Xinjiang - Part 2

We woke up in the yurt on Day 3, seriously felt like almost frozen to death, in the yurt up on the heavenly mountain. We went up a little unprepared. It was an amazing experience up here, and we were probably going to be repeating the experiences at Karakul Lake, missusing the climb up. After having our breakfast, we made our way down the mountain to catch the public bus to fukang (阜康), where we would be switching to another bus to get back to Urumqi. Took a cab straight to the Xinjiang Regional Museum. The highlight of it was to see the mummified Loulan beauty (楼兰美女). After that, we headed back to our hotel to take a short break and wash ourselves before heading for dinner and the International Grand Bazaar, also commonly known as Erdaoqiao Bazaar (二道桥巴扎). Eating those street side food stalls was a good way to experience the local cusine, in a much cheaper way. I believed we still get to pay more than we should be paying for the claypot noodles but the rest of the other food was still good. And with that comes the end of day 3.

 

We had to catch an early flight to Kashgar on Day 4. Met this couple on the bus to the city, asking us if we were going to the Karakul Lake. He was checking with us if we were interesting in sharing the cost with him in hiring a cab or booking a private car to get us to Karakul Lake. However, after he got some information about the coldness at Karakul Lake, he might not want to stay for the night up there. Apparently he is in the travel industry based in Beijing, so he managed to get a slightly cheaper rate at this 2-star hotel which happened to be at an ideal location for us. The hotel was just opposed to the Regional Bus Station where we would be taking our bus to Karakul Lake and Hotan, which was our next destination. Save us the trouble of lugging our luggage around. Apparently over here at Kashgar, their official timing was 2 hours behind Beijing time, which was GMT +8.

 

With one whole day ahead of us, we get to visit the bazaar, rather the many bazaars they had it here. The livestock bazaar was an interesting trip with some nice photos, but at the same time, a very very dusty one too. Then they have the Sunday Bazaar which was a rather famous thing over here in Kashgar.

 

Apak Hoja Mazzar (香妃墓) was one of the place of interest to visit in Kashgar. We got conned into visiting the orchard as well as the tiny room of antiques. 艾提尕尔清真寺 was another place of interest over here. We seemed to be able to finish our targetted sites to visit on the 1st day. Looked like we might be able to recover an extra day, and that might gave us the option of visiting Jiayuguan (嘉峪关) or Korla (库尔勒). My time over at the internet cafe was almost up. Time for me to get my dinner, and see what celebration they were having at the People's Park for National Day tomorrow.