Xinjiang, China’s Central Asia and incredible Tibet – Day 6

Today’s Route map:

Karamay-Sayram

 

The hotel at Karamay was also a 4 star hotel as per Chinese standard and we got first time in the trip the option of an English breakfast and needless to say we have made most of this unbelievable change of our luck for food and had the longest breakfast of the trip. When we started it was already 11:00 Beijing time. Our journey for the day was relatively short but still around 350km and we planned to take 217 further down till Kuytun and then turn right (west) to G30 towards Sayram Lake which is located close to the border of Kazakhstan. From Kuytun towards west, expressway G30 runs parallel to Tienshan through dark fields of cotton with lighter strips of land sown with corn. We saw lots of migrants pickers from erstwhile Soviet countries form lines with baskets on their back and walking from the field to other side towards waiting trucks to be filled with tons of cottons. The Rail road from Urumqi accompanies the highway all through till Jinghe where the railway finally departs by turning north towards Alataw port, historically known as Junggar Gate, the strategic pass between the high mountain ranges of Central Asia through millions of years, historically allowed human migration and conquering armies to bridge the Europe with Asia. Through this the North Silk route used to pass before it crossed Caspian Sea to cross over to Europe. Today the importance of this place is, that it’s the only year long open border and only rail route between Xinjiang and Kazakhstan. Other side of the border is Dostyk in Kazakh and from there the rail route skirts Alakol Lake and meets Turkey-Siberian Railway near eastern like of Lake Balkash, from there North will take you to Moscow and South to Almaty.
From the same point where railroad departs to North, G30 continues to west leaves Junggar basin and climbs through the broad valley of Tienshan. Once up, the first view will draw your attention towards the stunning expanse of vast blue water known as Sayram Lake. In Kazakh, Sayram means blessing, this is situated almost 2100 mtr above sea level and 30 km at longest and 25 km at widest point, makes it Xinjiang’s largest Alpine Lake. You can drive through 50 km through the circumference of the lake if you buy an entrance ticket from East gate and can drive out through South Gate. The lake is said to be formed almost 70 million years back because of a tectonic movement that caused the plate crust to drop almost 90 mtrs to form the lake. The lake gets frozen between December to April every year and then from May the water started melting and in Summer with the surrounding mountains slopes with grassy fringes creates a stunning setting for the deep azure colored lake with lots of wild flowers blooming all around. If someone really wants to enjoy the beauty of Sayram, he should be there in June/July. In Autumn we enjoyed the red and yellow grass and nomadic cultures and the gem like lake but the photographs we saw in visitor’s center certainly tells it’s the summer when one should visit this heavenly place. We stayed very close to lake in a hotel, which seems to be only hotel in the area, rest all accommodations are yurt type and in October, temperature at night drops drastically we decided to stay in hotel, after all still we had a long way to go.

On the way From Karamay to Kuytun in Highway 217:

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Looks relaxed but watching everything, typical Chinese Cat

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Pastureland:

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On the way in G30:

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Colorful Mountains:

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Entering Sayram Lake Region:

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Beautiful Road ascending through the mountains:

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First view of Sayram lake:

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Sayram Lake (In Kazakh Sayram means Blessing, we really felt blessed being there):

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Kazakh Man with his horses:

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The Lake from other side:

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The amazing Landscape around Lake:

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Pastureland around the Lake:

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The winding road towards Tienshan:

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Previous: Day 5

Next: Day 7

Xinjiang, China’s Central Asia and incredible Tibet – Day 5

Day5:

We started early as we had to trace back same route till Burqin and then taking Highway 217 to go to Karamay for night stay. Highway 217 heads south from Burqin cutting through the black rock ridges crossing the vast arid flatland in the middle of big nothingness. The mountains in east side are part of Tarbagatai range the runs southwest from Altai and creates natural boundary between China (Xinjiang) and Kazakhstan. From Highway 217, road diverted to further West to Jaminay town which is the border town known as gateway of Northern Kazakhstan. This border is open for foreigners with valid Kazakh Visa, across the border road continues to Zaysan lake and further a day drive will take you to Zaysan town. Highway 217 continues to South and enters a wind eroded rock hill region that is Xinjiang’s most renowned yardang landscape. Our main attraction today was to visit the Uryhe Ghost city, which claims in entrance gate as “Ghost City of the World”, Ghost city is nothing but actually a huge area of yardang rock formations which consist of sedimentary rocks (Millions of years back this area was a lake which dried up subsequently) that was weathered away at different rates by fierce wind erosion. This place indeed another photographer’s paradise during sunrise and sunset time. We reached there around 2.30 in afternoon and thought of entering there around 5 / 5.30 to enjoy the sunset over the amazingly shaped rocks. So just south of this place a Dinosaur Park has been built for additional tourist attraction and we decided to go there first. This area of Xinjiang is gifted with various prehistoric fossils from ancient time and in Jurassic age it is believed to be one of the major areas where Dinosaurs lived. My daughter enjoyed the Dinosaur Park a lot, took lot of snaps with different models of Dinosaurs. We gone to a local small town to give our stomach some relief and incidentally we got some fried noodles here (a big change from the boiled noodles we were having for last few days). We gone back to Ghost City around 5.00 and enjoyed some great color and a lovely sunset from there. Still we had to drive for almost 100 km to Karamay town which is known as Oil Capital of China and this area contains 1/3rd reserve of total oil of China. This whole area is covered with tens of thousands oil rigs all connected by underground pipes and extracting the black gold that has made this region more famous than any considerable history like other parts of Xinjiang. Cost of living in this area is now quite high as you would find lot of expats and Chinese from other parts of country has come and settled here for finding fortunes. Many big companies specially the oil companies have setup big offices here and as a result you would find many new and good hotels around this place. Next day our plan was to go further till Kuytun and then leave 217 to take Highway 312 (Now known as Expressway G30) towards further west towards Kazakh border region to Sayram Lake.

On the way back from Jiadengyu we crossed the vast grassland once again:

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Crossing the Pastureland:

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Nomadic Life would touch your soul:

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The Altai Grassland is going to get over after this pass, see further ahead, the desert type landscape will return:

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The Highway 217 Connecting Northern Xinjiang (Burqin) to Southern Xinjiang (Hotan):

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Burqin at the bank of Irtysh (Only river in Xinjiang that meets sea, rest all gets lost in Desert):

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Fun time in Dinosaur Park, this is the place kid enjoyed a lot:

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The small town near Dinosaur Park where we had our lunch, try to find something written in English

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Entrance of Ghost Town:

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Yardang Landscape:

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The place looks amazing in the colors of setting Sun:

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Sun Set in Ghost Town:

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Previous: Day 4

Next: Day 6

Xinjiang, China’s Central Asia and incredible Tibet–Prologue

We never thought we would go for a trip out of India so soon when India has so many things to offer but destiny had something else written for us.

With reading and more reading, I found a place with amazing diversities, the place where it’s called roof of the world, Pamir Plateau and north face of world’s second highest point Mt K2 coexists with Turpan Depression, second lowest place in earth (After Dead Sea, Jordan) at -154 mtr below sea level, the four out of five fingers of Pamir spread over the entire region, starting from Altai at North, Tienshan in middle and Kunlun and Karakoram at South, a paradise for anyone who loves mountains. The place has the origin of only river in Asia that flows Northwards to meet North Sea and rest of all the snow melt waters of all these big mountains fades away in the world’s fiercest deserts, yes Taklamakan and Gobi. The place hosts 13 different ethic minority groups starts from Mongols, Kazakh, Kirghiz, Tuwa, Tajikh etc. apart from Uyghur’s who are more like European faces than typical Chinese and of course Hun Chinese. The otherwise deserted land produces China’s best fruits like grapes, Melon, Pomegranate, apples. The area produces 35% of Petroleum products of whole of China and we saw some natural oil springs just like water springs in Northern side (and that’s one of the major points of interest of China in this piece of land).Possibly only province / state in world which has almost 5000km of international boundaries with 8 countries named Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrghizstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Now when I started reading about its history it was even more amazing, the history dated back 3000 years from 2000 BCE when first trade established between Rome through Turkey, Iran to China through this route famously known as Silk Route. The then Persian Empire in helm of power, this land and its natives have a root with that Persian Blood saw many bloodsheds starting from inter group conflicts to its switching loyalties to two of biggest empires of history (Russia and England) and finally settled to be part of modern days People Republic of China in mid of last century. In the early 19th century, the region experienced conflicts between 2 biggies Russia and England to expand their imperialism, Kashgar was the center of ‘big game’ as history fondly calls it and many British officers starting from Thomas Montgomery to Francis Younghusband, started taking keen interest in these region to keep buffer states ruled by locals to distance Russia in coming to rich Indian plains. This was the time when they employed native Indians, disguised as Buddhist Pilgrims to survey these most treacherous region of earth starting from Pamir to Tibet and it was time when world came to know highest points on earth lies in this region as Himalayan peaks were measured for their heights and they tamed all other mountains, this resulted into creation of famous McMahon line that still runs as demarcation of India and China with lots of disputes.

So I found a place which was so much discussed in my school days history and geography text books and that triggered my childhood dream to visit this place and walk on the same path Marco Polo and Huen Tsang followed. Not sure how and when I slowly started thinking that I must visit this place, a dream slept for quarter of a century was rekindled.

Initial plan was traveling the state of Xinjiang and following the ancient trade route that used to get diverted from Yarkhand, start elevating to cross Kunlun and Karakoram Pass to enter the Daulat Beg Oldie area of Northern Ladakh and then follow Saser La to Panamik and Nubra Valley and finally reaching Leh by crossing Khardung La, the road continues to Kashmir Valley via Zojila and finally hit Punjab Plains. We thought of taking western highway regarded as deadliest and loneliest road in earth to cross over Aksai Chin to Tibet and then coming out through Kathmandu. The plan was in place until June when recent Sino Indian conflict reached it peak and I got taste of my first sweet Chinese diplomacy. We would cover in depth later but just to let you know to cover this region you need 5 permits on top of Chinese Visa and one of them was foreign affairs permit for which I spoke to the foreign affairs ministry of China and what I finally got was a raw deal (expected for an Indian). I was given few conditions which was not just way too costly but impossible and conflicting my main objective of driving through this region. More of that later but finally I learnt hard way Chinese usually neither say nor like to hear the truth, they prefer what is correct (you know that’s again a relative word), so you should understand and follow what is correct in Chinese eyes and I modified my trip and to compensate my broken dream planned to include the Tibet by riding the famous mountain trains from Xining to Lhasa and following friendship highway to Kathmandu to end the ambitious trip.

The plan was born but execution was a real challenge as I understood I have chosen two largest provinces of China (XUAR – Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and TAR – Tibet Autonomous Region) and not only that, the word ‘Autonomous’ region means something wrong in Chinese language and actually I chose two major uncomfortable areas of Chinese mainland where they want least international focus, least attention for number of reasons. For those who might be new to these regions, an Uighur needs to spend 5 times more time and money to get a Chinese Passport than a Hun Chinese and for Tibetans it’s grimmer, the don’t ever get a Chinese Passport. So obviously if you write in your visa application that you would like to visit Xinjiang and Tibet, Chinese would take the application with 3750 INR and thankfully send you a polite note declining the visa (but they would mention you can apply again as if this is just an isolated case and if you apply, you would loose again your application money, nothing else would happen). As I mentioned earlier play the Chinese game in Chinese way, you need to be correct but not honest with them, that’s the bottom line for anyone who want to travel this part of China.

In home front Rupee touched all time low of 69 against USD and Chinese Yuan reached all time high of 6.1 against USD, double edged sword actually. I booked major international tickets long back, so that was a relief but again I can’t book domestic tickets so easily, the name of the country was China, they allow you apply Visa one month before your departure date and so we had to wait to see how INR falling sharply against dollar, then there were hassles of getting lots of permits specially in Tibet, then it was a challenge of traveling inside China as you can’t book train tickets without knowing Chinese and having a Chinese Credit Card, you can’t book bus tickets without going to bus stand just 2 days before journey, you can’t be sure the hotels you might book would really accept foreigners are not (Very selective hotels specially out of big cities like Beijing / Shanghai / Kunming / Guangzhou / Chengdu etc accepts foreigners and they need a compulsory registration of foreigners to Public Security Bureau (PSB) whenever you move from one town to other. So challenges are countless and we are just two adults and one child, determined to go to Chinese hinterland, see the China what few Chinese even have seen in their life.

We started our ambitious trip on 21st Sep early Morning and back on 19th October making it a month long trip, let’s see few highlights first before going to more texts to give you an idea if it was really rewarding taking so much pains to travel this part of world.

Danxia Landform inside Gobi Desert – Painting by Nature herself: (Anyone finding any similar scene in the film “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”):

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Far away Friendship Peak – 4 borders of Mongolia – Russia – Kazakhstan – China Meets together:

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Amazing Kanas Nature Reserve, as per National Geography of China, it’s considered as second most scenic lake of China after Qinghai Lake:

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Ghost Town near Karamay – Amazing erosion art by Air:

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Tienshan Grand Canyon – Majestic:

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Kumarajeeva who started spreading Buddhism in China from Kuqa:

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Infamous Taklamakan Desert – World’s second largest after Sahara and definitely fiercest of all:

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The famous handmade silk – from where the historical Silk Route originated:

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One young Uighur Carpet Maker, they retain it generation wise:

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Colorful Canyons towards High Pamir:

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Tibetan Plateau, The Riots of Color will amazed you:

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Tibetan Village in the middle of grassland:

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The Railway made its way through highlands:

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That’s a station, note the height written (Don’t ask me where you will go if you get down here):

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Tibetan Nomad Tents:

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Where ever you look in your 24 hours journey, it’s a frame to capture, how many you can capture actually? Just a few for you:

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That’s you call a Vast Grass land:

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Next: Xinjiang, China’s Central Asia and incredible Tibet – Route Overview