新疆 2011 Excerpts - Great Wall (Beijing)

On our way back to Canada we stayed for three days in Beijing. On one of the days, we did the obligatory visit to the Great Wall of China of course (不到长城非好汉）


The coolest part about this trip was that we didn't join in the throng of tourists at the main Great Wall locations open to the public. We found this guy in the hotel we were staying in, and he offered us a deal to have a one-day tour including transportation (him driving a van), meals (home-cooked by village people he knows), and stops at two different points of the Great Wall which are not open to public.


Part One: The Useless Dam (that's what our guide called it)
According to him, some villagers long ago arbitrarily decided to build a dam to store waters from the spring floods, but since they didn't know what they were doing, the dam held no water and has always stood as dry as it is today. We began at the dam and walked a little way out along the Wall, and it was completely free of other tourists so we got some pretty epic pictures.


Lunch break: Village by the Dam
We were served a delicious lunch of home-cooked food in the village after coming down from our first stretch of walking along the Wall. The highlight was a grilled fish freshly caught in a nearby river, seasoned with something amazing. I will never look at fish the same way again. We enjoyed our rest in the intensely air-conditioned guest room they provided, since it was overwhelmingly hot outside with extremely high humidity. Walking for just five or ten minutes resulted in sweating like pigs, yum. The air was so humid it was hard to breathe.


In this village, many of the old houses were actually built from bricks that villagers generations ago stole from the base of the wall that was conveniently nearby. The government is now in the process of offering new bricks to families to keep them from stealing more. The locals take advantage of this by making sure their application for new bricks coincides with the marriage of a son or daughter so that a house for the new couple can be built with the free materials. An old house indicates lack of children/grandchildren of marrying age, and a new one indicates a recent wedding.

The main section of the useless dam.

epic.

nice hats; a gift from our guide 

some ridiculously steep stairs

so. hot. ;D

 Part Three: Fruit Orchard and Hike
We then drove the van to another section of the Wall even more secluded than the last. The way up to the Wall was a path through an orchard growing various things including chestnuts, corn, and peach/nectarine type things. The sounds of insects was pretty loud but soothing at the same time, and we appreciated the shade under the trees even though it didn't really help with the heat. We had a local guide for this part of the tour, a woman who proclaimed herself a Guardian of the Wall and a descendant of the workers who built it ages ago. She stopped at a place where we could fill out bottles with cold, clean water from a mountain stream. The water was refreshing and a little bit sweet, and also great to just dump over our heads (at this point everything was soaked with sweat and my hair looked like I had just gotten out of the shower anyway).


We approached the base of the Great Wall and saw that this section had never been maintained by the government (since it's technically closed to public and only those villagers know the way up), so there was no way to actually walk on the Wall as we had done before. The Wall itself was heavily overgrown with trees and shrubs already, and we followed our guide on a tiny footpath along the outside of it going up the hill. It was tough going as the plants growing along the barely-existent path were often prickly, and the ground was either sandy or covered with sharp gravel. I was wearing plastic flip-flops....for some reason...>_<


The climb was worth the scrapes and sweating though, since we got this amazing view that looked like something from a movie or a travel guidebook. This is something you definitely can't see just any old day.

view from the trail

新疆 2011 Excerpts - Red Hill, Urumqi

Passed through Urumqi for the second time, and this time we actually got to go sightseeing with some friends of friends who were locals there. We went to a famous park in the city called Red Hill, which is a huge bit of red rock that is located right in the heart of the city. According to websites it is over 900m above sea level. There's a park with all sorts of attractions and walkways built on and around it, so we went for a nice walk ending at the pagoda at the top of the hill and we could see the city spread out around us. The weather was beautiful, and the day we went happened to be the Chinese Valentine's day so there were a lot of young couples, old couples, and people selling roses. Super cute! 

新疆 2011 Excerpts - Taklamakan Desert

I couldn't remember much from this day --a mindless climb through fiery sand, the sun beating down relentlessly, air too hot for breathing and the uncomfortable burning sensation on my skin that refused to go away. There was sand everywhere; in my bag, in my eyes, in my hair, in my mouth, in my socks...under my nails...


Information here, because all I knew was that it was so hot that patches of sweat forming on my clothes would invariably dry themselves within five minutes, which was the only very nice thing about the weather. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taklamakan_Desert

 They had these ATVs you could rent for 150RMB and drive to the top of the hill you see in this picture and come back. We didn't do it.

 We opted to go by foot, aiming for the top of this hill (it's a different hill), somewhere I guess near the top right corner of this photo. The structures are man-made and just put there to help you get the right atmosphere ;)

The hill didn't look that tall right? Well it was. Ridiculously tall. Can you make out the structures now? Only half our group made it to the top. About halfway up I was ready to stop, but I figured since I'm not going to get many chances to go to a desert I should probably tough it out. As you can imagine, climbing a mountain of sand involves a lot of slipping and sliding and stopping to dump sand out of shoes because they are getting so full your feet hurt. The sand on the surface felt hot enough to cook on even at the early hour of the morning we were there, and although I tried to cover up most of my skin my ankles would always brush the burning surface and so it was pretty painful afterwards. I have to admit, getting to the top felt like a monumental accomplishment.

Pretending to be the happiest kid in the world.

新疆 2011 Excerpts - Emin Minaret

We did a two-day excursion to Turpan, which is an oasis in a desert with a very very low altitude. This basically means that during this time of year, it is an absolute oven where everything bakes in heat and sand. It is an area rich in tradition and culture of the local people, this being one of the most significant structures. More on Wikipedia.

 It's pretty impressive up close, with all those intricate patterns. Unfortunately we weren't able to actually go to the upper level and look out from the roof because there was some restoration happening (part of a wall blew down in a sandstorm or something).

 There is also a graveyard area at the side of the tower, and some walkways and gardens that we strolled through.

The heat was oppressive and unending; there was no place with enough air conditioning to make it better. I basically went through this day and was barely able to remember what I did.

新疆 2011 Excerpts - Grape Valley and Karez

One of the things I loved most about this place was that I had a steady supply of grapes to eat. Turpan is especially famous for its grapes because its climate makes it ideal for growing dozens of varieties of grapes, from which dozens of varieties of raisins are made. We visited the Grape Valley, where we sampled a few grapes and raisins and looked at the vines growing everywhere. We also saw some grape-drying houses which are like large clay shelters with holes in the walls to let in the dry desert are but no direct sunlight. Bunches of grapes are hung inside to produce natural, untreated raisins. Yum!

and right beside it some guy was eating off the vine...

 We also went to the exhibit for the Karez irrigation system. This is pretty much the reason why Turpan exists at all, since it is the only source of water for the desert region. Hopefully you can make out the line of holes leading through the desert to the city. They sent people to the base of the mountains where they dug a well to find water, then dug wells at regular intervals connected by an underground canal so that the water would flow down to sustain life in the valley.