Turpan is the second lowest land point in the world (after the Dead Sea) and the hottest part of China. It has reached 49.6 degrees celcius here before although I don't think it was over 41 degrees while we were there. Turpan is in the far north west of China, near Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. It's a small, dusty city on the edge of the vast Chinese empire. I'd always fancied going to the region and a nod in the right direction from another C. (met in North Korea) helped us make the 12 hour train journey, three hour flight and three hour bus from Beijing to Turpan.
So, we spent three days getting there, was it worth it? Yes. Absolutely. I found it fascinating, weird, wonderful and very, very different from anything else we've seen in China. The city itself ain't any great shakes but the environs are. On our first day in Turpan we walked three or four km in the aching heat down small roads lined with old mud houses. People were sitting outside chatting, kids were playing, women were washing clothes in the stream, men lazed on the outdoor beds and watermelons and traditional breads were sold on the side of the road. Truly a world away from Beijing or Shanghai. I wouldn't be surprised if these people never make it as far as Beijing. At the end of our walk was the (Afghan style) Emin mosque and minaret I so wanted to see. It didn't disappoint, made of mud brick in the C17/18, the minaret towered into the deep blue sky in the dizzying heat. We escaped into the cool shade of the mosque below and just sat, enveloped in the silence and cool air. Sadly we couldn't climb on to the roof as part of it has collapsed but a walk around the building was enough before we headed back into town.
There are no other sites within the city itself, one must take a day long tour to see the other reasons to visit the area: Flaming Mountains (that didn't appear to be flaming to us), Tuyoq, a fascinating mud village that's still inhabited. I think there's some grave or other that is almost as holy to Muslims as Mecca. If they visit this grave seven times it's the same as Hajj, or something. We didn't much care about that but the village itself is pretty interesting (even if they won't let you use a perfectly valid student card to get in).
Other sites we visited included the Jiahoe ruins, apparently one of the world's biggest and best preserved ancient cities. Quite frankly it wasn't up to much. It felt like it was about one million degrees and we were looking at dried mud. Maybe I'm a heathen but maybe I don't care! We also saw some grottos with rock paintings that were stolen by some German years ago - not exactly worth the entrance fee. The last destination was an extremely touristy karez - a clever underground watering system that made Turpan into the oasis it is. Water is transported from the mountains by a series of wells dropping into an underground stream. We paid a lot of money to follow the stream a short way and then to walk back (a longer way round) via millions of tourist stalls all selling the same goods.
We stayed in Turpan for longer than necessary, partly to relax and partly to write up the damned North Korea blogs and I'm glad we did. There may not have been much to do or anywhere to eat (local food isn't up to much) but the small bazaar was cute and we felt like we'd really escaped the tourist routes, in fact, I got pretty upset every time I even saw another tourist in 'our town'. Turpan showed us the China we knew still existed but hadn't really seen; poor, slow and diverse, truly a million miles from Beijing.
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