Turpan

Dear all,

On the 2nd September we headed to the ruins of Jiaohe, a city built on cliffs at a fork in a river. They'd carved it out of the rock itself, with the odd taller building made with bricks. I had no idea what to expect.

I was a little disappointed when we arrived. Unlike Pompeii, it was difficult to distinguish original buildings from rocky outcrops. Perhaps they were mostly rocky outcrops, or perhaps they were mostly ruined walls and doorways. I wasn't sure:

We started in a big group tramping along the prescribed timber walkways and taking pictures. There were many signs warning visitors not to stray from the given paths, presumably to prevent erosion by feet. Chinese elevator music was being piped through speakers disguised as music.

As the paths forked the group dwindled until I was alone. I both lagged behind and went forward to facilitate this process. I began inspecting these outcrops / ruins with greater attention and tried to imagine what was a house, a temple, a warehouse.

Nobody was around so I began making my own way through the ruins, clambering and jumping to see what I could find. I found the cliff, the edge of the city. There were no barriers or signs here, just a steep drop to the green river below.

I found a stupa standing apart on a plain to the west of the city. The only structures beyond were tombs.

There are stupas everywhere in China. The faithful circle them three times and touch their head to the rock. I saw Pilgrims doing this at Labrang monastery at Xiahe but I abstained. I understand that Stupas contain "relics" (a tooth, a piece of skin) of the Buddha. I've seen examples in a temple in Singapore and they look like amber and pearls.

The landscape reminded me of Raiders of the Lost Ark. It's not too far from the truth because many caves and tombs in the area have been raided by western explorers. I had seen the blank walls and empty spaces where Bodhisattvas and Buddhas should be at Dunhuang (I believe I can see some of them at the British Museum). But now the Chinese have the treasures of the Silk Road firmly under their control. There are some sites that foreign tourists aren't even allowed to see.

After the Jiohe ruins we visited the irrigation museum. In my opinion it was very dull, even though they did recreate irrigation tunnels for us to walk down. Also on site was a reconstruction of a grape drying house. The grapes were plastic.

On exiting the museum I noticed that there were paths leading away from crowds towards vines. There were rows on rows of vines and all were bursting with grapes. I found a quiet corner and ate as many as I could as quickly as I could. They were very sweet and firm.

Back at Turpan myself and Kelvin set about looking for lunch. We found a smoky alley where Uighur Muslims were cooking unknown meats (or perhaps not meats) at charcoal stoves. Inside a restaurant selected at random even Kelvin was lost because no one but him spoke Chinese. This was the first time this has happened in China. As usual everyone stopped and stared with the "who on earth are you and what are you doing here" look. On the wall a clock showed the wrong or the right time depending on your point of view. Since I had left Beijing I had travelled over a thousand miles west but my time had remained the same. Officially, the entire country is on a single time zone - Beijing time, meaning that as I travelled west the sun rose later and set later. As soon as I crossed the border into Kyrgyzstan the time would jump by three hours.

However some residents of China, including the owners of the restaurant we were in, disagree about the time. Uighur time is two hours behind Beijing time. They will not accept Beijing time though they have no choice but accept other strictures, such as Han Chinese dressed in camo and armed with sticks patrolling their city. There was a heavy police, military, and guys with sticks presence in Turpan.

In the restaurant Kelvin translated some Chinese characters painted on the wall as "noodles" and "beef". We attracted the attention of a woman who looked like she might work there then I went to  the wall and jumped to point at the top item that was probably noodles and beef. It was quite high so I'm not sure how accurate my point was.

The woman left us so we presumed that we had ordered something. After waiting for a bit we began admiring the sticks at the next table. A group of teenage girls had gathered to eat meat on sticks. We couldn't tell what they were but we knew we wanted some. Ordering this time was easier - I went to their table and pointed at the things we wanted. General titters ensued but the message was clearly received because within minutes meat on sticks arrived. One definitely wasn't meat and meat was only partly involved with others but it was all nicely smoky.

Our beef took longer. We had tried to pay and leave before a gigantic plate of meat, chilli, carrots and potatoes arrived at our table, a rich heavy meal and more than we could possibly eat. We gave it our best shot then attempted to pay. I gave them a 50 yuan note but the total was 120 yuan. I think they creatively interpreted my jump-and-point as indicating the most expensive item on the menu. Either that or they created this expensive and rich dish especially for us.

After lunch Kelvin and I browsed the bazaar and selected sultanas.

There were over a dozen varieties available of various colours and lengths. I tasted them all then selected my two favourites. I spilt half of them on the truck floor when I was dozing on a bumpy road but I've still plenty of very sweet and intensely flavoured sultanas left.

That evening the group at large met to visit the grape festival, held to celebrate the harvest. We were all looking forward to this. Traffic coming into the town had been especially heavy because of this festival - there had even been roadblocks to prevent the town from becoming overly busy. Grapes would be involved, as would sultanas, raisins and hopefully wine.

At the grape festival, decorated with large banners depicting grapes, there were many merchants selling clothes, tea, edible fungus and handy kitchen gadgets but no grapes. I looked very closely and I couldn't even see a single sultana. Apparently this festival was held to celebrate the grape harvest but did not itself involve grapes. It was interesting in its own right however. I took this picture:

After browsing the grape festival we went to dinner. Seeing that we were in a grape region we ordered some wine in addition to our customary weak beer. It was awful. We couldn't figure it out as the grapes are fantastic.

Claire was keen to make this night last as the next day was one of the few days in the itinerary where there were no scheduled drives or visits, meaning Claire didn't need to be up early. Karaoke was on the cards. I was yawning - it had been a long day - but I wanted to stick it out to avoid a third failed attempt to organise a karaoke night and because I was curious about how closely it would resemble the Karaoke night in Lost in Translation.

In the event six of us made it there. It was very shiny albeit with a slightly sticky carpet, but most importantly it had kick ass speakers, a big TV and a touchscreen interface. The room till 3am plus 12 beers and snacks was 360 yuan, £6 each.

We had a great time. We got through Roxette, Bangles, Beatles, Britney Spears, Aqua (Barbie Girl - I had trouble with the falsetto), Michael Jackson and Simon and Garkunkel. We were singing and dancing till 2am. I was especially grateful for this since the last time I had been dancing - my cousin's wedding - my dance floor grooving had been cruelly curtailed at 10pm.

We slept in till 11am the next morning. That evening ate dumpling soup at a Uighur stall, ordering by the usual pointing method. It didn't quite work out for Dan and Lucy, who are vegetarian, so the rest of us had extra dumplings.

During our dinner I made friends with a little Uighur girl. She was doing her Chinese homework and watching her snail. I asked her if I could take her picture by gesturing with my camera but she hid her eyes and stuck out her tongue at me. When I put away my camera she looked quite surprised and pleased. We waved goodbye to each other when I left.

After dinner we visited the night market.

There I was approached by a guy who greeted me with the words, "hello handsome". He wanted a photo of him and I together (usually it is a woman who requests this). I obliged then remembered to ask if I could take a photo of him and his friend. I'm not usually brave enough to ask locals to pose for a photo so I am trying to remember to ask after someone has taken a photo of me.

Stephen