Tag Urumqi

A Hospital

Having decided months ago to avoid going through Kyrgyzstan because of reported troubles foreigners were having at the Chinese-Kyrgyz border, we found ourselves last week in Kashgar. We took a two day trip out to Tashkurgan on the Tajik-China border which was apparently equidistance from Kashgar as the Kyrgz-China pass. We met two travelers from Australia (“Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oui, Oiu, Oui!”) who had already attempted the crossing once only to find the pass closed without explanation from either side. They tried again the next day and we never saw or heard from them again, which probably means they are in Kyrgyzstan. We have heard rumors across the traveling community that it is a difficult move to make, with a pick-up required at the border by a certified Bishkek or Osh agency. We decided while still in Shanghai to avoid the headache and simply backtrack. It was not until we got to Xinjiang that we realized the backtrack was over 24 hours in length and requiring a great deal more money that was amusing, as well as a bit more irony and, once again, we would find ourselves waiting in Urumqi (as we did for a week in 2006).

Having spent our last day in Kashgar walking around Old Town and then enjoying a fine dining experience at Fubar, our favorite home-away-from home in Kashgar, we hopped the daily 3:20 to Urumqi, an overnighter that lands in Urumqi at 3:30 exactly. Our train was running two hours early so they pulled off the tracks for two hours to arrive on time. Very efficient!

Back in Urumqi, we easily acquired tickets for the train on the evening of the 16^th. We were incredibly lucky. We bought a 3 day transit visa through Kazakhstan from the 17^th to the 20^th. Our midnight train put us at the Kazakh border at exactly 9am on the 17^th, we could not have planned it better if we had actually, ya know- bothered to plan.

In Urumqi between the 14^th and the 16^th we spent a peaceful and quiet few days in one of our favorite cities walking around the parks, eating local cuisine and relaxing at the hostel. On the 14^th we went, with a friend from the hostel, to the Uyghur Wuyi Night Market. We arrived a bit early and watched as everyone set up their mini stalls. A sudden and severe flash storm swept through the market, causing customers to hide in nearby stores (as we did) and vendors to pack up their raw meat and head home. The next evening, the 15^th, we went back to see what the market was like without lightening and terror and had a lovely meal of lamb, nan (bread), and kabab veggies. The 16^th rolled around quickly, and we packed and headed for our train eagerly awaiting our trip to Kazakhstan and our border crossing.

The Best and the Worst – so far.
Here are a list of the best places along the route and their contact information, we highly recommend these establishments and, unfortunately, received no knock-backs for passing on the good word.

Fubar, Kashgar branch.
This place is amazing! It is the only foreigner-run eatery in Kashgar, and their attention to detail meant that nothing was left undone. Here we dined on Pizza, Gin&Tonics and played board games. Conveniently located in central Kashgar, all the cab drivers know the spot. After multiple days in the desert, this oasis is worth the visit.

Kashgar Old Town Hostel.
This hostel was once a mosque, now converted into a multi-room dorm house with 6 or 8 beds per room. The Chinese youth who runs the place is a wealth of information and has great local contacts if you are looking for travel information. We definitely recommend staying here over the Semen Hotel, as rooms are 35RMB a night rather than 150. Meanwhile, the location is primo- a 5 minute walk from Edgar Mosque in central Old Town.

MaiTian Youth Hostel.
Located near Renmin Park in Urumqi, the Maitian youth hostel is a bit more rugged than others but for 40RMB a night it is passable. A bit pricey for what you get (6,8 bed gender-divided dorm rooms) the place has a decent location and is a wealth of information. The Chinese running the place seem hesitant to be helpful and are dismissive of any problems, but if you are a survivalist, this is a good spot to sojourn a few nights. Just be aware that the staff run this place like their personal club house and will be on the internet at all hours (rendering it useless) and screaming up and down the halls when they get on duty (promptly at 8).

Windows Scoreboard, Shanghai, China.
I am hesitant to write about this gem because I do not want it flooded with tourists. However, if you want a taste of home check out this hard-to-find windows location on HuaiHai lu (Near Sinan Lu). The lowest prices of any bar in China and a great atmosphere with a mixed crowd of Chinese, Thai, Western and African. A beer will set you back 10RMB.

The Worst:

And, sadly, here are a list of establishments to be avoided, and explanations as to why they definitely do not rock.

Fubar, Urumqi branch.

Old Mosque Youth Hostel

While the Kashgar branch rocks, this one is located on a bar street and competes with other, better equipped bars. Meanwhile, their serve a lousy pour, the staff are rude, loud and negligent, and the published address all over the internet is not correct. Meanwhile, they were without power when we arrived and had a noisy generated sitting, chained, to the front door as a back-up plan.

Silver (White) Birches Youth Hostel, Urumqi, China.
This shoddy establishment was hard to find and quite a jaunt from the train and bus stations, and from the airport. Once you finally arrive you will be disappointed by the piles of trash and dirt that occupy every corner, and the scurrying cock-roaches that act as permanent residents of the bathrooms and dorm rooms. The beds are hard and sheets and blankets are not guaranteed. Meanwhile, you will be close to a park, but nothing else in the city and will spend money on buses or cabs for transportation. Better to stay somewhere closer to downtown that is not infested with insects. Also, this hostel is in the running for ‘worst bathroom in China.’

Captain Hostel on the Bund, Shanghai, China.
This hostel, while nice enough, was massively overpriced. Located on the famous ‘bund’ are of Shanghai, we could not contest the price based on the better-than-expected location, but the service was horrible, there were few additional benefits like laundry, and the location meant a very noisy night. For one night, it was okay but we would not recommend multiple evenings here.

U-Cool Hostel, Shanghai, China.
While the lovely woman who runs the establishment is friendly and sweet, the hostel itself leaves much to be desired. The 6-8 bed dorm rooms are 40RMB a night and there is nothing in the way of additional services like a laundry facility, internet or a bar. We stayed here two weeks (out of necessity and because the owner, Anna, was very friendly, but we missed out on meeting new people and having entertainment. On the up side the location near the Bund was fantastic. Be prepared to spend your time in this hostel with Anna and her two sons as a partial baby-sitter.

Mr. Friendly in Alley

As our night train rolled in from Urumqi today (24 hour sleeper train), we came upon a very Chinese station platform. Although I had not awoken to the rolling sand dunes of the Great Taklamakan that I had dreamed of, there was an ocean of a desert that spread as far as the eye could see. We found a driver to take us into town and found a nice hostel in Old Town near the local Mosque.

Xinjiang province was predominantly Uighur until the last 5-10 years as Han Chinese were integrated into the region. The Uighur are a combination of Central Asian Kazak, Tajik, Uzbek, and Mongolian – they are also a Islamic culture. The 2500 + kilometers of desert preceding, slowly faded into a lush desert oasis tucked away in between the Taklamakan Desert and the Himalayas.

We walked around the surrounding alleys leading to the centralized Mosque for hours taking several great pictures.  The 500 year old city wall, which used to surround Kashgar is literally a 3 minute walk from where we are.  It is amazing that anyone could send an army out here to conquer anything, but Russia and China have throughout the past.  In the next few days we will take a camel tour into the Taklamakan Desert and take a bus up the Karakorum Highway.

If you are interested in staying here:

233 Wusitangboyi Road – it is very difficult to find, but most taxi drivers know the street and you just have to find the random unnamed alley ways to this destination.  It is near the Edgar Mosque and West Renmin Road and has two large red doors with a very small “Youth Hostel” sign on the doorway.  I will update later with more information if I can.

Kashgar

We arrived in Urumqi, Xinjiang,at exactly 4:10pm today (right on time) after a 48 hour train ride across China. From here we have purchased tickets to Kashgar for tomorrow at noon, and will arrive in the city around noon the next day (24 hour train through the Taklamakan Desert). From there we have no plan, but need to be in Kazakhstan between the 17th – 20th. We hope to spend quite a bit of the next 15 days in and around Kashgar where Mike hopes to get the famous dry-shave that Tim to heartily recommended.

The train ride was an amazing experience, and one of the best train rides we’ve ever taken. A Uyghur man and his wife were in the bunk below us and the man proceeded to play his violin into the evening as a small community of Uyghurs gathered in our car to sing along, suggest songs, and listen. The man, upon hearing we were American, played some Western songs for us, including Wagner and Gershwin.  We were fortunate to be in such a great car for such a long trip. On previous journeys we have had crying babies or spitting businessmen on their cell phones well into the night. A small boy was on the train with us and he did not cry the entire trip (as I would have done at age 2). Instead, he ran around the car making friends with everyone and sitting on every lap in the car. At one point he defecatedin the only sink in our car, but his mother lovingly fixed the problem with her only towel….which she then washed in the sink and used to bathe the child. At any rate, he was a happy boy and he cheered up the long trip.

Urumqi is as we remember it – a cosmopolitan city bustling with movement. It seems everyone here has luggage and is on the move. We have only this evening to spend in the city, so will head back to the Uyghur night market. Having spent ten days in this city in 2006 I am not upset that we cannot spend longer now, but it is a lovely place.

Of minor inconvenience, my original backpack broke on day one of the trip. I replaced the bag in Shanghai with another that broke this afternoon. The damage is not total, and because I am my father’s daughter I had enough rope and caribineers to fix the problem.

We have my guitar along on the trip, and I hope to improve quite a bit as we travel. Tonight we’re re-stringing the guitar with nylon strings so I can really learn the Spanish guitar songs I love so much. Watch out Gypsy Kings!

Top Four Places We May Consider Living

As the journey to Ashgabat approaches, careful planning is necessary.  We also need to plan for what we will do when we get return, and where we would like to go.  We will travel through some of our favorite places in China and will certainly discover more as we go.  With jobs scarce, careful consideration needs to be given to choose the next destination.  Also, just for fun I have listed the top 5 places I would consider moving to and living for the next year or two.

XinJiang

Easily a favorite of mine, the Taklamakan Desert is fabled for expeditions and discoveries; from Maro Polo to Sven Hedin and Aurel Stein, lost cities and ancient ruins are splattered across the desert.  Arguably the harshest desert in the world, surrounded on the west by the Himalayas and the Gobi Desert to the far East, crossing the Taklamakan Desert of XinJiang Provence, China has been a long lasting goal in my mind.  With some of the friendliest people I have ever encountered, Turpan, Urumqi, the capital, and Kashgar – the famous Silk Road trading outpost – would be great places to spend a portion of one’s life.

Uzbekistan

Easily a road less traveled for most westerners, Uzbekistan, a former Soviet Republic, is one of the most remote “Stans.”  With a wide variety of languages, cultures and ethnic groups, Uzbekistan would be a great place to discover something new.  Tashkent, the capital, would be a good place to start and find a job.  The famous shrinking Aral Sea is rapidly decreasing in size due to drastic misuses of water from the sea and Soviet cotton production.  Boats can be seen sitting in a sand dune where the harbor used to be 50 years ago.  Having a 50% Muslim population would also add to the illustrious and interesting nature of this possibly misunderstood and understudied country.

Thailand

Considered the vacation hot spot for Australians and many Europeans, much like the Caribbean is for North Americans, Thailand is a tropical paradise.  With several islands, forests, beaches and sunshine, Thailand would be a significant change from the smoggy air of Shanghai, China.  Although Thailand is currently suffering some political upheaval over their democratically unelected prime minister, it is still a safe and desirable place to live.  Famous for Muay Thai boxing, several areas in Thailand host Muay Thai training camps to give foreigners the change to learn this incredibly powerful art.  For $3500 USD, one can live and learn Muay Thai for one month.  Many foreign companies have set up branches or offices in Thailand because of labor costs and simply for the desire to live on the ocean.

Ecuador

Right smack dab on the equator, another warm beautiful country, perhaps not as frequented by travelers as Thailand, Ecuador bosts great culture and history on the otherside of the world.  With thousands of years of Incan hisotry, World National Heritage sites like the Galápagos Islands, and massive diversity in climate because of the different elevations, Ecuador would be a great place to live – and learn Spanish.  Also having friends from Ecuador, makes is a very desirable place to consider.  Teaching Enlgish while learning Spanish would be a phenominal way to ride out the recession or just live regardless.

As the trip planning progresses I find myself at the stage of applying for international visas, a process wrought with vagueness and inconsistencies. For example, you can get a transit visa for several Central Asian countries but the duration of stay is not long enough to get across the country by land. Or, visa laws will stipulate that you need A, B and C and then when you get to the consulate they will have a list that goes from A to Z of random documents and health testing you need. That aside, the trip planning is going well. We are set to go from Urumqi to Almaty by train or bus through the Tien Shan mountains, and then spend a day in Almaty seeing the world’s second largest canyon and the accompanying hot springs. From there you grab a train to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where we’ll spend a day in the capital before heading to Samarkand and Bokarah, where I’d like to spend a few weeks, if time permitted.

Maps of the region are hard to come by, so planning a more accurate by land traverse is difficult. Where trains become obsolete we’ll take buses. In Central Asia and China a bus is anything from an SUV with all the seats removed to a long hallow tube with stacked cots and a pin for animals in the back. Hopefully the buses in and around Bukarah are an improvement upon earlier experiences, but either way its an adventure.

Trains are apparently the best way to travel…. until you reach Bokarah, whereupon the train becomes a projectile of T.B. From Bokarah we’ll need to take buses or rent an SUV or comission a pack of horses or camels to take us to Ashgabat. With visa laws somewhat obscure for Turkmenistan, I’m having difficulty believing I can just nab permisssion to cross at the border.

I’m growing more excited about the trip. Reading up on the bazars,

minnerets, whirling-dervishes, single-eyebrowed ladies and massive lakes of fire have inspired me to salavate when looking at the map of my overland route. It is a shame humans invented airplanes because I feel little good has come of it. We use them for war and for making travel easier. Unfortunetly its made travel less interesting. This trip is really going to feel like a trek from shore to shore. From Shanghai to Ashgabat, and then west to Turkmenbashy on the Caspian Sea. Visas are being acquired and train tickets sought out. The countdown begins!

-Posted by Lauren.

As many of you know, I was laid off from my financial job on New Year’s Eve (classy timing). But this upsetting twist has been an amazing thing. I’ve been busy writing full time now, and making a fairly decent income to boot. I’ve been painting and touring around Shanghai as well, and will upload pictures of the paintings soon.

Alas, this time should not go wasted. It is rare that I have money saved up, free time, and the perfect location from which to launch a trip like this one. I’m planing a journey across land from Shanghai to Ashgabat, beginning late April. So far, I have the first half of the trip, some 8,200 miles, planned.  I’ll take the train from Shanghai to Urumqi, which is a 48 hour trip through a varied and diverse terrain. I’ll be writting on the train, as well as photographing the changes as we chug through flatlands, mountains and then desert.  From Urumqi I’ll take an overnight bus to Kashgar, the bus takes 24 hours and skirts along the Taklamakan desert, one of the harshest in the world.The bus leaves mid day so that we will be traveling by night through the deepest parts of the desert.

Kashgar is one of the few places on the planet that inspires instant envy. I’m enveious of the folks I know who have been there who claim it is truly an oasis of culture and color- the fading with the influx of new residents. I want to get there before it compleately dissapears.

From Kashgar to Ashgabat, the roads are a bit hazy and the trip a bit more dangerous. Careful planning is needed, at least to secure visas, permits and find a map with existing roads on it. This second phase of the journey will be planned at a later stage. For now, I’m busy finding out what there is to see along the route I have mapped so far. I’ve been to Turpan and toured around Urumqi, so this trip I’d like to check out some outlying villages to the North of the city before heading through the desert to Kashgar. At some point, I’m determined to use a camel as a mode of transportation.

I just hope my laptop doesnt melt. April/May is a rough time to be out in the desert, but alas there is no time like the present. It will take about a month to finish planning, packing and acquiring visas, hence, the adventure begins now!

-Posted by Lauren.