains of the buildings are mounds of sand and mud. Vulnerable to the winds and infrequent rains, they look like giant sand castles hit by the first waves of an approaching tide. Visitors can walk through the streets of the ruins, and pass by residences, temples, forts and other buildings. Unfortunately, however, leaving the walkway and exploring inside the various buildings is no longer permitted. Even stepping off the walkway in order to take a picture will result in a lecture from the security guards (as we personally witnessed). It’s a shame, really, because wandering through the ruins would have made the sight considerably more interesting. Of course, a guide might have had the same result as well. At this point in the day, we were exhausted from the hiking and the heat, and looking back on it now, I can admit that we probably did not give the sight the time or credit it deserves. However, we have seen numerous ruins on this trip and on prior trips and the Jiohe ruins, as a whole, failed to impress us.

One the way back into town we stopped at the Emin Minaret, a mosque dating from 1777. The geometric patterns on the outer walls are beautiful and worth the trip, despite the fact that we were unable to go in and climb the spiral staircase for a view of the city. We then drove through Turpan’s streets, passing old farmers and their wives transporting their goods on donkey carts, and back to the hotel. Overall, the afternoon tour took almost 5 hours and cost us almost $40 cdn, excluding admission fees. We chose not to see the Grape Valley, (a valley full of grapes – big deal) and another site of ruins, regarded as inferior to Jiohe.

That night, after a dinner at the local fast food joint (it’s called Good Food, so I had to try it!!) we met a Portuguese couple and joined them for some local beers and exchanged our thoughts, stories and impressions of China.

This is as far along the Silk Road as we’ll go. Tomorrow we are off to Urumqi, the capital of the Province and by all accounts a large, Chinese metropolis. Although we were unable to make it to the ‘hard core’ parts of the Silk Road, such as Kashgar and the Karakorum highway, we really feel like we were able to experience the history of the area, its sights, and some of the different cultures, flavours and personalities.