Saturday, June 20th - Turpan to Kashgar

We were up early,checked put and on our way by 8:30 for our 3 hour drive to the airport.  Turpan was just starting its day and there were people sitting outside at local restaurants, the vendors were setting up to sell tehir fruit, vegetables and spices, High school students were on their way to school - many of them from out of town were going to write the graduation exams.  Some of them stayed at our hotel and they were definitely a studious group, whereas I had expected a bit of noise throughout the night.

Outside the city we ae back into very flat, barren land that looks like nothing could possibly grow.  In the distance there are hills and on the one side some high snow-capped mounatains.  By translation they are the Sky Mountains but I don't know what range they are part of.  Occasionally wind farms with hundreds of turbines dot the horizon.  At times it takes a half hour to drive past them.  Sometimes we see factories or smelters belching out smoke in the distance, the obvious sign of some sort of mining or extraction that fills the many large trucks on the road.  It's another very beauatiful day with blue sky and some fluffy white clouds.  It's already very warm and likely to be another 100 degree day so its a great time to be in an air conditioned bus.

The hills got closer and we eventually went through a pass, only about 1200 metres according to my camera.  After that we got into a broader valley with streams flowing through it and looking very green and lush in places.  There was a small dam in one area which created a lovely cool-looking lake.  Sometimes the surrounding hills looked like sad mounds of rocks.  At other times they looked more like sand dunes, and sometimes they looked green.   

We eventually arrived in Urumqi, which is a large city of 2.3 million.  We did not stop in it but rather just drove through to the airport.  Now driving is a topic for discussion.  We had a wonderful driver for this leg of the trip and felt very safe with him.  They drive like maniacs all over China, at least from our perspective.  They dart in and out and change lanes and drive on shoulders if they are available.  The horn is used on a regular basis to warn the vehicle in front of you that you are coming through so they'd better get over.  It seems to work for them.  We've seen a few minor fender-benders but nothing bad - unless you consider the one watermelon truck that lost his load.  That was sad.

We are now just waiting for our flight to Kashgar or Kashir as they call it.  I believe the flight is only a couple of hours so we should still have time to tour around when we get there.  Our schedule has changed a bit because we can't cross the border into Kyrgystan on the day that was originally planned because the Chinese side of the border is closed.  Believe it or not, the border guards all get a day off for the dragon boat festival.  Can you imagine closing the US/Canada border every time either country had a holiday or festival?