Dunhuang to Turpan, CHINA - 05 june 2002
We decided to return to the scene of our crime and visit the sand dunes again, but now in the morning.
Kathy, a middle-aged American lady who was staying at Jane’s hotel had wanted to join us. We waited 15 minutes for her and she did not show. When Jane went to her room to try and listen at the door, she heard no noise and figured Kathy was still sleeping. So, we decided not to wake her and headed out there ourselves.
We decided to go round the gentler side of the dunes and tried to walk through farms further out and see if we could enter from there. We made terrible mistakes here and there and ended up perched on the mud-banks separating neighbouring crops and with prickly shrubs (obviously to keep neighbouring farmers off) in our faces.
We tried not to step on the farmers’ livelihood as far as possible and kept imagining the farmers setting their barking dogs at us. We finally emerged, dishevelled and very scratched. A grim-faced farmer stopped ploughing and stared at us, unamused. * dee dee doo whistle whistle *
Once again, the sand dune was a fantastic place to laze around for a while until you felt too burning hot to cope. We really loved it here.
We caught the mid-day bus to Liuyuan about 2 hours north of Dunhuang and bought the hard-sleeper tickets for the night train to Turpan.
Just before the train pulled in, a geezer looked at my bag of apricots and disapproved of them. He claimed they were not sweet at all. He then went on to sing praises about the sweet apricots from Xinjiang Province and the wonderful flavours of the grapes in Turpan (if they were in season now) and insisted that the best melons in the world were from Hami (west of Dunhuang). He was quite a character. He simply stood there, splattering his saliva at us and did a soliloquy on the fruits of Xinjiang. We wondered if he was a fruit-basket.
We settled ourselves in the train and Fruity was in the next berth. He fished out two lychees from his wash-bag of toothpaste and toothbrush and offered to us.
A roly-poly guy on the berth below me took an interest in Jane and decided to practise his English on her. He proudly said he learnt his English from the Petroleum University and was now working for PetroChina Company. He proceeded to bore Jane with how petroleum was formed, blah blah blah.
Not to be outdone, Fruity started to fish out all the expensive cups and tea-pots he obtained from his shopping experience in Dunhuang and kept interrupting us to show them off. We were really amused with the two of them, obviously fighting for our attention.
Turpan, CHINA - 06 june 2002
We arrived at Daheyan Train Station, near Turpan and were promptly set upon by Uyghurs tour guys who tricked us into taking their van to Turpan by saying that theirs was the public van.
I only realised it later when they tried to get me to get MORE tourists from a later train (because I could speak both Mandarin and English) onto their van so that we could all form a group and go for a tour around Turpan together tomorrow.
I tried to talk to the tourists but they were not interested and I did not press further. The Uyghur tour-guys were disappointed with me and became quite pushy with those tourists. The tourists left in a taxi, disgusted.
One of the Uyghur tour-guys, Sata, meanwhile, tried to charm his way through by telling us about his past trips with satisfied tourists and his one special ‘girl’ friend from America. He got us settled in Turpan Hotel and encouraged us to go to John’s Café later where they would talk to us.
Turpan Hotel was super-grand, with a chandelier hanging in the extravagant, intricately-decorated main lobby. We were staying in an air-conditioned dormitory. Air-conditioning was essential here in Turpan which, during summer, is the hottest town in China - up to 50°C or so as it is about 80m below sea level.
Turpan had been developed heavily so it is no longer the charming little town we read about in our guide-books anymore. This must be part of China’s ‘Develop the West. Everyone prospers’ enthusiasm. I spotted such propaganda slogans painted on walls from Xining onwards when I started heading west. We were about two to three years too late.
The touristy roads and the main highway are now paved and wide. There are even inexplicable Greek or Roman statues at the end of each vine-trellised avenue.
Jane and I were pounced upon by Sata and his cronies when we emerged from the hotel later. They tried to get us to pay Y100 each for a tour the next day. We had learnt from other travellers it was between Y40 to Y60 and we baulked at their price. It was swiftly reduced to Y50. Sata quickly explained Y100 had been a tour in a car, but Y50 was in a van. Whatever… We told them we were only heading out for a tour the day after tomorrow. We would talk again tomorrow.
We meandered around town and sat in a bazaar to people-watch. The faces we saw here were very varied. Turpan was getting interesting now. The features seemed to be mixtures of Eastern European, Central Asian, Russian and even Middle-Eastern, we thought.
These guys probably had names like Mohammed, Ali, Abdul, etc… but they looked so exotic, we started to classify them ourselves. We spotted many heavy-set stocky guys who looked a little Russian and promptly named them ‘Boris’. There were also some thinner guys with brown hair, huge eyes, round head and pretty fair skin. This kind we named ‘Ivan’. Another group had smallish slit eyes and pinkish skin (like a burnt white European). For no reason except to try and create a name, we called them ‘Sergei’.
We gave up after this. There were just too many varieties and we had not even started on those Arab-looking ones! So, we simply went, “This one? Yeah, think he is an Ivan…” “Hmmm… look at that one. Wow… That’s not yet classified.”
While the young Uyghur ladies here were gorgeous with large, round eyes and lovely long hair, their mothers and grandmothers were heavy-set with large boobs and hips. Guess in their later years, the fatty mutton intake begins to show.
The older ladies wore dresses and tied see-through scarves on their heads. There was only one word that came to both our minds when we saw them – babushkas. (‘grandmothers’ -- in Russian)
Turpan, CHINA - 07 june 2002
The sun was hidden behind the clouds today. So, the temperature was not as high as yesterday, perhaps around 35°C. In a way, this was a wonderful day to be walking around Turpan.
As it was a Friday, we went to some of the mosques to see if they were busy but they were moderately so. After wandering around town for more than half a day, we decided to reward ourselves with a swim in the indoor swimming pool in our hotel.
Well, today was not as hot as yesterday to deserve a swim but we had already psyched ourselves up to crack open our swim-wear and take a dip. One of the rules stated that only people in appropriate dress would be allowed into the swimming pool. Jane had a bikini with her. She wondered if that was appropriate. Out of modesty, Jane wrapped herself in a towel when we reached the swimming pool. The ticket lady quickly called out and asked me if the Western woman over there had anything on underneath the towel. Gosh, did she really think Jane would enter the pool naked?
Later, we had dinner next to the Public Square which, we figured, was another sad attempt by the Chinese to over-develop a place to the worst of taste. There were these garish bad-taste structures with displays of flashing coloured lights lining the whole square, Las Vegas style. What the hey? It looked terribly kitsch and out-of-place.
Then, a strange thing happened in the dry oasis of Turpan tonight. It rained. And the rain continued on for hours into the night.
Turpan, CHINA - 08 june 2002
Because of the rain last night, the weather today was very cool, by Turpan standards. It should be a good day to go sight-seeing.
We had a deal with Sata to go on a tour around Turpan for Y40. They took us on a spin around town, telling us they were looking for the other tourists in our group. Later, they returned to our hotel and Sata asked me to go in and wake the other three tourists who were probably still sleeping.
I felt this was ridiculous. First, they seemed to imply the tourists were staying in another hotel and now, they drove us back to our hotel and wanted me to walk in and look for the three tourists. How was I to know how they looked like? I expressed my displeasure and Sata meekly said, “No problem, no problem.” and he went in to check.
Later, he sauntered out and went over to his friends and they smoked and chatted a while. Finally, the smarmy Sata came over and said, “The three tourists left by taxi this morning. So, with the two of you left, the price must be higher.”
We did not trust him anymore. OK, the higher price was Y50, Y10 more. But, we could have gone with the tour bus from our hotel for Y40. We went with them because we had a similar deal.
We felt that they dilly-dallyed the entire morning on purpose. We did not like his attitude nor his stories. If he had appeared more sorry about the missing three tourists or he had sent out more sincere vibes instead of laughing with his cronies at the corner, we might have agreed. He seemed to time his announcement WAY AFTER our hotel tour bus left so that we would feel that we were left with no choice but to agree to the new price.
We stormed out of the van and left. We decided to hire a taxi for the two sights in particular - Fiery Mountain and Gao Chang Ruins - we were interested in. We were relieved the taxi driver was a Chinese lady. After being surrounded by yucky guys the whole morning, it was good to be with women again.
We spent a long time exploring the ruins of Gao Chang Ruins. While it was quite badly preserved, the grounds were huge and it was just wonderful to walk around, checking out the walls and half-standing structures.
We had also heard that Jiao He Ruins was good. Jane wanted to cycle out there that evening. I opted out and headed out on the mud streets behind my hotel to walk around and towards the Emin Minaret. The locals kept trying to shoo me back to the main road. To them, the mud streets were an embarrassment while the main road was advancement. No, I explained that I wanted to walk here. Gosh, I should have given Turpan a chance. Here must lie the old Turpan that gave many past travellers its charm. I loved the little mud streets and huts, the colourful mosques and the lovely children playing around. Nearing the minaret, the area turned into pretty grape-vine yards. It was really charming.
Jane did not make it to the Jiao He Ruins. She claimed she nearly died from the effort of cycling and returned after 50 minutes on the horrible bike.
No comments:
Post a Comment