Silk Road Trip 1st installment

We returned on Sunday from a week-long trip in northwestern China, an area known as the Silk Road. This is where the caravans carrying goods from China to Europe travelled in ancient times. As we toured, I was continually struck by how young America is and how old China is. Many of the sites were built thousands of years ago and some are still being used. We visited four cities. The first was Urumqi. It is the furtherest place in the world from an ocean. I had a hard time visualizing that but looked on my world map when we got back and realized that is an accurate description. Living in the US we have a western hemisphere focus and until I moved to China, I had no idea the perspective of the rest of the world, particularly inland China and eastern Asia.

Urumqi (pronounced sort of like "oo room a chi") has a population fo 1.5 million people. Like most cities in China it is growing rapidly. We were told that 10 years ago there were no buildings over 8 stories high. Now the skyline is covered by high rise buildings. The first thing we notices was the blue sky and clear dry air. After smoggy, humid Nanjing, it was literally a "breath of fresh air." The population of Urumqi is mostly Muslim and heavily laced with minorities (meaning not Han Chinese, the majority population) from surrounding countries--Mongolia, Kazakhstan Turmenistan, Pakistan, etc. It makes for an interesting population mix.

Above is the mosque near the Muslim market in Urumqi.

We traveled out of the city to Heavenly Lake, an azure blue, glacial lake about an hours drive up into the mountains. Because this is a desert area it was hard to believe we were in China. The scenery as we wound up along a small river looked much like going into the mountains of Utah of Idaho--dry, rocky outcroppings, sparce vegetation. However, instead of tents in campgrounds we saw yurts along the river and were reminded of where we were. Heavenly Lake was lovely but the most interesting thing about it was the 1/2 mile walk from where the transportation ended to the lake. All along the walk we heard beautiful classical music--Clare de Lune, Rustles of Spring to name a couple. It made for a peaceful hike. Where did the music come from? Along the way were speakers disguised as tree trunks--nice music, no ugly amplifiers. The lake is beautiful, as you can see from the picture. We took a boat ride and looked up to see a Buddhist temple on the hillside above the lake. Also the signs in China are unique. We loved the "Keep off the grass" sign.

The food here in Urumqi is an exotic mix of spicy vegetables, and lamb. We had dinner in a restaurant with a show of local dancing and an amazing tightrope walker. The show was great but the food was so spicy that we had to pick carefully what we ate. Fortunately, it was a buffet so if we

found something too hot, we could go back and try something else. It was probably the most difficult meal we had on our trip. Most of the food was absolutely delicious. On the way to the dinner and show we saw lambs being skinned and vegetables being cooked along the streets.

It was pomegranate season in Urumqi and we saw the largest, sweetest pomegranates we've ever seen. We also saw them making ice cream in a large barrel and scooping it out with big wooden paddles onto a plate from which it was sold--a tasty treat on a hot day.

Here is the man squeezing pomegranate juice with the lady selling ice cream in the background. We had to try some of both of them--very tasty.

Jim is standing in the middle of a shop that sells raisins in bins and cashmere shawls which are hanging on the walls, an interesting combination. I had never seen so many colorful raisins before. I thought raisins were either dark or light, but they are every color in between. I will tell more about grapes and raisins as I describe our visit to Turpan.

One last comment. All China is on the same time zone--Bejing time. That meant that when we were in western China the daylight hours were skewed. It stayed light until late evening because Urumqi is at least two time zones to the west. It would be like Idaho keeping the same time as New York. I never did figure out whether the local people use local time or Bejing time. Shops seemed to be open all the time so I guess they just work both ends of the time zones. Interesting.

I hope you can follow this blog. I am still struggling to make what I compose look the same when it is posted. So far I have not had great success. I'll keep trying .Here are two pictures of lamb--one being skinned and one cooked and ready to serve.