Day 8 : Back to Urumqi

On Day 8, I got back to Urumqi with my friend and took a days rest before heading further west. It was a very pleasant day in Urumqi with lovely weather for a stroll around town. It was also another lovely and productive day photographically.

A wonderful autumn morning in the streets of Urumqi

A mother and a child enjoying a bright autumn morning

The local market near the station, it was a place full of dry fruit shops

A local Nan maker giving me "the look"

The sight in the alleyways of the market

A portrait of a hot snack vendor

Touched by technology and fully engrossed in it

A whole sale raisins vendor. It is here that I realised that the word Kishmish is common in Uyghur and Hindi/Urdu  

Another curious Raisins vendor

A young helping hand

Little things that make you happy....A mother and father so happy to see me turn around and click a photo of their child

Another bread maker, but his bread was very similar to one found in my hometown called Porata

Happiness...

"Hold it right here kid !!! Whats the matter you scared ??"

Chinese chess

Riders waiting for a ride...

Portrait of a samsa vendor

Xinjiang chaat...a quick snack very similar to chaat in India...

A carnivores delight....

The Boss... 

A view of the evening food market

And to finish the day off, some amazing Hami melon and watermelon...

Day 7 : Barkol Lake

On Day 7 we headed to Barkol lake in the Kazakh Autonomous region of Xinjiang. A landscape covered with huge flat grasslands dotted with grazing animals.

The grasslands on way to Barkol Lake, it lays flat as far as the eye can see doted with grazing animals

Mountains flanking the grasslands around Barkol lake

Horses grazing at the lake Barkol

The dry grasslands and the flat salt pans revealed by the receding Lake

Horses grazing by the lake

Salt pans near the lake and a dramatic horizon

A friendly shepherd, who invited us for a tea 

Herds of sheep grazing

Mid day break

Day 6 : Hami/Kumul

Day 6 was not really very impressive photographically; all we did was a 6-7 hour journey to Hami or Kumul as it is known among Uyghurs. After reaching Kumul, me and my travel buddy had a hard time convincing our hotel staff that we had a booking, since they had no international hostels around we were forced to stay in that budget hotel. Thanks to a good friend who managed to explain all things we got a room with relatively less trouble.

On route to Kumul we saw this beautiful Kebab cart, that had such lovely designs on it (Shot from my Mobile)

In our effort to find a nice local place to sit around for a coffee we walked into this rather new cafe opened up in Kumul (Shot from my Mobile)

The cafe had 2 young girls as staff, who knew no english but they were very friendly and though we had a hard time communicating with my broken Chinese and sign language we managed to get what we wanted. The idea of going into a local place was to get more info about what to see around and how to get to our next destination Barkol lake. Though the girls couldn't help much we had their boss walk in at the right time that we managed to communicate with him in mix of languages and get some details. There was not much to discuss as there were no major attractions in the town.

Kumul/Hami was kind of a let down because the it was much of a migrant town with more Han Chinese population than local, which kind of a spoiler on the idea of meeting locals. When you come after a wonderful experience in a place like Turpan, what Kumul had to offer looked pretty bleak. Also the trouble we had in finding a cab to take us around was another let down, no cabbie was willing to take us around. Eventually we walked around the whole town to get to the places we wanted to go to. 

The day ended with a trip to the local bus station from where we had the buses to Barkol and to find out if they had facility to store our luggage, we found that out the bus station but they had very less facilities. Then we decided to drop out luggage in another bus station from where buses to Urumqi were leaving early in the morning next day and then head to Barkol. 

Day 5 : Turpan cont.

Day 5 was our day 2 in Turpan, we headed around to see the local attractions and markets, one of the most beautiful and enriching day in the trip...

Flaming mountains, in summer the mountains look flaming red in color hence the name

Tombs by the side of the mountains

View of the terrain through which the car was passing

Mazar Village, one of the most wonderfully preserved villages in Xinjiang

Tombs in the edge of Mazar village

A view of the village from afar

Alley by the side of the village entrance

A beautiful courtyard in a house, in the village

He was sitting by the road and cutting Hami melons, when we passed by he offered us a couple of pieces. Those were the most sweetest melons I have ever had in my life and he was generous enough to offer us more

We found a pile of Hami melons in his yard when he invited us home. We were naturally wondering if every one of them was as sweet as the ones we had

After having the melons he invited us home, a very simple but wonderfully decorated house

The village mosque

A view of the tombs from the village, the green tomb is the Mazar that the village is named after 

A wooden window in a mud house

The village reservoir, near and around the reservoir there are 1000's of caves that has been vandalised over the years. They had 1000's of buddha statues in them.

Our lunch, at a wonderful street side restaurant where we had Laghman or rice noodle with the freshest mix of veggies and meatAfter the meal we had a local walk up to us and offer another wonderful piece of Hami melon, the day was foodies delight

After the village we headed to see a traditional canal system called Karez. This was a dome in the museum that preserves part of the system 

A well decorated pillar

A pathway covered with vines of grapes

Towards the end of the day we went strolling around the local market, that showed us a really beautiful and local market.

Fruit Vendors

Nan vendors, very similar to the Indian Nan but a bit on the harder side

Inside the market

Butcher shop, they were very curious to know my nationality and very happy to hear that I am from India

A young boy at a nan bakery, he was more curious about Bollywood when he knew I am from India

Another friendly bread seller

Traditional hand woven carpets

Xinjiang has some of the best fruits I have had in China

The kebab guy getting ready for the evening rush

A local meat snack shop

A cold snack shop, it was all pure vegetarian and the boy at the end of the card was the cashier, helping his mom out

The day ended with this beautiful bundle of joy, sitting pretty in front of her dads Nan cart munching on some Nan