Turpan was my next stop after Hami, and it was another long and boring bus ride to get there. If I ever watch another Kung Fu movie after leaving China it'll be too soon. I have been consistently astonished by just how dire all these movies I've been subjected to have been. It's like 'Hi John, oh look, here come the Vietnamese'. Cue killing. After the obligatory and overly long sadistic prison scene it finishes with the little guy finding his girlfriend who was blown up at the beginning and whose apparent death he has been avenging willy nilly throughout the film. That or his father's. It's all dubbed so awfully too. It seems girls can barely breathe without moaning or gasping pathetically. In the rare cases where there were actually English subtitles it was even worse. Jackie Chan has had some really bad hairstyles...
I shudder just thinking about it.
But anyway, Turpan. Desert oasis, second lowest depression on Earth and hottest place in China. Coming here in the peak of summer was maybe not the greatest idea - the temperature peaked at 45 degrees C. - but it was a dry heat, and totally different to the heat and humidity in the south, where I'd be dripping wet and exhausted just walking down the road. Activity here seemed to be much more bearable, but going outside in the middle of the day was like standing in front of an open oven door. Sooner or later you just had to take shelter. This was a little inconvenient from a tourist's point of view as it led to a lot of downtime, but with long evenings you could still accomplish a lot.
I'd been met off the bus by a young guy working for a local tourist agency. We chatted for a while and although I turned down his tours due to the price, I did say I'd be interested in joining in other people to bring down the cost. So, the next day I arranged to meet him again and he introduced me to two other Brits, David and Steven, who'd just arrived by train from Europe and Kazakhstan and were on their way to Shanghai before taking the Trans-Siberian Express back home. They were nice guys and we had a great time travelling round the local sights.
Our first stop was Grape Valley, home to our driver, who drove right past the special tourist park and took us to his family restaurant, where we sat underneath the grape vines on a low, cushioned platform over a small stream drinking tea and eating fresh grapes and watermelon. It was fantastically relaxing. I loved it. Turpan is famous for it's fruits, and particularly the quality of it's grapes. However, because no-one here drinks alcohol, the grapes are not turned into wine and are instead dried by the side of the road to produce raisins. Here dozens of varieties were on sale and we got to sample a load. I had no idea that raisins could vary in colour and flavour so much, but I guess wine does, so why not raisins. There were some really expensive varieties on show, and some we tried tasted just like rose petals. Amazing.
Leaving Grape Valley we drove through the desert out to the Flaming Mountains, which supposedly appear to be bathed in tongues of fire. In the famous legend 'Journey to the West', the Monkey King had a magic fan to put out the flames here, but we had no such relief from the heat and couldn't stay long. The colours and patterns of the gullies kind of looked like flames I guess, but it was pretty enough anyhow so that was fine.
We continued to drive across the desert (always wanted one of those empty road shots) and passed one of the big reasons for China wanting to keep hold of this part of the country - oil. We then came to Tuyoq, an ancient village and centre of pilgrimage for local Muslims, which was a pretty interesting little place to explore.
A trip to the desert sand dunes was also on the agenda, but not until the (relatively) cooler evening. Until then we crashed at the driver's friend's house, with more tea and watermelon and a chance for a nap on his big seating platform. I want one of these in my house. Great fun. One thing I started to notice while driving through the local villages were all the beds standing outside. It turns out that in the summer months people sleep out under the stars as it's cooler. How ace is that?
So later on we drove out to the sand dunes. There is a paved road out to them, as they're pretty popular with tourists and locals alike, who like to bury themselves in the hot sand to relieve aches and pains etc. However, there must have been rather a lot of rain at some point recently as the road was completely washed away. The sand and cracked mud that now stood in between the two fragments of roadway made it very hard to imagine such a deluge, but displayed nature's force quite impressively.
As in Dunhuang, the desert was beautiful and once again we were there at the end of the day and could watch the colour changes shown above as the sun set. Having witnessed something similar in Dunhuang made it no less of a fantastic sight. I could watch it every day.
After my little side-trips out to Suzhou and Hangzhou I returned to Shanghai for one more day in the city. Unfortunately I didn't have time for more as my departure from China was drawing ever closer. I had a look round town and, being on a bit of a garden buzz after Suzhou, decided to head to the old Chinese part of town and the Yuyuan gardens and bazaar. It was interesting to see that there still is an old part of the city, which actually seemed quite well preserved, hidden along back streets away from the high rises. They even beat Beijing's Hutongs for me, but by this time I was extremely biased!
I really enjoyed looking round the gardens and just taking time to sit and look around my peaceful surroundings. Outside the gardens however, it was a different matter. This area is a big tourist shopping market and absolutely packed. At times I'd have descried such a place as hellish, but sometimes you've just got to go along with the flow. I met up with a friend I'd made a few days ago and together we joined the crowds and shopped for gifts and souvenirs. We did quite well I think, then walked through the back streets again back towards central Shanghai, providing me with a good idea of how the city fitted together, before going for something to eat. Later on that night we walked down to the Bund to see it all lit up. It was worth the effort, the Pudong shore looking particularly brilliant as the tall buildings also managed to illuminate passing low cloud, creating a white glow across the whole skyline. Unfortunately (or fortunately) the local government must be fairly energy conscious, as the whole lot was shut down soon after we got there! Still, I managed a few good shots to remember it all by. That night I went to sleep in China for the last time, and with very mixed emotions.
