Travels with Kathryn

I am writing this on a delightfully long bus journey to Turpan, hence why I thought that it might be worth separating out my posts as I have time, and I am also conscious that there was a lack of food photos in my last post so I wanted to remedy that here.

Let me begin by explaining why I am on a bus. According to the official itinerary, today (Sunday) the plan was an early start to climb the singing sand dunes of the Gobi desert to see the Crescent Moon Lake and then take a high speed train this afternoon to Turpan. However, the agency has been unable to secure any seats on the train! In China, train tickets only become available 15 days in advance which means that one has to be “on it” and it would seem that this train may have had people, or perhaps bots, who are more “on it”. Therefore, we will be driving 8 hours along the only road which takes us around the Taklamakan desert to Hami, then taking a 2 hour train from Hami to Turpan. I pity our bus driver (Mr Lee), particularly as on dropping us off in Hami he then has to turn around and come back…

Anyway, so that is where I am now – but I need to update you on Dunhuang’s night market. Its certainly more sanitised version than I was expecting, and even the food stalls are labelled in English, but the main draw for me (shockingly) was that this presented a street food opportunity. More photos as promised:

Having meals included means I am sort of missing out on street food experiences and being able to be a bit more adventurous with food – of and heavy on the spice. I, therefore, really enjoyed this, particularly the “Chinese Hamburger,” which is a puff pastry filled with a slow cooked beef chopped up with green chillis, fabulous!

The market itself has a number of stalls with various souvernier options, and I was very proud of myself for managing to resist buying any more scarves.

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel, setting our alarms for 4.50am this morning to be up in time for sunrise over the dunes.

I can write this having survived. There was a moment I was not sure. As usual, this being China, the dune is a ticketed opportunity followed by a 20 minute speed walk to the bottom of a big sand dune and then I was faced with this ladder to climb.

I let the group go ahead of me and started to climb. I did not enjoy it – it was incredibly hard going all with the pressure of trying to see the sunrise. The odd tear may have been sneaking out, and then when I realised that what I thought was the top was not the top, there may have been sobbing. I literally sat in the sand and sobbed. I then pulled myself together and told myself I was British, upsetting the Chinese with my loss of face, and most importantly, losing valuable water! There is no ladder for this last section so it was very much 2 steps up, one step down, but I did make it up the ridge! This is the view from the top according to Kathryn:

I should also note that the dunes were not singing – wrong kind of wind and although the Crescent Moon Lake is nice, I think I could have enjoyed it a similar amout by walking along the flat path to see it.

This is the view from the actual top/taken by people who were able to run up the hill like over-enthusiastic gazelles:

It was somewhat scarier coming down, but much easier and no crying so you know, I am perhaps growing as a person. A quick tunaround at the hotel (the amount of sand that came out of my trainers and from inside my shorts would have built a small dune) and we are now on the road to Hami…

4 hours later and we are still on the road to Hami. However, there has been a slight change in the scenery from scrubby desert, to lunar rocks, and now back to scrubby desert. We are also on our second police checkpoint since crossing from Gansu  Province and into Xinjiang/Uy.gur Province. We were waved through the first after waving our passports, the second it was everyone off the bus for our passports to be scanned and photos taken. This did give an opportunity to use a genuine police checkpoint toilet and to finally take a photo (and walk under) one of the MASSIVE wind turbine blades we keep driving past.

I am now on a train! We arrived into Hami with 50 minutes before our train. Amy rushed in to get our tickets and we went to collect some noodles for lunch. I don’t think Hami gets very many tour buses of sweaty looking tourists (its about 38 degrees) rushing about. All I can say is I felt I was a valuable team member – I was carrying noodles, I was hustling, the passport lady after luggage scanning was looking to me as though I knew things (I waved my passport knowingly), getting on the carriage, lifting luggage up and then handing out noodles, chopsticks and locating napkins. I am most impressive. I may even have redeemed myself from the rather pathetic showing on the sand dune this morning…

A word on passport checking. You need to carry your passport at all times and it is checked, and your face scanned at practically every tourist site we have been to. However, train stations are a whole other level. So on entry into the station building you need to scan your passport and your luggage, there was then a lady (see above) post bag scanning checking your passport, there is then another passport check before entering the platfom, and then I have just been checked by a man on the train. He again was looking to me as a source of authority as I pointed out the other members of my group and kept saying England (which is Chinese for England) and smiling. Then finally, when you leave the station at the other end your passports are again checked.

We arrived into Turpan at 5.33pm and its hot – like 42 degrees hot, like oh my G*d I think I’m dying hot. Immediately on arrival at our hotel, my priority was definitely a shower. Anyway, we now have some down time before dinner and then tomorrow its a full packed day in the heat before an overnight train. I expect tomorrow I shall be (I am still recovering from the sand dune) and very sticky. I am always elegant.

So, it seems that WordPress is blocked in the Uy.rgur Autonomous Region so whilst I shall continue to write, don’t be worried all posts will be posts in due course…