Definitely a mistake. Most guidebooks are fairly dreadful, but any are better than none at all, and Peter N-H never asserted anything to the contrary. In fact he accepted even LP was better than nothing.

Most of what's on the Internet is far worse than what's in guide books. However, just taking Kuqa as an example (perhaps the K destination of the last post) the whole of Frommer's coverage could have been found here:

http://www.frommers.com/destinations...362010001.html

Shame the website programmers are too careless, lazy, or stupid to tell Kuqa from Kuga, but there's plenty there on Kuqa, and on Turpan and other Xinjiang destinations, identical to the guidebook contents and available for free.

[Posting this from Turpan, 3 days after writing. All is still well.]

I’m currently on board the train from Kashgar to Kuche. I’m in the dining car and have been watching episodes of “Prison Break” that I downloaded last week when I was in BJ. Meanwhile, my friends are still hanging in our assigned (hard) seats several cars up. This train isn’t as nice as the Z trains I’m used to, but isn’t all that bad either. The nice thing about it, is we are supposed to arrive in Kuche at 11:30p Beijing time, which is only 9:30p Xinjiang time. Off topic: Xinjiang time is quite confusing to me and almost caused us to miss our train. The locals use Xinjiang time when conducting their daily business (hotel checkout is 2p), but insofar as things like train schedules are concerned, BJ time is the only time that matters.

The scenery is desert with an occasionally sand dune here and there. Groupings of trees seem to pop up every 40 miles or so. The majority of my fellow passengers seem to be Han Chinese who went to Kashgar for work or study. Most are going to be on this train for a long time (some all the way to Urumqi; some will transfer in Turpan and continue east.

The rest of my time in Kashgar

I spent the first part of yesterday visiting semi-famous mosques around Kashgar. While those places were definitely worth seeing, my feeling towards temples and the like is that you check them, you take in their unique qualities, and you leave it at that (obviously, I’m not really the art history type).






Next, I checked into the 4-person room at the Seman Hotel my friends had reserved. Like the Qiniwa, the Seman consists of a nice building and a rundown building. Our room was in the latter, of course (y240 plus they subsequently nabbed y40 of my deposit because they claimed we damaged the drapes and sheets; with no time to argue, I considered it a tip). The room was definitely nicer than my room at the Q, but I think I prefer the Q because it felt less cavernous.

My friends (two of whom, I hadn’t met previously) showed up at around 7 and we decided to go to a nice place for dinner because one of them had birthday to celebrate. We also brought along their tour guides, in part because the birthday boy was smitten by the female guide. The restaurant certainly looked fancy (fish tanks, nice lighting, and pictures of famous Muslem landmarks throughout) and it seemed clean.

We let the locals do the ordering. The first course was a bowl of yogurt that I found difficult to consume. Next, there was pilaf, which I then learned was called 抓饭 in Chinese; the meaning is that you’re supposed to eat it with your hands. Uncomfortable with this idea, I requested and used chopsticks. Everyone else used their hands, which was just as messy as it sounds. Incidentally, it wasn’t even half as tasty as the pilaf I had for lunch (reported earlier). But, the bill was reasonable, only y20 per person. After dinner, we walked the female guide back to her dorm at Kashgar Teacher’s College, which she claimed was 5 minutes away; it wasn’t.



But, during the course of that walk (which entailed two crossings of the same river), we had the opportunity to take in a Bellagio style water show on South Lake. I gather a celebration was in progress (possibly having to do with May 4, a significant day in PRC history).

This morning, the same guides brought us to the bazaar so we could buy stuff. Predictably, the most senior guide kept trying to steer us towards his friends’ stalls, but to his chagrin, we pursued other vendors that were easier to lowball.

While the bazaar is big, product variety is relatively limited. The most popular items are rugs, tapestries, knives, and spices. In particular, there were hundreds of vendors selling Pashmena scarves. I don’t think these were real because the logos were inconsistent, however, what gives me pause it that were so many.









In the end, I bought 50 grams high quality saffron and a really nice bedspread. I went straight from the market to the main post office to mail these items to the US; I spent more on postage (sea mail) than on the goods themselves.

BTW, I started writing this over an hour ago (took in a passable train meal during the process) and the view is pretty much the same as reported above, but we did pass through a miniature sand village. I just saw a car as well.

Brp: I will try to get some pictures up after I get back to BJ.

We arrived in Kuche Friday night. My first impression of the city was the smell of raw sewage. Perhaps because our train had chosen to flush its waste water there, in an apparent contradiction to those “no occupying while stationary,” signs that adorn train restrooms? Well, no; it turned out that there was a sewage treatment plant next to the train station.

Moving on, our first order of business was to purchase onward tickets to Turpan on the same train a night later. We quickly discovered that the LP’s warning about not being able to purchase sleepers there was spot on. (The Chinese train ticket computer systems aren’t very good at disseminating inventory data to city ticket offices, let alone insignificant stations like Kuche.) We decided to purchase “no seat” hard seat tickets just so we’d have a way out, and planned on upgrading onboard (a pretty safe bet).

Next, we let one of the many touts on hand take us hotel hunting. While this may sound sketchy, it’s the best course of action in such situations because the tout provides a discounted fare and gets a commission whether he does so or not. Plus, they generally take you to whatever hotel you specify.

We specified the Kuche Hotel (Binguan), based on info ascertained from our guidebooks. Like the hotels from the 2 previous nights, the Kuche Hotel featured a newish main building from which it got its “star” status, and 2 older buildings that enabled those rock-bottom LP prices. The two Asian guys decided it best that me and the other white fellow stay in the taxi while they negotiated.

When they came back, they had secured us a room in one of the two lesser buildings. On the bright side, the room had 4 nice beds, a functional television, and telephone service. However, it was on the 4th floor (stairs aren’t so nice apart from the gym environment), the toilet was a squatter and was down the hall, and the showers were on the first floor and were disgusting. Nevertheless, even if I had gotten a chance to voice my opinion, I would have been shot down because our group was operating as a democracy and I would have been outvoted.

In the end, the beds worked and we awoke the next morning to tackle the town. We decided to go to the Sabashi (I’m going on memory here, but the name was something like that) ruins southeast of town. These kind of reminded me of Joshua Tree; lots of big rocks (well, ruins, in this case) that facilitated all sorts of fun (for those concerned, we didn’t ruin the ruins).



After 2 hours or so, we headed back into town and had our driver drop us off at the bazaar. The bazaar was similar to the bazaar in Kashgar, only there was nothing worth purchasing, save the food. So, we through down some tua’r and some pilaf (big disappointment) and planned the rest of our day. In the process of our planning, we learned that our bazaar wasn’t the bazaar we had been looking for. The other bazaar was located in the older Ouigar (my first mention of the term because I fear my spelling is poor) part of town. As such, we headed over there in a taxi.

The second bazaar wasn’t really any better than the first, but it was more chaotic and there were more donkeys/horses. Plus, the buildings were more interesting.









In fact, we broke away from that bazaar and undertook a walking tour of the old city. It was similar to Kashgar, but also reminded me of Beijing. There were lots of hutongs lined with sandy buildings and plenty of dead-ends to boot. We walked for about an hour and a half, during the course of which we played cards with the local children, stumbled upon a mosque, and found ourselves stranded in a taxi-less wooded area far from town.










We eventually got back to town, ate some more lamb (I was starting to get into the lamb at this point because it was so much better and fresher than what I was used to in BJ; the y2 skewers were particularly good).




We finished eating at 9 and our train wasn’t supposed to leave until 11:30 so I persuaded the group to get a foot massage (actually, I told them I was going to get a foot massage – no matter what – and invited them along. I found a decent place on Fuxing Jie, a Xintiandi-esque walking street near the Wenzhou Hotel (incidentally, if I ever go back to Kuche, I will consider staying there because there were lots of nicish restaurants in the area). The massages were well received, as was the herbal sauna (unimpressive, but good enough) and shower.

Then, it was off to the train station. At the train station, we asked the attendants how to proceed about securing our upgrade. They informed us that upgrades take place in car 4 and told us where to stand to board car 4. We took their advice and found ourselves at the front of the upgrade line, once onboard.

Within our group, myself and one other guy decided that we would upgrade, no matter what the cost (I knew this could be no more than y300). The other 2 people were only willing to spring for the hard sleeper. As it turned out, the hard sleepers were sold out so when confronted by the u/g lady, I said yes to soft and proceeded to open my wallet.

For a mere y180 each, we ended up getting deluxe soft sleepers (only two beds per cabin) on the upper deck of a double decker car.





Once the other two saw our swell accommodations (in contrast to their hard seat car), they changed their tune about upgrading and jumped in line. Unfortunately, by the time they got to the front of the line, all of the nice rooms had been taken and they ended up getting stuck in a smoky 4-man (smoking is prohibited in cabins, but in China such regulations are often overlooked) room with two strangers. They initially felt cheated and even considered turning in their upgrades, but eventually came to their senses and nodded off to sleep.

We arrived in Turpan, well rested, just before noon ready to take on the day.

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.

Hope you didn't have a long connection in Liuyuan. It is one of the most godforsaken towns I have been to in China. I don't think even the coal mining towns in Siberia look as bleak. On the other hand, they also selll y2 lamb kebabs

So, where are the pictures?

Although I don't own a digital camera at the moment, I happen to have nearly 1,000 digital pics from the trip on my computer because my travel companions wanted to cover all the angles. Unfortunately, not one of them caught what I thought was the coolest image of all (the shot of the plane against the desert backdrop at KGH).

Anyway, I'll work on getting some pictures up as soon as I finish writing about Dunhuang, Jiayuguan, and Lanzhou... and a particularly unpleasent train segment that could have been avoided with a simple schedule check.

BTW, I would argue that the town that hosts the Turpan train station (forget its name) is even more depressing than Liuyan, but my feelings might be somewhat jaded by the incredibly cold sand storm that caught me with my pants down (not literally, of course, but I was dressed in shorts and a tee-shirt when I stepped off the mini-bus).

Great report moondog, and an interesting trip.

When we arrived in Liuyuan (yes, I slept to last possible minute), I awoke to the sound of the train attendants screaming 下雪 (it’s snowing) at one and other and at fellow passengers. For a moment, I tried to convince myself that they were actually muttering 下来 (get down from the train), but moments later, I learned that my initial read was correct; it was snowing and snowing heavily. This made the unpleasant task of negotiating a ride to Dunhuang even more annoying because the touts had the weather on their side (they realized that we’d rather be sitting in their cars than standing in the parking lot). We eventually jumped in another mini-bus on principle and waited for it to fill up.

Around 30 minutes later we were en route. Like the mini-bus the night before, it was unpleasant (should have caved in to the touts); cold, crowded, and smoky (once the driver started smoking, others followed suit for the hell of it).

By the time we arrived at Dunhuang, the snow had turned to rain, but this was still bad news because the Mogao Caves (really, the only reason to go to Dunhuang, for many) aren’t open on rainy days (humidity damages the sculptures/frescos). This meant that we’d be spending at least 2 days there so we got a hotel. The Feitian Hotel wasn’t quite the cheapest on the street because, as the receptionist proudly proclaimed, “[It] is a star hotel!” Only 2 stars, of course, but we liked the sales pitch and the room was ok as well, so we bit.

While I would have been happy staying in all day and resting, my friend was determined to make the most of our time there. And so, he implored me to join him on a trip to the sand mountains (they have a fancier name, I think), Dunhuang’s second (by far) most famous attraction. I suspect he was more enthusiastic than me because, while I had packed for a leisurely May jaunt through the (hot) desert, he had brought all sorts of winter gear that he wanted to try out. Yes, it was very cold and rainy (think, Boston in early April).

As we were walking towards the dunes from our taxi (which dropped us off around 300 meters away), my friend mentioned to me that both of his guidebooks said it was possible to sneak into the dunes and avoid the entrance fee. “If it’s that easy, why not give it a try,” I mused first to myself and then to him. With that approval, my friend lead me down a path to the right (acting like he was an old pro) and along the fence separating the dunes from the rest of China. Five minutes later, he located a spot where there was ample room (and barbed wire!) between the fence and the sand and noted that it would serve as our entry point.

So, we climbed under fence and started to race up a large dune. Within minutes, our pace slowed substantially because climbing in sand is difficult. Then, we looked back and noted that 2 park officials were studying our footprints down below. Neither of us were all that worried by this development because we’d spent enough time in China to know that very few low wage employees would subject themselves to the level of physical exertion necessary to make a bust. Sure enough, within 5 minutes, they had apparently lost interest and retreated.

We eventually reached the summit of that formidable dune and the view was nice. There were lakes, a building, factories in the distance, and an airport on site with an old-school fighter perched at the end of the runway (we didn’t get any pics of the airport or anything man-made because my friend wanted our dune shots to suggest that we were in the middle of nowhere, but I digress).






After a minute of looking around, it was time for the fun to begin, the no-holds barred descent down the backside of the dune. We slid, jumped, rolled, soared… you name it, we did it.







But then, about halfway down, we caught the sounds and the sight of several Chinese guys with megaphones blathering at us in distorted Mandarin; the gist of his message was unmistakable: “You’re busted!”

Fortunately, due to years of careful study, we were both familiar with Hollywood escape techniques so we knew exactly what to do: take to the woods, hop a few fences, run down a gutter, and blend into a private party. What can I say, it worked like clockwork. …..but, I’ll probably pay the $6 if I go back.

You're basically doing the reverse of the trip I took a few years ago. It's really a great route although I went to the Pakistani border instead of seeing the towns between Kashgar and Urumqi. Would love to go back some day to do the circuit south of Kashgar.

The "Singing Sand Mountain" sand dunes outside Dunhuang are awesome. I had very low expectations of Dunhuang when I went (and had cancelled an even earlier trip because I thought seeing some cave paintings would be boring), but it was definitely one of the more interesting places I have been to in China. The grottoes are in amazing condition. If nothing else, you can claim to have visited the second?third? tallest freestanding Buddha statue in the world (it used to be the third?fourth? tallest but you know what happened in Afghanistan).

Good call that you are staying an extra day to see the caves. If you haven't gone to the caves yet, my recommendation is to show up and not speak a word of Mandarin. Not sure if the admissions/conservation office still requires each visitor to join a tour. If so, you want to avoid the Mandarin speaking tour(s). In other words, you want to avoid the tour with 100 people! And the best way to do that is to speak some other language. As the caves themselves have a maximum capacity at any given time (and given day for that matter), you won't have a chance to appreciate what you are looking at. In all likelihood, you may be the only English speakers at that time of day and may luck out with your own personal guide for a small fee.

My trip is actually one for the record books; I returned to BJ last night. However, I'm not posting everything at once because I lack the time/energy to do so.

But, since you mentioned the caves, I might as well finish off my Dunhuang account now.

I first learned about Dunhuang during an art history class in college and almost went there in 1995, but Sanya won out in the end.

What's more, I wouldn't have bothered this time, were it not for my friend's enthusiasm.

Moving off topic for a second, after returning from the dunes, my friend and I decided to eat Korean BBQ (tmk there are two Korean restaurants in Dunhuang and they are next to each other) on the advice of a cab driver. By global standards, our meal was nothing special, but the menu featured --you guessed it -- lamb instead of the standard beef/pork. In any event, it was a welcome change from the constant tua'r diet from previous days.

Back on topic, we woke up the next morning and set out for the caves. We did not disguise our Mandarin abilities becuase the place was desserted and we didn't want to pay the extra y20 for an English speaking guide (on top of the y100 entry fee).

I wasn't all that impressed with the caves, in part because of the regimented tour structure (we only got to see eight caves and the guide unlocked and locked them on a one-by-one basis) and in part because of and in part because -- regardless of their historical significance, I didn't think the caves measured up to others that I'd seen in the past (notably Arangabad). That said, those guys run a pretty slick operation and clearly care about their cause (i.e. it appears they are making noble use of their entry fee revenues).

We were done with the caves by noon, back in town at 12:45p, and on the road back to Liuyuan (in a taxi, this time) by 1:15p. We were running a tight schedule because we were hoping to see the west end of the Great Wall in Jiayuguan before sunset.

If you didn't like Dunhuang, then I suspect you didn't like Jiayuguan either. Would be curious if you liked Lanzhou though. And why are you pinching RMB? Everything is so cheap in western China. For the challenge?

Lanzhou blew me away because I never imagined that a city so immense could be so overlooked (essentially zero FT mentions, and even my China friends don't know squat), but I'll get to that later.

I was pinching RMB because my friends were doing so -- to the extrems -- and, after a while, I sort of got into the habit. While I put my foot down on some of the nastiest of accomodations, I learned that the difference between a y100 room at a crap hotel and a y200 room at an old building at the 3-star across the street, was minimal.

....but, in principle, I agree; the vast majority of travelers that I met out there spent a fortune on plane tickets, then tried to live on $5 per day when they could have just burned miles and done Thailand to the nines.

That sounds like the budget for my trip (within China only). 85% on transport, 5% on Internet access, 5% on food, and 5% on accomodations. It's a ridiculous distribution but airfares were not discounted so readily in those days (unless you booked in advance -- very different from today's pricing).

This is a great trip report, and I've really enjoyed reading it!

I'm assuming that the people pinching RMB were the locals, while the "foreigners" were more willing to put up the cash for upgrades, etc. This is funny, because during my mom and my sister's first trip to China (>15 yrs ago), they unknowingly had our relatives make some of the arrangements. (Well, it was more like the relatives offered, and they didn't know any better). For example, one of the highlights of the planned trip was to travel down the three gorges. Unfortunately, they ended up on one of the local boats with very, umm, basic hygenic conditions. The relatives thought that they were doing them a favor by securing good priced travel arrangements and even getting a luxurious private cabin, but the upshot was that my sister who is very picky was of course very unhappy and basically tried to keep her food intake to a minimum during the 3 day trip. At the endpoint, she insisted on checking into a hotel rather than stay with yet another set of relatives.

I was the beneficiary of the horror stories, and for my trip the following year, we booked an expensive three gorges cruise ($500, with mostly foreigners on board). I also remember hearing that it was going to be the last year for cruises before the dam was built--of course it then took another 10 years for that to happen... We also stayed mainly in hotels, usually 2-3* hotels that to our western standards were very cheap ($25 or so) and were clean with western style bathrooms.

Also, despite being born in China (and viewing herself as chinese), my mom told the story of being charged the substantially higher foreigner price at places like the Great Wall because, as the ticket seller said, she obviously looked as though she was from somewhere else when she refused to sell her the ticket at the local rate. It probably wouldn't be as evident now, but truthfully all the older people at that point in time looked as though they had led hard lives (which they probably did).

An underlying assumption in our Tuesday plans was that Liuyuan – Jiayuguan was a commuter route with scores of 3-hour trains (my friend told me so, and I never bothered to check him on it with tielu.org, an rkkwan tip that has proved invaluable). Well, he/we was/were dead wrong.

When we got to the ticket window, we learned that there were 2 trains of interest, a 320p departure, arriving at 8:30 (still enough time to catch the wall, but not cool) and an 11p train, getting in at 2a. Because we loathed the thought of hanging around Liuyuan for 8 hours and wanted to see the wall, we opted for the former.

But, once on board, we learned that our train would take nearly 7 hours to travel those ~200 miles, a 10p arrival. (We didn’t believe it, but it was true.) The train reminded me a NY subway, only with some semblance of seats. It was slow, really slow. The odd thing was that the attendants were far more diligent than their counterparts on the nice trains (must have mopped the floor 10 times); they were truly proud of their work to the extent that they resented the “slow train” designation. In fact, one told us that, while we may refer to it as the 慢车, they consider it the 同行车.



On that note, we simply sucked it up, played cards, took turns walking the length of the train, and took pictures of some really depressing cities from the window(early editions of the China LP remark that foreigners were forbidden from disembarking at many/most stations in Gansu because the PRC government wanted to keep the poverty under wraps).











Oh, I should point out that many of the stations we stopped at (out of more than 20) lacked necessities such as buildings, pavement, and roads altogether; people would simply get off and pile into a the back of a on open bed truck and plow their way through the desert.

In the end, we made it, but not until 10p (even with China’s single time zone, darkness had set in).