Day 38: Turpan (吐魯番) and Urumqi (烏魯木齊)

Fact of the day:  Urumqi (烏魯木齊) is the furthest city in the world from an ocean (2250 km)

Trip to Turpan (吐魯番)
Took a bus around noon for 2.5 hours to Turpan (吐魯番), the hottest area in China with a record temperature of over 49.6 degrees Celsius (121 Fahrenheit), to see an area with more Uyghur people (維吾爾人) and to see an ancient town that was a suggested spot to visit by a German tourist we met in Dunhuang (敦煌).  We got to the town and a tour guide was trying to get us to go with him, but he was charging more then we thought was fair and kept pushing the more expensive places further away even though we weren't interested, so we went and found a cab and he agreed to half the price of the tour guide was asking.

Jiaohe Town Relics (交河故城)
Originally we weren't going to come to this town, but once we got here we were very glad we did; it was one of the more amazing things we have seen.  The town was founded in 108 BC and finally destroyed by Genghis Khan (成吉思汗) in the 13th century.  While no buildings were totally intact, you could see a lot of the towns structures.  Along with the surroundings it made me feel like I was walking through the relics of a town on Tatooine (Luke Skywalker's planet) instead of a town in China.

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View of the town relics

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Main Street, China 108 B.C.

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Remains of a home

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A town temple

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An ancient well

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A temple in the town

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Charlotte in someone's home 1800 years after they left

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Everyone stare at the white boy with a farmers tan

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Locals
Our taxi driver also let us meet someone he knew who lived in a traditional Uyghur house and we also took pictures of some of the people on the street

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The families bedroom

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The dining room

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Charlotte with the families elder women

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Some local women

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Donkey transportation

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Outside an Islamic building in town built in 1778 AD

Karez Well System (坎兒井)
We then went to see a museum about an ancient well system that is still used in places today.  The people would dig a large cave into a mountain then a bunch of vertical shafts.  The first vertical shaft would be used as a downspout, allowing rain water from the mountain to drain to the cave where it would become an underground river.  Along the underground river they would make more vertical shafts that they would use as wells.

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Charlotte checking out the well system

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The area is also well known for grapes so Charlotte got some grape juice

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Grapes hanging over the walkway

Dinner
For dinner we went back to Urumqi (烏魯木齊) and found a night market by our hotel that we got some "shaved noodles" (刀削麵) and lamb kebobs.  Again the food was really good, the silk road has been our favorite food so far on the trip and will definitely miss it when we get back to places that are way too greasy for us.

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Night market by our hotel

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You can see the noodle flying off the dough

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Another shot of the flying noodle

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He is able to get it in the pot every time from 3 feet away

Beer
We went to a grocery store and i saw this strange beer, only to see that it was an American beer, Pabst Blue Ribbon, being sold in China.  Not only that, but it was a WWII edition "in memory of the US Army", I haven't even seen this in the US, so I had to get it.  It also says in Chinese:

"During WWII, Blue Ribbon Beer was used as military supply and was brought to the battle field with American soldiers.  To be carried around and drank easily, we started to produce canned beers.  From then on, canned beer traveled around the world with American soldiers, and Blue Ribbon beer became the symbol of canned beer.  This improvement was a huge contribution to the beer world.  Blue Ribbon Beer since became one of the classic symbols of American culture, followed by hundred of years of glory."

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