Travel in Xinjiang

On this trip to travel China I also went to Xinjiang Province for a few days. Xinjiang Province is in the far west of China and is largely an inhospitable place with large deserts and high mountains. I have several reasons for visiting this part of China. One is sightseeing of course. I have for many years had a wish to visit the city Turpan not far from Ürümqi. But I also have another reason for visiting Xinjiang. I have a colleague, named Zulhayat, who is from China tours and her former hometown is Ürümqi, the capital of Xinjiang Province. One of the things I am going to do on this trip is to visit her relatives. Later this day another sister to my colleague showed up and all four of us had dinner together and talked some more. After a while my colleague's mother showed me some photos. To my great surprise among the photos there was one of me. The photo was of all the staff at the school where I and Zulhayat work. So there I was in a totally strange home in Xinjiang Province in China looking at a photo of myself. I didn't expect that to ever happen to me... When we had dinner we talked about what other plans I had for my visit China in Xinjiang. When I mentioned that I wanted to go to Turpan the cousin and one of the sisters said that they wanted to go with me there. So now I had both company and an interpreter/tour guide on my visit in Turpan. Turpan is situated near the Taklamakan Desert. The climate is dry and in summer the temperatures can on a hot day reach more than 40 degrees centigrade. On the day we arrived in Turpan it was one of the hot days. So we decided to stay indoors a few hours around noon and begin our sightseeing later in the day. I funny detail is that the weather the second day we were in Turpan was less hot. I told the others that it was a rather cool day and that I felt it was quite pleasant. When I saw a thermometer it said 34 degrees... The first place we went to see in Turpan was the Emin Mosque with its spectacular minaret. The interior of this mosque is of little interest so the only reason to go there is to see the minaret. The mosque is, like many buildings in this area, made from clay. Since it rains very little in Turpan and its surroundings it is possible to build houses out of clay. Next place we went to was Jiaohe Ancient City. Also here the houses were all built from clay. This city was abandoned several hundred years ago and today all that remains are badly decayed ruins. In fact, the walls of the houses were so damaged that it was often hard to get an idea of how the houses actually used look. Turpan used to be a very important town on the Silk Road. When the caravans passed the area they could find shelter and food in Turpan. The area doesn't usually get enough rain to support a town. But already over 2000 years ago people found a way to get water to Turpan. 100 kilometres from Turpan there are mountains where there is plenty of water. The problem is getting this water to Turpan. The desert area between the mountains and Turpan is so hot and dry in summer that a simple aqueduct would not work. All the water would evaporate on the way. What the people did was to dig tunnels from the mountains all the way to Turpan. By leading the water underground the evaporation becomes negligible and the water can reach the fields on the other side of the desert. This underground water supply system is known locally as Karez. Each Karez is often as much as 100 kilometres long and the total length of the entire Karez system is around 3000 kilometres. If you add that all of this was dug by hand with the use of only very simple equipment and that all the work was done in very narrow tunnels deep under ground you probably realize that this is one of the great wonders of ancient China. It is a pity that all of it is under several meters of desert sand so that you can not really see any of it. The Karez make it possible to grow many kinds of fruits and vegetables in Turpan with the most common being grapes. Fields with grapes can be seen in many places. In fact they even grapes growing as a roof over the street Qingnian Lu in the middle of the city. The grapes are harvested in August and September and much of the crop is then dried.
All across the countryside there are specially designed houses used for drying grapes. One of the tourist sites in Turpan is a place called Grape Valley. It's a scenic spot and it is so popular that they charge an entrance fee from people who wish to go there. We decided to visit another similar valley, Toyuk Valley. In the valley there is a small village that can exist there because there is a small creek running through it. In Toyuk Valley they grow grapes on fields near the creek. Further away there is barren desert, making it very obvious how important water really is. The houses are built in the traditional way using clay and straw. What I can't understand is how they in these houses cope with the weather in the winter. Temperatures then often go down to 10 degrees below zero centigrade. From what I could see the houses are not really insulated and I doubt that clay is the best material available if you want to keep it warm and nice indoors. I know what winter is like in Sweden and I don't like it. But I live in a country where the houses insulated and where we have central heating so indoors it is always nice and warm. I don't want to try to survive a winter in Toyuk Valley.