Sails n Trails: Urumchi, the Center of Xinjiang

Traditional Uyghur design

Tues., Sept. 3

In case you didn't think we ate well - this is the breakfast buffet!

Urumchi Bound:
After our four hour plane flight beginning early in the morning, we landed in Urumchi and went straight to a Uyghur restaurant. The predominant ethnic group in this part of China, the Uyghurs are descendants of the Turkic people whose ancestors originated in the area we know as Mongolia. Being Muslims, and influenced by the Persia and Turkey, their traditional decor is very ornate with rich patterns and colors. The restaurant was lavishly decorated, the food was delicious, lots of sautéed vegetables, some tofu, lots of spices, garlic and rice, mixed with shish-kabob, some lamb, chicken and, my all time favorite - organ meats (kidneys, heart, etc...yuchhh!) In addition, we were treated to dancing by a young Uyghur couple in traditional costume. Very colorful and lively (and Mid-Eastern).

The woman and child on the left are wearing traditional Uyghur print clothing

Minaret

Minaret reflection

Metal smith in the old Uyghur market

Going Back in Time:
Later that afternoon we walked through the only old Uyghur market neighborhood left in the city. As in Beijing, all the old neighborhoods are being torn down and replaced by expensive high rise buildings. These very narrow alleyways were packed full of locals, the women in mainly long, colorful dresses, all wearing headscarves, and the men, especially the older ones, in dark, formal looking jackets, with embroidered caps on their heads.

Local women at market

Man selling coats

Mmmmmm!
There were numerous food stalls with skewers of meat, and huge vats of steaming rice and vegetables cooking over charcoal stoves, hanging lamb carcasses, slabs of liver and other meats, huge tables of fruits - peaches, grapes and melons, and lots of dried fruits, vegetables and spices. Among these were stalls selling clothing, shoes, toys, small electronics, knives, hardware and metal goods such as pots and pans. Most interesting were several metal smith shops where men were building large urns and huge copper covers for outdoor barbecue, hammering hot metal into shape. The smoke from the food and metal smiths' fires, the food smells and colorful sights, along with the din of the vendors hawking their goods, the hammering, the horns of the occasional car or truck trying to push its way through the crowds, and the many people chatting made for a chaotic, but interesting scene.

lamb, whole or parts...

Locally grown melons are for sale everywhere

Figs: very tender and sweet...

Dried fruits of all kinds

Traditional musical instruments for sale

Foxes, wolves and other animal skins

The Crowd Gatherers:
We, ourselves created quite a scene as we walked through the market, stopping here and there for a few minutes talk by the guides. A crowd of local people gathered around us to listen (although I'm sure none of them understood a word we said) and follow us down the street. I could easily imagine this type of market scene playing out 100 or 500 years ago in many places of the world.

No Fly Zone:
In this market, and many more to come, I was amazed to see no flies. All this meat hanging on hooks and sitting on butcher's slabs out in the open, and no flies. At home, I think raw meat would be covered in a short time. However,the yellow jackets on the fruit, especially the grapes in Turpan made up for it.

Could be dinner


Window mannequins

Reality:
Towering above this lively street scene were high rise building in the most modern of styles...just waiting to invade this remaining piece of history and culture.

Oh Oh:
To bring us back to a more stark reality at the end of the street was a small troupe of police standing at attention. In 2009 there had been a large demonstration protesting unfair conditions that had become quite ugly and a number of people on both sides had been killed and injured. Subsequent smaller eruptions have occurred. Determined to not repeat this, there has been an increased police presence in the City, particularly in the Uyghur districts. Even more so this particular week because the annual Central Asian Expo was being held in Urumchi. In fact, everywhere we went were groups of police with their riot armor - truncheons, helmets and large shields.

Police or soldiers were very visible in the the City

Woman with nan bread

Another Market:
We visited another market that again, sold everything you could imagine, but in a more orderly, less authentic fashion. Less cooking food, no metal smiths, but instead, carpet merchants, furriers - complete with some taxidermied foxes

Many dried vegetables, teas, beans and spices for sale

and wolves, lots of dried fruits, nuts, spices, cosmetics, jewelry, and even a high end shop with huge gnarled tree trunks carved into Buddhas, animals or mythical beings. Outside this market was a large mosque, lavishly decorated with a huge turret. Again, being the only outsiders we were subject to many stares.

We ended the day at another wonderful local restaurant with delicious food. At this rate I won't fit into my clothes soon!

Shish kebab waiting for the grill

Wed., Sept. 4

I'm writing this at 7am, which is barely light out. All of China uses one time zone, meaning that in the eastern part dawn is at 5'ish, whereas in the far west, Xinjiang, it is about 2 1/2 hours later. We end up eating dinner about 8 or 9 o'clock each night! There is also a lot of activity outside in the evenings, people eating and shopping from street vendors, kids playing, teenagers skateboarding, old people chatting until 11'ish - it's quite a scene.

Flyway in the center of the City

Urumchi, a Changing City:
Inside the city of Urumchi traffic is pretty congested, and the main highway going out today was totally clogged with trucks carrying everything imaginable. We sat in one place for an hour and a half before turning back and choosing a smaller, almost as bad, route. The highway was jammed with trucks hauling building materials, cement bags, fill, coal, and everything imaginable. We finally got past the outskirts of the city past miles of gravel pits and cement trucks which are used to make the numerous new buildings sprouting up all over the city. Urumchi, like many Chinese cities, is experiencing a huge building boom. As China continues to industrialize more and more people are moving from the countryside into the cities in search of jobs and better economic opportunities. Rows of 20 - 30 story high rise apartment buildings are being built everywhere, while the older downtown areas are razed to make way for towering office buildings.

Crowded bus at rush hour

The Desert:
Continuing away from the city, is first the desert, which is a bleak wasteland, where absolutely nothing grows. It's amazing that a city as big as Urumchi can exist here with only a few inches of rain a year. However, the surrounding mountains have abundant rainfall that provides rivers and underground aquifers that sustain the 3 1/2 million people.

Truck traffic jam on highway outside Urumchi

Electric Changes:
You can almost see China changing overnight. Fringing the city to the north are miles of huge coal power stations, spewing out vast amounts of smoke. Nestled among these are the remains of smaller towns and villages, abandoned, in ruins. At one point we passed a huge wind farm with hundreds of wind turbines against a background of arid brown hills and snow capped mountains in the distance. Apparently, in a Danish and Chinese joint venture during the 1980's wind farms were built, but were not able to be activated for a number of years because the infrastructure to handle the electricity had not yet been developed in China. Now, however, they are building more wind farms that are part of the power grid. Not only are the Chinese moving forward in this area, but many older buildings and homes have at least solar water heaters, and most new apartment buildings have huge solar panel arrays on their roofs. They obviously are still very dependent on coal but its changing. In fact our guide told us the building he lives in just recently changed from coal to natural gas, but it doesn't heat as well as the coal, and costs more.

The grasslands

Yurts (on the left) are usually a portable summer home, while the more permanent homes are made from brick or stone

Prehistoric replicas of stone figures

Yurts are often decorated with traditional designs

The Grasslands:
Soon we began to climb into the scrub covered foothills, where grazing sheep and goats began to appear. We were on our way to the Nanshan Grassland area which lies at the foot of the Tian Shan Mountains. This area has been traditionally inhabited by the Kazak People, who are herders of mainly sheep, but goats and cows, as well. As one of the ethnic groups recognized in the "Autonomous Region" they are allowed to somewhat control their

Foothills

ancestral land. This meant that when we entered that region, we stopped to pay an entrance fee, that partially goes to the government and some, to them. In the summer the Kazaks, and other herding groups graze their cows, horses, sheep, goats, and the occasional camels in these rich grasslands. Extended families live together yurts, round portable canvas tents that can be moved in a matter of hours to follow their herds. Traditionally, they used horses to herd their flocks and camels to move their belongings, but recently, these have been replaced by motorcycles and trucks. In the tourist areas, yurts are used as small restaurants, and even as hotels for people to stay overnight in.

New transportation

Traditional transportation

Yurts:
Resembling a large baggy igloo, the yurt typically is built on a round, wooden, or more often now, metal, frame that is lashed together and covered with a layer of woven reeds, huge thick layers of felt and finally, a durable canvas. Inside, are brightly colored floral or geometric patterned (no people pictures in Islamic homes) carpeted floor and walls. A large low table, again, covered with carpet, is used for meals, and a bed with rolls of quilts and pillows makes up the only other furniture. A small stove burning charcoal or coal is used for heat, with a vent pipe through the roof. As with an igloo or tepee, a hole, with a flap, is located in the top to vent. The entrance is a two panel wooden door. Outside is a barbecue style cooking area, various frames holding utensils, pots and pans, hanging herbs and sometimes racks with drying skins and meats as well. We spent the afternoon in this region enjoying the spectacular scenery, high rugged mountains rising above steep grassy slopes with herds of grazing animals.

Yurt bed with throws and rugs

Greenhouses are covered with a thick layer of felt underneath thick plastic

Families arrange flowers in their living room before sending them off to market

Greenhouses:
On the return trip we did an impromptu stop along the road to visit one of many greenhouses. These produce mainly flowers, but some vegetables year round. The families that own them live right on the premises. We were invited to come in and see the rows of zinnias, daisies and several vegetables currently being grown. In the summer a cover of just plastic is used, but in the winter a thick layer of felt is added for insulation.

"Share the road" takes on a new meaning in rural areas

Zzzzzzzzzzz:
Also along the way were many small huts surrounded by beehives with hundreds of bees flying around them. Nearby there are fields of sunflowers, corn and other vegetables that obviously need pollinating. These hives must be able to be transported, because I wouldn't think they would stay there by the road all winter. Furthermore, I can't imagine that people would survive the winter in these tiny makeshift huts.

Bees hover around portable hives

A family courtyard with living quarters on the left and animal stables on the right. Hay is stored on the roof.

Thurs., Sept. 5

Some Culture:
Today, we visited the Autonomous Peoples Museum in Urumchi, which explained a little about the local ethnic groups and their ways of life. The Uyghurs, Kazaks, Tajiks, and several other Central Asian groups have been mostly farmers and herders for hundreds, even

Mummy - perhaps as old as 4,000 years

thousands of years in this region. Many of these people are now Muslim, having converted about 6 - 700 years ago when Islamic people traveling along the Silk Road arrived here. This region is really part of Central Asia, with the ancestors of the Turkic people having roots in Persia, the Mideast, and possibly some Northern European blood mixed in. In fact, the people of Turkey probably originated in the steppe/grasslands area of Mongolia nearby before migrating westward probably several thousand years ago.

Cloth and footwear showing how well the dry desert preserved the mummy

A very popular tourist area for the Chinese, Heavenly Lake

Heavenly Lake:
That afternoon we drove through the desert and foothills, and into the Tian Shan Mountains to Heavenly Lake, a very popular tourist spot. As part of the National Geologic Parks System, we left our bus in a huge parking lot, to climb aboard a new LPG powered coach that took us up an incredibly winding, and very scenic road to the Lake. After walking around part of the lake and watching all the Chinese tourists doing the usual "tourist stuff," we boarded a small boat that took us out onto the lake. It was very reminiscent of being in the Canadian Rockies, with jagged peaks crowned with glaciers off into the distance, surrounding a milky, turquoise glacial lake. The scenery was quite beautiful.

A Little Bit of Disney:
Apparently the Government is in the process of developing the park, so it has built a nice new road, big hotels, and lots of restaurants and gift shops, which have left out the local Kazak people who somewhat relied on tourism before. They still have some yurts people can visit and stay in, and they still use the land for their grazing herds. The whole place is just a little overdone, boardwalks everywhere, fake tree trunks playing music along the trails... I think they are moving in the direction of theme park, rather than wilderness. But I give them credit for using the natural gas powered buses, and the boardwalks do keep people from trampling all the vegetation.

Love Those Signs!
All around China, on billboards in cities, in public places, including parks are somewhat inspirational/rule reminding signs, which are often corny and often amusing, especially with their English translations.

Here Comes the Bride:
Apparently, the lake is a very popular spot for wedding parties, because we saw several elaborately dressed brides having their photos taken. Upon looking further, as they moved around from one scenic spot to another we glimpsed several brides wearing blue jeans under their beautiful white gowns. Sometimes they rent several gowns specifically for photos only. Quite practical really, as I know people who have spent hundreds, even thousands of dollars to wear their wedding gown for one day.