Galed Into Insignificance 1

I jumped off the train, on a mission. It was stopping in Turpan for two minutes, and two minutes only.

The hot air hit me like a ton of hot air, which, believe it or not, is just as heavy as a ton of bricks.

The friendly carriage attendant had directed some of my fellow passengers to help me unload my bike, and they then kindly carted my panniers, backpacks, accessories, guitar, and the rest of my baggagerie onto the platform.

It was a team effort, and what an infinitely friendly and helpful team I was in.

I couldn't exit the station because there were two successive one way turnpikes, and once you were in the first one, you could only move forward, and not go back for more of your things. There's no way I could fit all of my things, and my bike, in just one section of the turnpike.

Despite some business-hungry taxi drivers urging me to come through anyway, I knew that their need for cash was overpowering their logical knowledge of physics, and so rather than get myself into a pickle, I got the security guards to come over and open a side gate.

The security guards turned out not to be security guards at all, but the police. So the simple opening of a gate became the usual litany.

Everyone seems to love meat around these parts, but this time it wasn't all of those dead animals getting the complete grilling. It was me.

It was 1am, and after such a huge day and all the station kerfuffle I wasn't in the mood to reassemble my bike, load up, and then ride the 15km to my hotel in the dark. I was tired, hungry and headachey. My bike wouldn't fit into a taxi, packed as it was, but eventually a driver popped it in his boot, and then tied down the lid.

As we drove off into the balmy night, Bewdy hung out the back of the cab like a dry and thirsty dog with its head out the car window, desperately trying to cool off.

And as soon as the ignition was on, the Arabic music began pumping. It was great! My headache was forgotten, and as we sped off I quickly realised I'd been suddenly transported into a brand new world - the fascinating and completely different world of the Uyghur.

My driver took me to the wrong hotel. He couldn't read Chinese, or Arabic. He speaks Uyghur, which is the name shared by the local people and their language. The Uyghur tongue is Turkic-based, but also borrows words from Arabic, Persian, Russian and Chinese. It sounds so interesting.

Believe it or not, but Uyghur sounds quite Slavic, with harder consonant sounds, more 'sh' and guttural 'ch' sounds, and it's not very flowy. But it doesn't really sound Arabic at all, it's way more European. I guess all of the above descriptions are exactly what Turkic-based languages sound like.

I used Baidu Maps so I could direct the driver to my hotel. When I went to pay he couldn't change my 100 CNY note. Of course he couldn't. You'd think, given the number of times I've fallen for that trick, I'd've learnt by now. But no. Despite getting 2 fifties from the hotel receptionist, it was still his lucky night.

After yet another infinitely long checkin process, which always involves phone calls to the hotel manager, the police, and then passport photocopying, explanations, translations, my mugshot, computer inputs, blah blah fuckity blah, I finally made it to my room.

It was 2.30am by this stage, and, although I was super hungry, the receptionist had explained to me that nothing was open, not even convenience stores. Their stores of convenience had run out.

Luckily I found some snacks in my bag, a bit of fruit, a few nuts and some other things pretending to be food.

And then, finally, after a seemingly endlessly long day, I laid down on my hard bed, and the curtain finally came down on my weary eyes.

Backpedalling

I hadn't meant for it to happen like this. I'd heard there was a direct train from Dunhuang to Turpan. But that turned out to be fake news. I ended up needing to get a bus to Liuyuan, about 140km away, and then my plan was to take an overnight train to Turpan.

But when I got to Liuyuan, the friendly railway policeman informed me that there was no longer any luggage service from that station, and that, for security reasons, the only way to get my bike on the train was to pack it up into a box and bring it on the seating carriage.

The very helpful fellow explained to me that if it remained unpacked, any sharp part of the bike could be dismantled and used as a weapon on the train.

Yeah, yeah I understand. But what a bloody hassle.

He really was the sweetest guy, and basically spent the next half hour creating a makeshift bike box for me, packing and taping it up, while I dismantled the handlebars, pedals, front wheel, and anything else that stuck out. It takes time to do these things, but my friendly helper seemed to be in an enormous hurry.

Then we rushed through security.

I soon realised the reason for the hurry. I'd already told them I was heading to Turpan, and before I could protest, they'd already printed out and issued a ticket for me on the very next train, leaving in about 2 minutes, which was, in fact, not really what I wanted at all.

I'd planned to stay in Liuyuan for a few hours, go and get some food, and then take the overnight train, so I'd arrive in Turpan in the morning, and could just ride off into the day.

But they explained that they didn't have any luggage storage there at the station, and therefore I needed to go right away. So I was bundled on to the train, railway staff helping me carry all my stuff, as I couldn't just wheel my loaded bike along the platform like I normally would.

They basically wanted to get rid of me, so I was out of their hair, and could be someone else's problem. Bloody foreigners.

It was all rush rush rush, which is really not my preferred way of getting around.

But hey, everyone was so overwhelmingly nice about it.

And the complete irony of the whole story was that, although they scanned all of my luggage, they were in such a hurry to get me onto that train that they just ignored the scan, and didn't open or check any of my bags. If they'd've looked at their scanner they'd have seen that there was a whole pile of metal tools, a knife, and bits and pieces scattered all over the place, any of which would make the perfect sharp weapon on a train.

Sometimes you really do need to think outside the bike box.

Two minute noodles and a dirty window view from the train

First glimpse of Xinjiang Province.

Flags in my hotel lobby - China (right), and the Communist Party of China (left).

I can't believe how many innovative ways there are to mess up the translation of "Beware, Slippery Floor." That's about the tenth I've seen, so far. And they've all been hilarious.

As I strolled out of my hotel in the (just) morning, Turpan was stinking hot, dusty and still.

The city is 80% Uyghur, and as soon as I hit those blistering streets I immediately felt like I was in a new country.

Eurasian faces stared at me, or Caucasian ones, and some Han. There was little Mandarin to be heard.

Turkic and Arabic and local music blared from speakers everywhere. Shops featured signs in Arabic, Chinese and, occasionally, English.

Islamic architectural styles are common here.

I mean, it's still obviously China, especially when it comes to the police presence. But, for obvious reasons, I'll describe all that to you at a later date. And more.

My friendly hotel receptionist had suggested a jiaozi (gyoza) place for late brekky.

The prices were ridiculously cheap. 0.6 CNY per piece, which is about 12c Oz.

This filling feast was about $2.50.

They had a map of China on the wall. Note the size of Xinjiang, the northwestern orange province, where I am now. I've ridden right through the green province, Gansu, from bottom right to top left, bordering the Amdo Tibetan-populated province of Qinghai (pink bit), and Inner Mongolia (yellow).

Note that Tibet, Taiwan, and Hong Kong are all regarded as parts of China.

Dual purpose underpass

Cardboard off, and now ready to be reassembled.

Restaurants

Tourist complex, specifically designed for Chinese tourists. I didn't go in.

Grape-vined Qingnian Lu, a nice place to ride in the evenings, despite it still being swelteringly hot at that time of day.

Little markets close to my district.

I've been living on these. Absolutely delicious shiny sweet apricots. What a treat.

Yarkhoto (Jiaohe) Ruins

Yarkhoto is the site of one of the first cities ever built in this part of the world. It was settled way back in 300BC or so, and hosted about 6500 residents, which made it a major settlement at that time.

I rode the 10 clicks out to this incredible ancient place in the scorching early afternoon, although, I've gotta say, the heat really doesn't bother me.

And anyway riding keeps you cooler.

Plus I'm a superhero. (I just need to find an easy way to monetise that indisputable fact).

Local architectural style in an older part of town

Mosque

The whole region is famous for its many many varieties of delicious grapes. Not grapes for wine, as it's a Muslim region, (although there are a few local wines around these days), but just grapes on-the-rocks, or sultanas, or currants, or grape juice.

Close to the historic site I rode past this village, I thought it was the ancient city at first, but it's an abandoned traditional mudbrick village.

Yarkhoto, a UNESCO World Heritage site (as part of its collection of Silk Road sites), is the oldest (and one of the largest) earthen cities in the world. It was established atop a leaf-shaped plateau surrounded by cliffs, which actually made it unnecessary to build city walls to protect it.

And rather than building mud brick walls from the ground level up, buildings were made by digging deep deep down into the earth, which created much stronger walls from the undisturbed soil, walls that were much less prone to erosion. Many still exist today, all these years later, so I guess it sorta worked.

The name Yarkhoto is derived from the words yar (river, in Turkic) and khoto (city, in Mongolian). The whole plateau sits within a river that splits in two and flows on either side of it.

The city was an important stop on the Silk Road, and flourished for many centuries, as a part of various Uyghur, Kygyrz, Han and other kingdoms, until it was ransacked by the Mongols in the 13th Century, led by Genghis Khan, and subsequently abandoned.

This is one of the most delicious sweets known to humankind, a soft milk-based nougat with slightly sweet nutty flakes inside, and the most delicious flavours. A real ripper, this one. A girl was selling it at a stall outside.

Yeah, the outdoor cycle life makes you a little grubby.

The visitor centre was pretty impressive, and super informative, but unfortunately most of the information wasn’t translated into English.

Visitor Centre entranceway

Buddha statue replica from the ruined city. The whole northern part of the city consists of the remains of Buddhist temples and stupas.

Luckily, there was an option not to take the shuttle bus, and I had a lovely walk along small local roads to get to the various sites.

These guys were chillin in the trees close to a village.

Another oasis, ho hum.

Abandoned mud brick homes, now used to house animals.

This general and his horse were also chillin in the trees.

In other words, don’t linger…

...under this

Multilingual sign that appeared rather overkillish, given that the only foreigner within cooee of the place is me. I saw no foreign tourists at all in Turpan. Maybe they come here when it cools down to 40.