I was satisfied with biking out to the Ruins of Jiaohe and the Emin Minaret, but we really wanted to get back to hitchhiking. We took a bus out to the rural town near the Bezeklik Caves, Erbaoxiang, or Second Fortress Village. After a forty minute, twenty plus mile ride across the desert, past the …
All of the guidebooks mentioned Emin Minaret. The tower was built in 1777 and finished in 1778. Its construction was blessed by the Qing Dynasty’s Qianlong Emperor to honor Emin Khoja, a local ruler and general who had teamed up with the Qianlong Emperor, though the details of their collaboration were always left vague. I …
We were able to get rinky-dink bikes and make our way out of Kashgar. It was not hitchhiking, but it was an unconventional means of transportation, and it gave us a chance to meet people and get a feel for the countryside along the six mile stretch between the city and the ruins of Jiaohe. …
Here are some pics of Galen riding a camel in the area around Turpan. They tried to upsell us on services. We paid $1.50 USD for a two hundred foot ride, but they took Galen around a thousand feet. They wanted to have us pay $5USD to do an hour long trek up into the …
Turpan in Relation to Urumqi Xinjiang province is really two totally different places. The north and the south are distinct culturally, geographically and ethnically. The north is dominated by Han Chinese and our trips in the north were mostly snowy mountains and alpine pastures filled with Kazak herders. The southern half of Xinjiang is desert …