Turpan’s train station is actually more than 60 km away from Turpan. At the train station, we were greeted by the usual cast of touts and decided that we were willing to pay y30 for the 45 minute ride into town (an arbitrary number, but a number that we all agreed upon). The first several touts we encountered laughed at us, but we found a taker within 5 minutes (a guy who had just dropped someone off there and was hoping to make some money back on his return trip).
He drove us into town to shop for hotels. Mindful of our Kuche hotel shopping experience, I insisted on taking a more active roll in the Turpan hotel hunt; if it meant paying higher prices to my skin color, I would cover the difference.
This turned out to be a wise decision because the first place we checked out was completely unacceptable (bad enough to prompt me to go solo, if need be); the Turpan Hotel “Annex” featured dorm accommodations in a basement (“It’s nice and cool down there,” said the fuwuyuan), no promise that they wouldn’t stick a person in the 5th bed, and a shower room that was only open between 6p and 10p (no, we couldn’t see it) for y40 per person.
I put my foot down. Thankfully, the nearby Grain Trade Hotel proved to be considerably better. Even though the building was way behind in the maintenance department, they hooked us up with a nice quad for y150 that only entailed a one-floor walkup. Plus, it had a nice balcony.
On Saturday morning, we woke up and proceeded to check out the local... bazaar, and eat some… lamb. Then, we rented bikes and headed off for the Jiaohe Old City (i.e. “ruins”), as suggested by one of our guidebooks. One of our guys was none too pleased that we were willing to follow such a corny piece of advice to the letter (reinforced by the fact that we encountered other bike-toting foreigners en route), but later admitted that the idea was a good one, a splendid one even.
Turpan’s countryside is beautiful, a cross between Tuscany (lots of vineyards) and something else. And the ruins,…? Worth every penny of the y40 admission, which we initially felt was excessive.
One of the more interesting events of the trip to date happened on the way back from Jiao He. As we neared town, we chanced upon a throng of other cyclists that were following a pick-up truck with bongo drummers in the bed. They passed us red handkerchiefs and told us to follow. We did and, within minutes, found ourselves in the midst of a Hui (one of China’s minority groups) wedding ceremony. Since we had to return our bikes by 8:30, we couldn’t stay long, but we did stick around long enough to chat with the guests, drink some water, and pose for pictures.
Today we set out to eat (yes, more lamb) and check out one of China’s best minarets (frankly, none of us cared about the minaret, but figured it would be nice to have a destination). We saw the minaret and met some nice people along the way, but we didn’t bother paying the entry fee; instead, we posed for pictures by the gate and moved on.
All in all, I was happy with Turpan. It was pleasant and the people were quite friendly.
Earlier this evening, my friend and I bid Turpan (along with the other 2 guys, one of whom went back to Nanjing, and another who was going to stick around a bit longer) farewell. We decided to take the bus back to the train station rather than splurge on a taxi (only y60). This proved to be a mistake because the bus was none too fond of using actual roads (think plowing through uncharted desert, much of which is de facto landfill).
Eventually, we arrived at the train station. When we stepped off the bus, we were greeted with an incredibly cold and sand-filled wind (I was wearing shorts and a tee shirt at the time). Incidentally, we’re currently on a (90% empty) train en route to Dunhuang (or, Liuyuan, the closest station to Dunhuang, that is) in a soft sleeper (maybe excessive given the lack of people). Unfortunately, our train has been sitting still in the desert for the past hour, presumably due to the high winds.
Update: I fell asleep after writing that last sentence and woke up to snow in Liuyuan, only an hour behind schedule. Within 30 minutes, we repeated our minibus mistake and made the rest of the journey to Dunhuang. I plan to write about our Dunhuang adventures later, probably during the next train segment.