A Trip to the Deserts of Northeast China

A few weeks ago I took the 48 hour journey by train across China (for the second time) to Xinjian Province to the capital Urumqi, where my friend Jonathan lives.

 I had a few days to look around the city before we headed off into the mountains. It’s a lovely city, boasting that it is both the center of the Asian/European continents and the farthest city from the ocean in the world.

 It is a city along the Silk Road and for its small population you can get things there that you cannot get in Nanjing with 4 times the population – like shoes/boots that fit me, Levi jeans, deodorant and many other things.  As the city runs on Beijing time, sunset does not occur until around 10-30. You will see people out eating in huge outdoor restaurants until midnight (which reminded me of Spain and Southern France).

 The Uygher (pronounced weega) markets are great, with lots of Arabic looking things, but you have to be careful as there are many pickpockets in this area. The Uygher people are Muslims and in some areas of Urumuqi you could be easily mistaken in thinking you were in a Middle Eastern Country.

Because of this the main meat is either sheep or goat – you will find no pork here in restaurants. 

One very interesting thing we saw of which I had read about in the past was in a little museum that you could easily have missed by thinking it was just an unfinished building site were the mummified remains of about 8 adults and two children dating back nearly 4000 years ago and the very interesting this is that they are European, not Chinese.

There is also a huge Fossil and Mineral Museum here which I was keen on going to see. We arrived at about 4.50pm on Sunday to find that it shutting in only ten minutes, so we decided to get there nice and early on Monday – just to find that they were not open on Mondays. I was less than impressed, but nothing could be done about it. Outside of the museum is the world’s third largest meteorite ever found and three large fossilized tree trunks.

 Urumqi has a friendly laid back feel to it and would recommend to all, except that it is quite out of the way for most people. The main reason foreign tourists come here is for mountaineering and overland tours through to Kazakhstan and Russia. It is a multiracial city with Uyghers, Han Chinese, Kazak’s, Uzbeks and a few Russians.

 After a few days here, we took a tiny bus and headed for the hills – its was a very uncomfortable two hour ride, with a crazy driver to a tiny little village in a valley in the foothills. It was shrouded in thick grey coal smoke from a coal factory, which is probably the only employer in the valley, although further up there is a Glacial Research Center. We both had Uygher noodles for lunch – I had vegetarian, the goat meat did not sound too appetizing to me, the food was great and very cheap.  From here we had to hitch a ride on a truck through the mountains. At first they wanted USD from us – we told them to take a running jump, but then they settled for 10rmb (about 2.50NZ). The road was cut high up on the side on the mountain and was barely sufficient for one way traffic, but was in fact two way – it was a hairy ride to say the least. We were off loaded at a quarry and walked another few km’s until we reached a valley to the left which was our path. At this stage we were according to Jonathan’s GPS/Altimeter at 2,300 meter. Upon reaching our track there was a Kazak nomad family all sitting outside there Yurt, having lunch – they hardly noticed our passing, I looked into their pot on the fire to see what they were eating and nearly dry reached – it smelt bad- boiled mutton (goat) no vegetables .

 We were to walk to 3,500 meters to where we would camp. After 3000 meters I found the going a little hard. We were met on the side of the track by a group of Kazak’s who just quietly watched two strange foreigners pass. The scenery up there was amazing steep razor edged mountains on either side, with herds of goats and horses grazing in pockets. On the way up we must have passed about 10-12 Kazak Yurts with families as small as 4 and as large as 8 or 9, and they all live together inside these small round tent like structures, I wondered how mum and dad get there privacy living like that.

Once at the campsite, we were soon visited by a couple more Kazaks one young boy (didn’t look like he had washed in a year or two) came bouncing along on a very unruly mule and his father followed soon after. They shook hands, stood around looking at our gear, inside our tent, then meandered off further up the mountain.

 The next day we headed up to a glacier which was at 4,500 meters, it was very hard for me – I just couldn’t seem to get enough air into my lungs – the track was good and not steep, my being unfit surely showed. Saw some wonderful scenery up there, with frozen waterfalls and streams.

 The mountain streams were beautiful and sweet to drink from, we saw the odd marmot scampering about – the face of a Persian cat and the body of a double sized ferret, curious little creatures. Lots of alpine flowers everywhere, it was quite colourful.

We headed down the next day and back to Urumqi, to get ready for our adventure in the desert. Our plans had changed somewhat – we had decided not to do the Camel thing, but were going to the same places anyway.

 From Urumqi we headed east south east by bus to Laojunmiao in Inner Mongolia. The trip seemed to take forever across the desolate wastelands, the scenery being much the same, sand and more sand. We went fossicing for rocks and fossils here and did have some luck. The market stalls in the oasis town of Laojunmiao were selling all kinds of dinosaur fossils, that looked pretty genuine and did come with certificates. They were pricey as one could imagine, but apparently foreigners cannot take them out of China legally. I am sure many get caught that way. After a couple of days here we were finally glad to be one our way west again through the desert into Gansu province to another little oasis town called Dunhuang – that was a 30 hour trip in a bus!!!!

 Dunhuang unlike Laojunmiao just springs up out of the desert – a green island in a sea of sand. Surprisingly not a hot place either. The main tourist attraction here is the Mogao Buddhist caves, dating back nearly 2000 years. They in themselves are worth the trip, caves with huge colour frescos and statues carved out of the hardened compressed sandstone. The largest being 36 meters high. It’s pricey to get in here, but well worth it.  The oldest ever printed books were discovered here, but cannot be seen. We were told that in about three years most of it will be closed to the public.

 Unfortunately in the past, British, French and American’s have raped and pillaged the frescos and books from this place – most of them sitting is dusty storage rooms in the British Museum, not even out for public viewing.

 The market area of Dunhuang was full of tourists from all over the world, many of the stall holders speaking English, which is better than most big cities here. You walk past old men smoking cigarettes rolled out of newspaper and made of marijuana and not tobacco. It grows wild everywhere here, also up in Urumuqi. One market stall the old men were grinding kilos of marijuana seeds (which are very nutritious) into a paste. From experience it is a waste of time trying to smoke the stuff, you will only get a headache!!.

 One thing that was disappointing was that you have to pay 80rmb (20NZD) to climb a 1500 meter high sand dune, just outside the town.

 After talking with some backpackers we were told to try walking to the right of the ticket gate to get in for free. But is was guarded by police, so the next day for 1rmb/hour we hired bicycles and went far to the left, thru a large desert graveyard into the dunes. We knew we were being watched, but we were left alone as we appeared to be out of the park perimeter. The dunes here are quite spectacular – fine golden sand – we headed up the tallest dune we could find, which was about 500 meters high. Well it took me a while, Jonathan got up pretty fast, it was one step up, half a step back, it was hot gritty work.

 The views from the top were awesome, so it was well worth it – a shame we did not have toboggans to have been able to slide down.

 Here we collected more rocks and minerals. On the way back we picked some of the wild herb growing, they were very large, but not worth the time, it just gave us sore throats.

 Everyone we came across in this little oasis town was very friendly and as mentioned before many could speak English.