And the beat goes on...

Me and Catherine in our favourite Western haunt, Fubar.

Time now for yet another probably-not-brief round-up of life in Urumqi, this time from coming back from our Golden Week travels, up to November 11th. Yeah, I guess November 11th seems a pretty arbitrary date, but it is in fact the day that Michele left us to go back to the States and also when we first noticed winter creeping up on us.
So what happened during this time? Seeing as it's now mid-March, I'm going to have to use my photos to do this, so it will be strictly chronological!
Firstly, on return from Hotan, Frankie had a few days left with us to explore Tianshan (Heavenly Mountain) and we also took her to the Uyghur club we know and love: Kabana. Pure joy. Though Frankie did hit a guy in the face. Well, if he's going to be silly, what can he expect. That was our big night out for a while, and may in fact be the last time we went to the club - that really needs to be rectified because we love it so much. Though I've heard tell that there's a better Uyghur club out there...
The next notable night out was the night we discovered the Scottish bar. Oh my. The bar was basically a bar-cum-restaurant and was decorated with shiny Christmas decorations and tinsel. The male staff were all decked out in kilts. Well, their interpretation of kilts, which were really just very long skirts. The women were inexplicably dressed as angels. It's traditionally Scottish, y'know. The tables had tartan tablecloth, and then it was about there that the Scottish theme ended. The beer they were trying to push was Coors Light... American. It swiftly became apparent that not only was this a Scottish place, but it was also a singles joint. They were running people's lonely hearts messages on LCD screens with contact numbers. For a laugh my friends secretly put mine and Nolan's information on... I doubt Chris would be overly happy about that but I would never respond : ) Later that night (at 5am, when I was safely ensconced in bed) I got a text message from a mystery fellow in Chinese saying: "I understand foreign cultures and languages implicitly." Nothing else. Then literally 15 minutes later, "and WHY haven't you text me back??" Wow. No wonder he's single.
Next chronologically was a trip to our landlady's apartment, where she fed us up good and proper. Mmmm. More on our landlady and our apartment at a future time though I think.
And then back to the nights out! Later in October we discovered the delightful Mongolian bar. Land of joy and dreams. I now seem to spend a bit too much of my time here. Perfect mix of music: slow dances and quiet music for a good chat and relax, then traditional Mongolian music (pure dead mental, as Tobin, the resident Glaswegian, would say), and then crazy Eurotrash dance music, with strobes to accompany, then back to the slow and quiet again. Slow dancing in China is totally different to in the west. In the west it is pretty much only acceptable to slow dance with your partner, but over here, dancing with someone doesn't have the same connotations. Plus it's not 'slow dancing' as we know it. It's just dancing, but more slowly! You assume a ballroom dance position but stand very far apart so you aren't touching, and basically turn in circles. It's kind of dull actually unless you are having a conversation with your partner, but it's also rude to turn down anyone who asks for a dance. So at the bar, I found myself dancing with any number of old drunken men. Which is okay for a laugh. Oh and also lots of girls too. Including one who followed me to the bathroom (I didn't notice this until too late) and had a conversation with me as she watched me pee (no doors in this toilet haha). Then when I was done she made me dance several dances with her. Crazy bint.
On Nolan's birthday we went out for a meal at our favourite Sichuan restaurant, where I tried baijiu for the first time. Baijiu is normally 50% and it doesn't taste that bad, but it is pretty powerful (by the end of the night, Nolan had passed out!) and is the Chinese drink of choice. They drink it at any time of day and it is not unusual to go for lunch and see baijiu toasting going on at the next, very raucous, table. 'Persuading' people to drink, normally through toasting them, is a Chinese national pastime. They say that the more people you can get to drink, the more that like you; if they refuse, it means they dislike you. And so, for this birthday occasion, we decided to adopt the sport to see how much we could get Nolan to drink through toasting and general persuasion. It wasn't that hard actually, as Nolan has a special place in his heart (liver) for baijiu. After the meal we moved on to the Mongolian bar, now our bar of choice, and there the persuasion continued, not so gently, with glasses of beer. Every time I am in that bar I am made to neck beer! I have learnt now that I can get out of this in one of two ways: playing up the fact that I am a girl, and therefore unable to consume alcohol like all these manly men around me (makes them feel good. Neanderthals.) or making my friend Bayindala drink it for me : )
I am not an alcoholic you see.
Though you wouldn't know this from my description of general life so far eh?!
Ah yes, my photos tell me that this was around the time we discovered that Urumqi has a Pizza Hut. That makes pizza JUST like the Pizza Huts in the west. Result! Far too much of my not-so hard-earned cash has already been spent in this establishment, though we do our best not to go there.
So up to this point, I had pretty much just been going to class when I wasn't ill, and going out on weekends in a big group to a variety of places, eating out at the usual places, and generally just settling in to a very comfortable life here!
The end of October hit, and we just had to celebrate Hallowe'en! We went up the two flights of stairs to Eric and Michele's, which had been very creatively decorated with paper ghosts and explanations of Hallowe'en for those not in the know. Our flat brought the drinks, and Michele and Eric had cooked up a storm. For the while we were all very distracted by the appearance of cheese, bought by Tobin and Tracey from Carrefour (yeah they have Carrefour here - it's like our European link) Real cheese. It didn't last long. But that was okay, because by then the cooked food was ready, and it was absolutely delicious. Well done to Eric and Michele for making my year with all the nummyness : D The party was full with everyone we knew, including Eric and Michele, Liam, Catherine, me, Rachel, Tobin and Tracey, Nolan, Jonny, Balindala, Ivan and Angelika, and a few others I haven't yet introduced: Andy, who was Nolan's friend from somewhere or other, is now our mutual friend and is one of the funniest guys ever; his then girlfriend (they've been forced to split up because his parents think as he is Muslim (Hui ethnicity) and she is not (she's of Han ethnicity), they cannot be together, even if she converts to Islam) which has really upset him and which I find completely unfair and unreasonable); Rachel's Uyhgur landlady and housemate Zohra; and Squeaky Voice Girl who is a Chinese Russian teacher at our uni and has a voice so unbelievably squeaky that it is actually incomprehensible. Liam remembers her as the girl that said he looked like Prince Charles, which really made us laugh, but is pretty cruel.
We loved the party as it was such a good mix of people. It was quite a small gathering so everybody talked to everybody (except I did not talk to Squeaky Voice Girl as I discovered fairly early on that I just couldn't deal with her voice, and Liam didn't talk to her because he hates her forever and ever). We also particularly enjoyed the Uyghur influence on our party: nobody was wearing shoes! When you enter a Uyghur house, the shoes come off. So at the party everyone automatically took them off. It felt genuinely strange to be at a party without shoes, but then also oddly right. We commemorated with a photograph. Also at the party, Eric and Nolan gave us a live performance with Eric on the guitar and banjo and Nolan on the erhu, a traditional Chinese stringed instrument, and with singing too. It was pretty good! Then Bayindala and Eric tried to teach me some guitar, but gave up pretty soon when they discovered JUST how unmusical I am.
So that was Hallowe'en. My photographs inform me that November before Michele left was fairly run of the mill; as you now know, run of the mill means eating out, studying, and bars at weekends. Our favourite is, as ever, Fubar. Fubar is just so fabulously Western, plus now they know us by name. I'm not sure if that's something to be proud of, or very ashamed about. One exciting happening at the start of November was the discovery of the Pakistani restaurant. How I wish we'd found it earlier! Amazing amazing amazing. I think I will do an entire post about food though so I will leave it till then.
Other than that very little happened. They increased the security on our apartment, so once we got well and truly locked out. Riveting. We went out on night to Fubar and I found a group of old British businessmen, mostly Liverpudlians, but one of them was from Burton-upon-Trent which was quite exciting. It was great to hear that Midlands twang! Nolan started up a 'speaker series' which was basically our very clever friends giving a casual talk once a week about their specialized topic. Eric went first with Language Planning Policy in Xinjiang in the 1930s and 40s... needless to say I knew nothing about this, but it was actually really interesting. And so I feel here I must introduce Will. Will is a South African, Jewish, gay, American Republican. I daresay he is one of a kind on that alone, but he also separates himself from us mortals through his impossible attitude. He is one of the most obnoxious people we have ever had the displeasure to meet, though if I'm honest I kinda miss him - every time he was there, you knew something interesting was going to happen! He argued with practically every person, though in fact he never did anything to cross me so I only dislike him for his treatment of others, particularly Catherine who he seemed to take pleasure in patronizing. Anyway, Will kindly ripped Eric's talk to pieces. Idiot. It was annoying that his talk, the following talk, was so well put-together - we all wanted to hate it! The problem with Will was that he was incredibly knowledgeable and clever, but he used that as a reason to look down on people rather than inform them. Anyway, after that the speaker series pretty much died out, though it was a good idea and it might be nice to start it back up again, so us stupids can learn stuff with the eggheads.
Then on 10th November, we went out for a goodbye meal as it was Michele's last night. The group of us had a meal at the Sichuan opposite our uni (there are three Sichuans of note: Prawns-and-Chips (our favourite dish of theirs, which Catherine and I always fight over) where Nolan had his birthday, the Sichuan near Fubar which we frequented at the beginning of our time here but now don't really ever go to, and the one opposite the uni gates which is kind of acceptable but not ab-fab). It was sad to see Michele go but she generously left Eric with us.

Authentic Scottish kilt with some authentic Scottish people (Urumqi's Scottish Contingent, which seems to be growing day by day).

Crazy Mongolian dancing: It's incredible to watch, but alas! When we foreigners come to try it, it seems genuinely physically impossible to move our body that way!

Some of the men at Nolan's Sichuan birthday dinner (l-r): Paul, Kader, Ahmad, Andy, Nolan and Liam

Nolan the ladies' man! Plus all the women at the party (l-r): 2 Uyghur women whose names I have sadly forgotten, Tracey (standing), Donna, the man himself, Catherine, Michele (standing), and yet another Uyghur girl whose name I can't remember. I suck : (

Our commemorative shoeless party photograph.

Hallowe'en shenanigans. In this photo you can see (l-r or as close as I can get!) Jonny the Kiwi in the foreground, Andy's girlfriend, Liam, me and Andy talking back left, Zohra in the foreground (Rachel's landlady and now my Chinese grammar tutor), Tracey, Tobin, Catherine and Paul talking in pairs back right, and Rachel - unmistakable with her green hair!

Nolan on the erhu and Eric playing banjo, performing some hits for us!

Back to Urumqi

And so we were back in Urumqi for life to continue as normal. But things had been changing in our absence! Before going away, Tobin had written a pretty forceful letter to the powers-that-be at our university, demanding better standards or a refund on his tuition fees. The teachers then had finally listened to our complaints about the Kazakh students paying no attention and disrupting the class and had decided to split the class on technically politically incorrect and very clearly racist lines: one class comprised of Central Asian students, and the other the British: me, Liam, Catherine, Rachel and Tobin, the Koreans: Xuyingxi and Peixiangfeng, and the solitary Russian: Galina.
Our very tightly strung reading class teacher was off on some kind of mystery sabbatical (my vote goes to complete nervous breakdown) and we had a new teacher for this class. This teacher seemed to be a better teacher in terms of technical teaching standard, but clearly hated us and we're to this day not sure why.
They had also changed our books at long last: we finally had an acceptable reading book! Naturally, for this is the Chinese way, we didn't actually have it in our possession for the first class, so our brand new teacher had to make up a class on the spot. She opted for telling fairytales from the countries we're from, which made for a pretty good class. They also changed our listening and speaking books too, but instead of giving us the new books, they gave us photocopies of the chapters they taught from. Not ideal, but at least the standard was a little closer to what we needed. I say a little closer because the standard was really very low; so simple in fact that it got dull at times. Plus our teacher still didn't know how to teach, which meant the change of book was pretty useless.
So it was all change at the university! I'll tell you more about what my classes are like sometime when I have the willpower to wade through the frustration that is discussing/dealing with our university in any way.

Golden Week Travels 6 - Back to Kashgar

We got back to Kashgar on Saturday night, ate at John's Cafe and then got into bed delighted at the sheer comfort of it. However, my comfort didn't last long as I woke up several times in the night with diarrhea and vomiting. Damn. I don't know what got me, but it was definitely the old food poisoning, once again. I have lost count of the amount of times I've had food poisoning on Chinese soil now, but I think I was on the fourth or fifth time by this point. I find that when I have food poisoning if I imagine eating the food that I've had in the last day or two I can usually pinpoint the culprit because it makes me retch more than the other foods. If that's the case, then it was the decidedly dodgy (even I couldn't finish it!) cheesy pasta from John's. That said, it could well have been the lake water, but Liam and Frankie were fine and I was rather violently ill.
I was very annoyed because to all accounts Kashgar is best on Sundays, when the livestock bazaar comes to town. People from the small towns all around travel into Kashgar to trade their animals, and it's apparently an incredible sight. Added to that, the actual everyday bazaar is busier and better. But I wasn't going anywhere! So I sat in the room with a bucket and tried to sleep, and the others went off to see Sunday Kashgar.
They came back down in the dumps: it was raining and miserable, the bazaar was dull, and the livestock bazaar had been cancelled that week. It was still Ramadan so a lot of the stallholders and farmers were not trading as usual. They went to a museum of old-style housing which was the most interesting thing for them that day (beats my day by miles though). The museum was apparently clearly tourist-oriented and therefore not really reflective of the truth of living conditions in the old houses, some areas of which look like Brazilian shanty towns. But the day was not wasted, oh no. Liam won a can of Sprite from his museum ticket!
I was feeling pretty rubbish by this point, and I didn't think I was going to be able to cope with the bus journey to Hotan, and Liam said he didn't really care whether he went or not and said he'd fly back with me. While I lay vomiting he went on a search for some decently priced plane tickets home, and finally obtained them from our hero Mahmud, who owned a tourism shop in the hotel's reception. Catherine and Frankie left on Monday morning, Hotan-bound. I was a bit upset that I was missing out on any travelling experience, but they came home days later and told us that Hotan was not worth a visit: there's nothing to see and the people were apparently quite hostile towards them. I may still find a way to go see for myself though! Then the only way out of Hotan is by bus, either back the way they came, or a direct route through the seemingly endless Taklamakan desert. They chose the latter, and said it was pretty horrible. Taklamakan means 'of no return' ie. once you're in, you sure ain't coming back out! It is also called various other names, including the desert of hell. Lovely jubbly. They certainly seemed glad to be home!
On Monday, still in Kashgar, I was feeling much better, and even ventured out to buy some maps and guidebooks on China from the Xinhua Educational Bookstore down the road. We also noticed a Quanjude Beijing Duck restaurant and I was totally gutted that I was feeling so ill because that duck is sent direct from heaven. On Monday evening Liam and I flew back Kashgar to Urumqi. We flew for the first time with Hainan Air. We will always be loyal to China Southern because of their cheap Urumqi-Beijing route, but Hainan Air hold a place in our hearts for pure comedy value. The announcements, which by international air law must also be done in English, were completely incomprehensible. It really made us laugh. A lot. Brightened up my mood no end. And so, back to Urumqi.
On a note, before I went I had not been very enthusiastic about going to the south of Xinjiang because I thought it would be like Erdaoqiao and I wasn't a fan. And yeah, it was like Erdaoqiao. And yeah, I loved every second of it! And since coming back, I have now been to Erdaoqiao countless times and it is without a shadow of a doubt my favouritist part of town. I don't know how it was I didn't like it! Maybe I was imagining the hostility the first time round? I'm getting deja vu, I feel I've already written this somewhere? Maybe in a future post that I have written but not posted yet? Well, sorry for any repeats!

Golden Week Travels 5 - Tashkurgan and Lake Karakul

The fun never ends.

In Kashgar, at our hotel, we met up with Osmanjan, a Uyghur friend of Tobin's who he'd met in Manchester. He was a tour guide and we met him to see if he could advise us on the best itinerary. I was absolutely desperate to go to Tashkurgan, the town closest to the Tajik border, and we had been told we must see Lake Karakul while we were in Kashgar, but we were pressed for time. He was pretty useless actually, and once he'd gone Catherine and Frankie once again disappeared on a hunt for something and Liam and I checked out some of the guides and maps in the hotel registration. A lovely man came up to us and we asked him about getting to Tashkurgan. It quickly became clear that if we went to Lake Karakul on Hypothetical Day 1, stayed there, and then the following day, Day 2, went on to Tashkurgan, we'd not be able to get back to Kashgar until Day 3. Which we didn't have time for. However this man said, why don't you go straight to Tashkurgan during the day on Hypothetical Day 1, come back in the evening to the lake, stay overnight, and then come back during the day on Day 2? The sheer logic of this plan stunned us. So that was what we did.
The journey, on a minibus leaving from the station near People's Square, took us to Tashkurgan (via Karakul Lake) on a long and winding trip through the mountains of Xinjiang. The scenery was breathtaking, and as perfect as if it had been digitally altered. My photos do not do it justice. I have since been told several times by Mongolian Chinese, whilst looking at my photos, that "Xinjiang is not very beautiful. If you want to see true beauty, go to Mongolia." Biased. We passed the lake and went on a bit further to the small small small town of Tashkurgan. Lake Karakul is in fact in Tajikistan, but the Chinese claim it as theirs. Hmm. I have seen several too many Chinese-sourced maps where they have simply moved the location of the lake to put it into Xinjiang. They did indeed check our passports and visas at one point on the journey but no stamp; we were still officially in China. Tashkurgan itself is actually in China, but is practically in Tajikistan and Pakistan at the same time!

The views from the bus were spectacular, this was the view through the front windscreen for a long part of the journey.

At one of the points that it's virtually compulsory to stop at, for the view.

Frankie and Catherine at the same viewing point, slightly different angle.

Catherine enjoying her bus ride : )

Tashkurgan was extremely Tajik. I had bought a book in Kashgar about Xinjiang which had mentioned the traditional Tajik way of greeting, which depends on who is greeting whom, and tends to involve hand kissing and bowing etc, and we saw it in action here, as well as the traditional Tajik clothes, with very tall hats covered in veils, bizarrely reminiscent of the Spanish mantila. Plus the Tajik people seem to have purple skin! Very strange hue indeed.
We had lunch in a little restaurant where we met a cute chubby baby. On leaving the restaurant we were lukcy enough to catch sight of a traditional rural wedding party - every guest crowded onto the back of big open-topped trucks and making a lot of noise! We were amused to see cows, sheep and tiny baby goats walking the streets alongside the humans.
Tashkurgan is notable for its ancient stone city, which is said to be among the top five preserved in the world (and is, in fact, the best, according to the state literature). We clambered around the walls and foundations of the old city, which offered some amazing views aside from the interest of the ruins themselves, and rather randomly ran into a family from Leeds. Small world, eh. You go to the back of beyond and there's still other Westerners there! Is there anywhere left unexplored these days?
After Tashkurgan we got the last minibus to Karakul Lake. Our plan was to stay in a yurt there. A yurt, if you don't know, is a big circular tent. See my photos. We were met off the bus by a Kyrgyz man named Anaddin (pronounced with the stress placed so it rhymes with Aladdin, not like Anadin Ultra!) and his family. They took us into their guest yurt and lit the stovepipe with dried camel poo to keep us warm. We went to the family yurt for dinner, where we tried pilau for the first time. Truly gorgeous stuff - fried rice mixed with carrots, yellow turnip, and mutton, as well as the occasional additions of onion and sultanas. We also had some bread with it, and though it was a simple meal it sated our hunger and was actually absolutely delicious. Leaving the yurt we looked up at the sky and we were all astonished to see the stars. The sky was not at all affected by light pollution or pollution of any other kind, and I have never seen so many stars. In fact, I didn't even know there were that many! We went to bed wrapped in as many layers as possible, because the air at such a high altitude was cold and thin.

The guy at the restaurant, trying my hat out for size! Note all the baijiu bottles in the background!

Traditional wedding party.

Us four at Tashkurgan's ruined stone city.

Moi, desecrating ancient property by standing on an old wall.

Moooooooooo!

The next day we decided to take a camel ride around the lake. It was pretty cold and we were only wearing our autumn clothes. We waited for our camels to be saddled up as we drank tea in a neighbouring yurt. All the people living in the yurts around the lake are of Kyrgyz ethnicity, which is fairly obvious in their facial shape and features. All the people, but especially the children have very dry skin, are wind bitten and very red from living in the mountains! The woman whose yurt we were in was just amazingly good at spinning wool, using an old fashioned spinning top thing. We could hear camels snorting outside! Soon we were outside with them, and found getting on was not that hard - the camels lie down and you just hop on between the humps! They are covered in layers and layers of blankets and saddling to make it slightly more comfortable but it's still not the best position to sit in. The ride was very bumpy but we found that if you relax it is perfectly okay. I got a shock the first time my camel turned round though! Because they move each side's two legs simultaneously, when they turn, it feels like you're going to fall off, first one side, then the other! My camel belonged to a guy called Dilmurat, and I named my camel Adolf, because he was obviously evil. You could see it in his eyes. By the end though, I totally loved him. He was nice to me : ) Liam's camel was named Angelina (it just suited her), Catherine's was Bernie and Frankie's camel was named Marbiya in honour of our then favourite Uyghur song. We turned the lake, and it very quickly became uncomfortable as we were freezing and saddle sore, and the lads leading our camels were clearly dawdling to get more money from us as it was by per hour. Frankie was the first to snap and just jumped off. Liam later followed suit. Catherine and I stayed on as Liam and Frankie walked ahead, but soon Catherine decided to get down too. Bless her though, she was not quite tall enough to get off and was left dangling off the side of the camel until one of the Kyrgyz boys came to her rescue. It was truly hilarious to watch!
At some point I had decided to stay on the camel for the duration and so I did. The boys got bored partway through and started racing the camels, so I got to experience camel running which is a lot more fun that camel strolling. I also think the bouncing may have slammed some feeling back into my bum. Adolf occasionally lost his footing which was a bit worrying, but he was a tough cookie and I never fell once! I was a bit worried about getting off having seen what had happened to Catherine but when we reached the yurts my camel lowered into a lying position and I very inelegantly (due to numbness of the legs) clambered off. I then ran to the lake's edge to try the water which is said to taste 'sweet' and be the main source of drinking water for the locals. It just tasted like water to me. And didn't look quite so clean close-up, either. I found a bit without foam : D
After the camel ride, which is an experience that I would recommend, but only for a short duration of time because of the pain (!), we went on our merry way back to Kashgar in some random guy's 4x4.
Tashkurgan and Lake Karakul weren't exactly the lap of luxury, but I wouldn't have missed out on them for the world.

Moi. Coldness. Stunning mountains. Fin.

Dilmurat (my camel's owner) in a typical Kyrgyz yurt.

Beautiful Lake Karakul and behind it Muztagh Ata, the ice giant.

Me and Adolf. And pretty background.

Golden Week Travels 4 - Kashgar Sights

The next day, the three of us and a fully recovered Catherine went to see some of the sights of Kashgar. We started with a bus journey to the Apak Khoja tombs. The tombs are located in a big mausoleum building. The building claims to have the largest dome in China, or something like that. The whole of the exterior was covered with mosaic tiles, and though many were falling off, it really was beautiful. We dressed up in traditional Uyghur and Tajik outfits and had our photos taken with some Uyghur women. The tombs were built for a historically important family line in Xinjiang, including an Imperial concubine. The main tombs are inside the building, covered in decorative cloth and tiered for importance. The tombs of their staff and distant relatives are outside and look a lot more bare! At the tombs you can also see an exhibition of historical relics (pots n stuff... oh and the mummy of a dead preserved governor, which was quite cool. Having said that, if he weren't dead, there may be problems.) and the orchard. In the orchard we got some grapes (of course - the food of Xinjiang!), as well as some pears that they'd grown there, and watched a stage show of traditional dancing. Frankie and I took to the stage, on invitation, to try out our dance moves, much to the amusement of the dancers.
After the tombs, we got the bus back into town to see the Idkah Mosque. It was then that we discovered we had actually already seen the mosque - twice! It was the big Uyghurified square! The mosque can hold 100,000 worshippers on holy days, and counts the square outside as part of its grounds for worshippers. We were allowed inside the mosque grounds which were lovely but we felt a bit like intrusive infidels as a lot of those supposed to be praying were shooting glances at the Westerners, so we left pretty sharpish. The square leads on to 'Old Kashgar' where all the buildings are preserved. I loved this part of town. Everyone was Uyghur and so friendly, and the architecture of virtually all the buildings is exquisite. We bought plain cake, which comes with cream, and ate it as we walked round the town. I invested in an original copy of Mao's Little Red Book. I really should bother reading that sometime soon. We wandered over to the old city walls and were disappointed to discover that they are basically now just a mound of earth in the middle of a residential area.
That night Catherine and Frankie disappeared to find Catherine a new camera battery. Catherine stumbled into a sex shop as well, and was looking around for batteries when she finally realised where she was and scarpered! While all this fun was going on, Liam and I went to see a show of song and dance, with about 20 other Westerners who had magically materialized from somewhere or other. We were late for the show because we were told the wrong time, but did see some impressive Tajik, Uyghur and Uzbek dance and heard some folk songs. Finally at the end, half the audience got on stage to dance, me being one of them. I wasn't the only Westerner there that didn't have a clue what I was doing!

Frankie, Catherine and Liam at the Apak Khoja Mausoleum

Dressed as Uyghurs (though we're pretty sure Liam is wearing an Uzbek hat, if ever we saw one!) Frankie is in yellow, I am in white and blue with a stupid hat, Liam is the only man, and the rest are all Uyghur girls who posed with us.

The Idkah Mosque and courtyard.

A typical stall in Old Town Kaskgar.

Hats! Of so many different colours and varieties!

Tajik dancing at the folk show.

Golden Week Travels 3 - Arrival into Kashgar

We left the blackhole of boredom that is Aksu at 5am the next day. The train on to Kashgar was certainly not much fun. Liam and I managed to get some seats though, and Catherine and Frankie found some elsewhere. I dozed off, and when I woke up everyone had disappeared. I found them later on talking to an old Chinese couple. The man was happily forcing baijiu (Chinese rice wine, 50% - potent but not too vile-tasting) onto a stricken Liam. It was 8am. People in this country have little concept of when and where is an acceptable time to drink. I fell back to sleep with someone's coat over me and when I woke up again it was merely to sit for hours watching our interminable trajectory through the desert. We got to Kashgar at last at 11am. Ignoring all the taxi drivers who were just desperate to get us into their taxis, we got the bus to town and then we were at a bit of a loss as to what to do. The only clue we had was John's Cafe, which came highly recommended from friends and t'internet, and Seman Hotel which was near it, but we didn't know where these were, nor whether a taxi driver would recognize the names. Then I spotted the giant Chairman Mao statue overlooking People's Square and Park, and Liam and I went to look because the statue is one of the biggest in China - I think the second biggest. Strangely, it was always the west of China which was most enthusiastic about Mao 'worship', and as a general rule, the further west you go, the bigger the memorials. Meanwhile, Frankie and Catherine had located the hotel. Liam and I started walking in the direction Frankie dictated, and passed loads of really interesting streets as well as a huge square full of market stalls and Uyghur people in traditional dress, as well as a few of the only Western tourists we've ever seen in Xinjiang. It was at this square that we realised walking was getting us nowhere, and we got in a taxi. We booked into the hotel, as it was actually pretty cheap for the quality we were getting. Just round the back was the Western haven of John's Cafe. Catherine was not feeling tip-top so the rest of us went and had some Uyghur lunch across the road. When we came back Catherine was still not up for going out, so we went on our own to West Lake Park. This park did indeed have a lake, but nothing else of interest, so we moved on to People's Square, picking up some heavenly whippy-style Uyghur ice cream (potentially, but not definitely, better than normal-style. I cannot decide.). We went into People's Square, and found a mini-theme park akin to the one in Korla. We should've stayed there, but stupidly we entered the zoo.
Now, outside the zoo were pictures of loads of happy-looking exotic animals, but we thought to ourselves, there's not a chance these animals would actually BE here. Wrong, wrong, wrong. They were indeed there, in dirty cages about 3.5 metres by 3.5. They had dogs, bears, and various other animals at the beginning of the park. As you walk round it gets worse. They had a tiger in a 5x5 cage and a male lion. The tiger looked practically dead - at the least, it had given up on life, and considering it's vile living conditions, who could blame it. And this was an ENDANGERED species we were seeing. Utterly revolting. The lion was in an equally pitiful state; it had no water and when it 'roared' it was more like a croak as its throat was too dry to make any kind of formidable sound. Few of the animals had been provided water; those that did have water had very little, which was stale and scummy; and none had any visible food. The animals were pacing backwards and forwards through boredom. There were wolves trying to run, but obviously without space, and were thus just throwing themselves at the walls of their cages. Magnificent birds of prey could not even stretch out their wings. The bones on every animal stood out starkly. To the soundtrack of the poor lion we got ourselves out of the zoo as quickly as we could. I was fighting back tears and Frankie was in fact crying. We were all shocked to the very core. Just writing about it is making me feel a little sick. I can't understand how the Chinese are happy to see this happening. The staff at the gate to the zoo were contentedly taking 5 kuai off every visitor. 5 kuai is simply ridiculous. Charge ten, for godssake, and give your animals some flipping water! Added to that, I saw some throwing stones in an effort to make the animals do something, and posing for photos with the animals. I wish I could have done something right then and there but I am helpless in the face of the Chinese attitude towards animal welfare. I am bothered also by the fact that there was a similar zoo (judging from the outside, we didn't go in, thinking it couldn't possibly be an actual zoo but was instead a petting zoo or suchlike) in the Children's Park at Korla, a tiny little bingtuan town. Am I then to assume that every town in China has a tiger in it? How dare the Chinese treat their animals like this, when Western conservation efforts are desperately trying to save tigers worldwide??? I like most aspects of China, but this is one that will always make the bile rise. I have since seen petshops where the dogs are so tightly caged that they can't move, and a woman hitting her caged dog with a stick. I walked past her but once I was well past, I wished I had said something. So from then I decided that if I see animal cruelty in this country, I will say something. (I should mention that not all the Chinese are horrible to their animals - trust me, there's some very pampered pooches over here, and they love their pandas somethin' special!)
Once out of the excuse for a zoo, all three of us completely dumbfounded and barely able to speak, we wandered back homewards through Kashgar, yet again passing this big square with all the Uyghurs and pretty buildings, but oblivious as to where we actually were. We bought some Uyghur caps and big winter hats, choosing to ignore how stupid we looked in them, and then returned to Catherine, who was feeling well enough to go out for dinner. We had dinner at the resturant round the corner from our hotel. Catherine was insistent that the waitress had taken a bite of her na'an... there was indeed a mysterious missing part of her bread and the waitress was chewing... but I put that down to the female Uyghur obsession with chewing gum. They are always chewing!



Liam's face says it all: on the train, Kashgar-bound.

The view out the window: endless desert.

The huge Mao statue overlooking People's Square.

Street music in Kashgar! I love Kashgar : )

Smexy hats! Frankie and I model the winter line; Liam wears the traditional Kashgar male skullcap.

Golden Week Travels 2 - Aksu

We has no set seats for this part of the journey, so we set up camp in the stairwell (it was a double-decker train). It was not the most comfortable journey I've ever made, that's for sure. Catherine and I ended up playing cards with a group of Uyghur men who taught us some Uyghur games (none of which I remember). In turn, we taught them Snap, which went down a storm. (On a side note, did you know that Americans apparently call Snap "Egyptian Ratscrew"? Weirdos.) They tried to play this mathematic puzzle called Umbesh (15, in Uyghur). We very quickly worked out that it was mathematically impossible, as did a Han guy next to me. He told the Uyghur guy so, and then it turned into a fairly passive-aggressive battle of the ethnicities. The Han guy was clearly right, but there wasn't a chance that the Uyghur was going to admit that. It got quite tense actually, until the Han guy gave up. I kinda wanted the Uyghur guy to win actually; though he was wrong, Catherine and I had had the good sense not to rub it in his face, but the Han guy had come over all smarmy and full of himself - it all seemed a bit like a microcosm of the way society here works.
The guys got off the train somewhere or other on the route, and then it suddenly became very sleepy and dull. Plus, I had no feeling in my bum any more. At 5am, after, like, NO sleep, we got off the train. We tried to walk over to a hotel but they said they had no rooms, so we went back to the train station and hailed a cab. We tried what seemed like millions of hotels but all of them refused to give us rooms, saying they were full up. Lies, all lies. It was either because it was 5am, or because we were foreigners and therefore they would have to go through the hassle of registering us with the police and so on. Finally, on the point of breakdown, we hailed another taxi and asked the driver to take us to ANY hotel that would accept us. He took us to a lovely little place... it was cheap as chips, being renovated during the night by some partying alcoholics, and everywhere you looked there were little cockcroaches. But they checked us in! So no complaints. Catherine was decidedly unimpressed by the bugs, so when she went to the toilet and I decided to check the beds for those lil' critters, we thought it best not to tell her I found one in her bed. I flicked it off though : D
The next morning we dragged ourselves out of bed to see Aksu. There is NOTHING to do in Aksu. I am not joking. Never go there. We went to an internet cafe but could find nothing of interest stated on the web, then we went for some yummy lunch - even finding an eaterie was nigh-on impossible - and asked the owner of the restaurant what we could do. He laughed and said, "nothing." The only thing he could think of was looking at the old-style houses along a certain bus route. Whilst not riveting, we had little else to do so we got on the bus and saw the houses. They were basically just run-down little mud huts that people were still living in, in the depths of poverty; while built in a traditional style, they were certainly not the kind of thing tourists go to see - it seemed somehow distasteful and rude to ogle the pitiful living conditions. We stayed on the bus, half-expecting to see something else of interest (though pretty sure we wouldn't) and reached the terminus, a grotty little township called Wenchu. We wandered the backstreets of this town, which was definitely Uyghur in origin, and had escaped the strong hand of Han influence. The people were extremely poor and the general mode of transport seemed to be donkey. I got the definite impression we weren't welcome there, flashing our digital cameras and poorly-hidden money belts. We got back on the bus to Aksu and after seeing the People's Square area had dinner in what was quite a nice restaurant. It had very colourful fishies in its fishtank. That is possibly the only positive thing I have to say about Aksu.



The old traditional houses visible from the bus.


Main thoroughfare in Wenchu.

See! Fishes!

Golden Week Travels 1 - Korla

On Sunday 30th September (wow, such a long time ago!) I set off for my travels with Catherine, Liam and Frankie. Our train left Urumqi station at 12.07 and our first stop was a place called Korla (Ku’erle). Korla is a bingtuan. Now I suppose I should try to explain what bingtuan means… I guess it’d help if I really knew myself. The basic gist: bingtuan are both towns and companies set up outside of normal government jurisdiction, and the concept of these towns and companies. They are a Communist tool used to get the most out of the population and resources of a particular area, and were big towards the beginning of the People’s Republic of China in the 50s. Basically everyone that lives in a certain area works for the bingtuan in various enterprises, the children attend schools run by the bingtuan and the bingtuan works as an independent financial sector. It functions like a normal town/village except for the fact that it’s all going towards one common institution. The government tended to set them up in autonomous regions with high proportions of Chinese ethnic minority (ie. not Han), and often used the bingtuan influence (lots of Han Chinese) to prevent separatist movement. Most bingtuan were abolished in the seventies and eighties I believe, but in Xinjiang they were re-introduced and are still going strong. There is some goal to make the bingtuan the biggest global corporation on the planet, and our educated friends say there’s a very good chance this might happen some time soon. Anyway, in Xinjiang there are various towns which were set up artificially (like Milton Keynes!) to serve the bingtuan cause, and loads of Han were sent over from the more easterly provinces to live and work in them. Korla is one such town and therefore is very modern and Han-ified.
It’s also gazillions of miles away from Urumqi. It’s very hard to quite explain the scale of China to people that haven’t been here. It’s massive. We’ve flown across the country and it takes hours. Flying for that long can take you from Britain right out of Europe. Xinjiang takes up one sixth of the entire country. That’s pretty damn huge, people. From Urumqi, centre-north-ish of Xinjiang, to Korla, slightly more southern and west a bit, took us roughly 11 hours. Can you get from anywhere to anywhere else in Britain by train and have it take 11 hours? Maybe Wick to Penzance, I dunno. Anyway, my point is: it’s a long way to go by train. And we were bored out of our minds. On the train journey Liam and I and Catherine and Frankie were forced to sit in two separate pairs as most seats were taken. Liam and I were seated opposite a presumably married couple who had come with several supplies for the journey and who clearly knew what they were doing. We wanted to adopt them as our Chinese parents for the rest of the journey. We also made tea for ourselves for the first time out of those dried up little tea leaves, I think they call them tea pearls or something, anyway in Liam’s we stupidly put about half a cup of leaves to half a cup of water. I heard the woman say to her husband "that’s too much" so in mine I put a pinch less, and then we went to get hot water which is supplied from a tap on every Chinese train (because the distances are all so long and the Chinese can’t live that long without tea and instant noodles, you see). When we came back I took one sip of my tea and practically choked, but as the woman was watching us so closely to see how we’d take it I drank it anyway. Blurgh. Learnt my lesson from that one, didn’t I. Catherine taught Liam how to play Chinese chess, which he in turn taught me. I will be teaching this game to anyone in England who wants to learn, but particularly to my dad because I can tell it’d be his kind of game. We then played a couple of games which were embarrassingly scrutinised with interest by the four Chinese people sitting around us. They laughed whenever we did anything stupid. Which was fairly often. But I got the hang of it, although I’ve since forgotten exactly how to play. Catherine can re-teach me!
So that was how we passed the journey, arriving in Korla at 11pm. The train station, like every station I’ve ever been to since in China, was full of homeless people hanging around and also lots of people asleep on rags with big sacks full of stuff who may have also been homeless but may have just been waiting for their trains. Outside the station there were even more homeless people, including lots of pitiful little children. We went straight to a hostel near the train station and paid 20¥ (that’s £1.33) each for a room for the night. For that price we weren’t expecting much, and we got a very sparse and basic room (a bit like the dorms!) and shared a communal bathroom (sunken toilets, filthy as per) and shower which had no hot water. The beds were basically boards with sheets on them, and the pillows were all smelly and stained. Still, it was cheap… like the budgie.
We went straight back out to get something to drink and to check the train times for the next day. As we were perusing the timetable a crazy homeless woman ran over and ripped Liam’s bottle of Sprite right out of his hand, then danced around with joy (and madness) until a staff member told her to go away. She went away a short distance but still hung around. I felt quite sorry for her really as she was quite clearly desperate and also didn’t have all her marbles, but it made everyone else nervous so we went back to the hostel where we spent quite an uncomfortable night on the boards.
The next day, a Monday, was the 1st of October, which is National Day in China and is therefore a national holiday. We got on a bus outside the train station and went into town. Catherine is really into markets so on her request we went into a nearby street market. Markets in China can be a bit hit and miss. Some of them are a bit like British jumble sales and sell a lot of cheap tack and clothes and toys. However street markets are also probably the best places to get properly traditional and well-prepared street food, and to mix in with the local people best. Sometimes you can find a few stalls with great finds too. Mostly the atmosphere is really friendly and bustling though occasionally we’ve found some more hostile markets. This market was one of the good ones and I tried some tasty fried vegetable pasty/wrap things.
When we came out of the market we wandered into the more modern, Han part of town. Here, after a trip to a coffee shop, we found the Children’s Park which we went into, and had a brilliant time. There was a mini theme park and Liam and I tried out pretty much every ride, particularly the dodgems, while Catherine and Frankie went somewhere else for a bit, I think to a Chinesey-looking building, I forget. Chinese theme parks are great. Well I don’t know about the bigger ones, but these little ones in the public parks have no concept of safety regulations and so some of the rides are absolutely mental. We also went in these crazy bubble things. Basically they’re big clear plastic balls, and you climb inside a deflated one and they inflate it with a pump. Then they push you out onto a man-made lake, and you get to roll around the bubble like a hamster in one of those ball things. Kudos to the hamsters for staying upright; it’s harder than you’d imagine. Plus when they push you into the water it’s actually impossible to not fall on either your face or your ass. Elegant. Like the rest of the rides, these bubbles have not a snowball’s chance in Hell to pass EU health and safety – you’re in them for a few minutes but after about two you run out of air. At one point Liam, Frankie and I were all just lying on our backs desperately trying to conserve our oxygen, completely red in the face and exhausted. All the laughing and trying to stand up/walk/run (if you’re skilful) just makes the oxygen levels run down faster. Brilliant! What’s also great is watching your friends try to run towards you in a bubble, and either go backwards or fall over in what is such a spectacular fall it almost looks contrived. But take it from me, those tumbles were genuine.
When we came out of the theme park we went to a nearby restaurant and had some hongshao niurou mian (beef and noodles in a flavoursome soup) and suannai (literally sour milk, which is yoghurt. A traditional Uyghur speciality, they often serve it almost too sour to stomach, so sugaring it is absolutely necessary.)
After our dinner we went for a wander around Korla. In the morning, at the markets, we had seen what seemed like the sum total of the Uyghur population in Korla, and now we were exploring the brand-spanking-new Han parts of town. There were some very interesting buildings there (read: the architects need to be shot. For example, the coffee shop we had gone into that morning had been inside a pink German-style castle (don't ask)) but in cultural terms it wasn't anything special. We also managed to fit in a visit to People's Park where a giant group of Uyghur lads took a photo of them with me and Catherine, and a viewing of a folkdance competition, as well as another trip to a coffee shop - Korla was slightly lacking on tourist sites. Frankie's money belt (actually a bumbag under all her clothes) made her look a few months' pregnant, so, much to our amusement, she entered a specialist mother and baby shop, with Liam acting as the happy father-to-be. The VERY attentive shop assistant didn't seem to catch on until right at the end when she noticed me and Catherine outside practically wetting ourselves with laughter.
Finally, we went back to the train station where we intended to very easily board our train to Aksu. How naive. We had been told that if we got off the train at Korla, as we did, our tickets were such that we could get back on any Kashgar-bound train in the next 4 days. Just before the train was due into the station, we decided to check that that was indeed the case. Of course it was not. Our tickets had to be stamped and signed by a certain member of staff. Catherine ran off with an assistant to find said member of staff to get all four of our tickets done at once. Apparently she had to urge them to speed up as they were naturally completely unbothered that we might miss our train. Fortunately Catherine was back just in time, and onto the train we hopped, with very little time to spare.

Delighted to be off on my travels : )

Our *cough* board... I mean BED for the night...

Frankie being elegant in a bubble.

Typical Korla architecture

Folkdancing with fans.