Welcome to Xinjiang Province
Hi from Turpan!
This ancient Silk Road city of just over half a million people is notable for being the lowest point in China, at 192m below sea level. That makes it the second-lowest place on earth, after the Dead Sea, which I’ve also been to. Turpan is an arid desert town known as being the hottest place in China, with temperatures frequently climbing into the 40s and higher. It’s also known for growing grapes. And it’s the first stop on our tour in Xinjiang, China’s northwestern province and the bridge between Central and Eastern Asia.
Xinjiang is an “autonomous region” in China, sort of like Tibet, and is mostly populated by the Uyghur ethnic minority people. The Uyghurs are a Turkic Muslim group, numbering around 15 million, who have been living in this area for thousands of years.
As I mentioned in my visas post, the Chinese government has been increasingly cracking down on human rights here in Xinjiang, under the thin pretext of “national security” or preventing terrorism — though most outside observers and human rights organizations recognize that it’s really about stamping out separatist sentiment. Uyghurs are not allowed to hold passports; they’re often forcibly relocated from their homes so the government can move in ethnic Han Chinese; they face legalized job discrimination; men under a certain age aren’t allowed to enter a mosque; and so on and so forth. It’s a sensitive subject here, obviously, and not one that we can easily ask the guides about.
But I was able to observe right away when we got here that, though we’re still in China, it really feels like a whole different world here. The architecture is different; the signs are in both Chinese and Uyghur (which looks a bit like Arabic script), the people dress differently, and the menus have stopped including pork. Xinjiang also unofficially uses its own time zone, two hours behind Beijing Standard Time, since it’s so far west that the sun rises and sets very late here.
We had an early morning arrival to Turpan today after an awful lack-of-sleep on the last of our sleeper trains. The train was hot and the bed was, if possible, even smaller and more cramped than the two previous trains. To make matters worse, people kept coughing in my compartment. I stumbled bleary-eyed off the train and boarded our private transfer bus without having much of an idea of what was going on.
Since it was so early by local time, we couldn’t check into the hotel yet, despite all of us desperately needing a shower and a nap — or, failing that, a coffee. Instead, our driver opted to take us sightseeing first, so we could avoid the hottest part of the day in this extreme climate.
2,000-year-old Jiaohe Ruins
Our first stop was the 2,000-year-old Jiaohe Ruins of Yar City. A former important Silk Road trade post, Yar City was destroyed by the Mongols and nobody has lived there since the 13th century. Despite this, the dry climate here has meant that the ruins of the city were amazingly preserved.
We stumbled off the bus and into the site to discover that we were the first group of the day to arrive. In practice, that meant that we had the entire place to ourselves for more than an hour. After the insane crowds we’ve battled at all other tourist attractions, it felt almost reverential and otherworldly. We all found ourselves speaking in hushed whispers, almost without realizing it. We walked around the site, seeing the old Buddhist temples and pagodas and storage areas and homes. With my lack of sleep, it felt almost surreal.
By the time we got back to the entrance area, the sun was starting to get higher in the sky, and I could feel the heat coming on. We got some freshly-squeezed watermelon juice before moving onto our second stop of the day.
Ancient Karez water system
The next stop was a museum devoted to the Karez underground irrigation systems prevalent in the region. Turpan is hot and dry, with nothing for hundreds of miles except sand, scrub and mountains. Water is scarce here, and yet, this is an oasis and farming town that intensively cultivates all sorts of crops, especially grapes. How do they do it? The underground well and tunnel system known as the Karez.
Consisting of over 5,000 kms of tunnels, the irrigation system originated during the Han Dynasty over 2,000 years ago. Like their western-world contemporary counterparts, the Roman aqueducts, the Karez wells and tunnels allowed entire cities and regions to spring up around this water, making them one of the architectural wonders of the ancient world.
The small museum allowed a glimpse into these tunnels. It was a bit cheesy, with fake statues of people meant to represent the work along the irrigation system. But it was blessedly cool indoors and underground, and we got lots of opportunities to take cheesy pictures.
There was also a souvenir shop and market stall area that was three times the size of the museum, so we browsed all the trinkets and junk — yep, still made in China, but with a few new themes like Aladdin lamps and traditional Uyghur clothing.
Siesta schedule
Next, we went back to the hotel to check in, and then headed out to lunch. It being both a Friday and prayer time, a lot of restaurants were closed, and so we had to drive out to another hotel for lunch, which was a bit mediocre to tell the truth. No more pork on these menus, mind you; it’s all chicken from here on out. We also got to taste some of the local grapes.
After that, we finally FINALLY got a chance to go back to the hotel to shower, change and relax in front of the air conditioner. They don’t call it that here, but Turpan appears to operate on siesta schedule due to the intensity of the midday heat. Everything closes in the afternoon and then re-opens once the sun starts going down.
I took a much-needed nap, and woke up feeling groggy. The cold is starting to hit full force, which doesn’t make me happy, but I hope it will at least come and go quickly. A shower got me feeling much better, and I read a bit and spent some time updating my blog (on 4G data which oddly still seems to work here, though the hotel’s advertised WiFi doesn’t) before heading back out.
First mosque of the trip
By 6pm, the sun wasn’t quite as hot in the sky, and we went out to see a third sight in the area. The Emin Minaret is a 300-year-old mosque, making it relatively new by regional standards. It’s one of the few mosques open to non-Muslim visitors, so we were able to go inside and have a look around. But, other than it being notable as the first mosque of what are sure to be many on this trip, it wasn’t really anything to write home about.
One interesting fact: Mandarin Chinese uses the same word for minaret and for pagoda. Probably because Buddhism is a much older religion than Islam, by the time the latter made its way to the region, the locals already had established a word for “big tower thing used for religious worship”. Howard kept calling it a pagoda, which confused the heck out of me until he explained.
To market, to market
Every Silk Road city has a market, and Turpan is no exception. We headed over there to check it out and grab some street food for dinner.
Turpan’s market is fairly small, and its layout is chaotic. It also has a completely different feel from the Chinese markets of Xi’an and Dunhuang. This is much more of a middle eastern bazaar feel; Arabic music plays from loudspeakers, women with their heads covered with scarves busily make their way through the laneways, and carpet vendors sell prayer rugs. I’m still in China, but it hardly feels that way anymore.
Most of the food on offer in the market didn’t look all that appetizing, quite frankly. Lots of lamb kebabs that appeared to have spent all day sitting out in the sun. We walked around for a while, buying a few odds and ends like cookies, bananas and another bag of local grapes, before giving up and heading to the supermarket to fill in dinner.
On the walk back to the hotel, the sky lit up and a few raindrops started to fall. Rain, in the desert, you say? Apparently, yes, again. A spectacular thunderstorm was starting, even despite the total lack of humidity in the air. We watched from the hotel for a while before heading inside to crash. Even despite my nap this afternoon, I was feeling very tired and my cold seemed to be getting worse, so I was looking forward to getting a nice long night’s sleep.