Off to Xinjiang and Uighurstan(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang)
Northwest of Tibet is the most interesting part of China, Xinjiang which is the size of Alaska!!!, this was the main destination for our trip across asia................................................................................................................................
The journey across China was journey of discovery.
We learned a lot about each other, we learned a lot about the difference between what we had heard about China and the way that China really is.
Our second visit to Beijing was even closure to the opening of the Olympics...
One day I split off from the rest of the group and walked around this lake district near the center of town... and found a Xinjiang Music Bar.
This is a building near the bar that looks a lot like the imperial city.
That night we listened to musicians from Xinjiang play a fusion of Xinjiang traditional music there.
We made friends with the drummer Ubul Hussain and his other Uighur friends from Xinjiang, we made plans to meet them again when we got there.
(They were going back home at the same time we were going.)
The whole trip was focused on getting to Xinjiang, the music, culture and natural beauty of the province.
This is a fabric design hung inside of the bar, probably also from Xinjiang.
1 Picture of the Performance
Another Picture from the Performance
Adnan often painted pictures while people were performing, this is one of them:
Xinjiang can also be called Uighurstan, since its historic and current population and strongest cultural attributes can be attributed to their people, almost the same as their neighbors next door
We started our trip from Beijing and worked our way across the country starting with a second stop in Xian, historically the capital and arguably the beginning of the famous Silk Road, I wanted to cross the entire silk road if possible all the way until Istanbul.
Adnan in Xian
The air in Xian was really dirty, we had a hard time breathing but we were able to get used to it.
The city of Xian is surrounded by an old wall, I guess they put it up when it was the capital city for protection.
On the inside, we walked along the wall and worked our way towards the center of the city.
Several houses stood with the trees there before protected during construction.
An older couple walking in China: China's life expectancy is challenging the United States
One of the castles near the center of the city.
We went to the Muslim district and found the architecture was more eastern than middle eastern...
Omar inside of a Mosque
The interior of a Mosque
Some Arabic and Chinese paired together on a blackboard.
Somebody making food outside.
Sitting Inside The Mosque.
Muslim Wedding Depiction in Xian.
After we went to this district we met a young man studying in the Mosque and we asked him to take us to a place that served halal food... after eating Omar and I went back to the Mosque and he provided me a place to rest in the meeting quarters and he walked Omar around. While I was resting several of the monks came in and started praying and chanting... the songs sounded like a mix of Buddhist and Muslim chanting... it was an insiders view.
After waking up and starting back home, we ran into a really nice guy who was selling us some shoes and fruits, we asked him to join us for some music that night and he took us around the town looking for a place that offered live performances. After not being successful, we decided to go get some ice cream, while eating he explained that it was his birthday and he had no time to celebrate since he was so busy. We sang happy birthday with him and took a picture.
Omar and our friend from Xian.
The next day he took us to see another live performance and when he came he gave us flutes to play with our names carved in each of them.
We also went to see the Terra-cotta Warriors outside the city.
Adnan posing in the rain.
A historical elephant painting on the wall at the excavation site.
The Warriors and the horses...
City Night Scene Back in Xian.
The next morning we went on to Langzhou, northwest of Xian where we would get on a train to Urumqi.
This area is famous for its fruit... it is also famous for the Yellow River banks it holds within the city limits... we got a look at both.
Fresh and cheap fruit for sale.
Adnan getting tired.
Me selling some fruit.
The sun getting near setting.
As the sun went down we were happy to arrive at the Yellow River where we were surprised by riverbank activities including dancing and rollerblading.
Me watching the sunset.
Watching the dancers.
The next morning we went on to Urumqi another really long train ride, 30 hours. Urumqi is the capital city of Xinjiang and the largest city in central asia.
On the train we met many kids that were very excited to hear our music and play cards with us. We made good friends with them and taught them how to play "Speed" by the time we arrived in Urumqi they were hooked on the game.
We made a lot of friends on the train, St. Bell Pepper to the front right side included.
When we got close to Urumqi, we started to see a bunch of wind generators.
Adnan and two of the biggest trouble makers on the train.
When we got to Urumqi it was raining pretty hard but before long the rain past and we found a cheap hotel to check into.
We started to explore the town and went to see the museum.
A cool building.
An unusual Mourin Khuur with snakeskin at the local museum.
After going to the museum we got on a bus and went to see the the Uighur district, on the bus we made friends with a Pakistani guy who was in the imports and exports business as well as a group of Uighur guys who helped us find the Uighur district.
With our friends from the Uighur district. (A lot of times police would be confused by Omar and Adnan and the idea of Pakistani americans, the idea of nationality and ethnicity not being the same thing still exists in countried like China and Japan, so we want to say take a look around your own country to all those people! its a world that will be more and more free everyday!)
Ninja Kid, need I saw more?
That night we went to see fresh naan being cooked, it was really interesting to see the bread-makers put the uncooked bread into the coal-fired oven, they would stick their entire bodies down in taking turns going back and forth:
In...
and out and someone else goes in...
The next day we decided to go see some of the natural beauty near the city in Tianchi... a famous lake outside the city.
The lake is followed by a series of waterfalls you must traverse to see the lake...
There is a baby lake towards the top and the water is the color of green jade, really beautiful.
When we finally got to the lake we really enjoyed the walk around on this wooden bridge that is fastened along a cliff shore of the lake for about 1/4 mile.
The lake is followed by a series of waterfalls you must traverse to see the lake...
There is a baby lake towards the top and the water is the color of green jade, really beautiful.
When we finally got to the lake we really enjoyed the walk around on this wooden bridge that is fastened along a cliff shore of the lake for about 1/4 mile.
A funny sign on the lake.
Back in Urumqi we managed to find another parody of McDonald's title "Madeena".
The next day we left Urumqi and made our way to Korla a big oil industry town due south on the edge of the Taklamakan Desert.
At a rest stop we managed to find a good place to hang out and take some pictures, you would be surprised about how casual and the places people do their buses in China.
The following day we took a bus to the next town, which is on the south silk road, a still hardly travelled area by outsiders... we arrive in Cherchen and we were quick to make some more friends.
Outside a cafe with a bicycle rider.
A sunflower near the city.
Sitting on the road.
Me posing with a duck toy ride thingy at an semi-abandoned amusement park.
Squash being grown on racks aside houses throughout the city.
These cities along the south silk road are very interesting because they all depend on rivers that flow in from the south the eventually end up being sucked dry by the Taklamakan desert... the dune ridden second largest desert on Earth. It is hard to believe that the giant rivers surrounding flowing through these cities supplying a great amount of agriculture and city water would end up disappearing into the sand... take a look at a map of Xinjiang and you can see the river dot off and disappear on the map as well.
A CD shop in Cherchen.
After leaving Cherchen we would stop in Hotan another famous city along the south silk road, that existed also due to a monstrous river that disappeared into the desert.
Our first full size sand storm (when I got it I felt that it was alive, some kind of organism in itself.)
The first wild camel we had ever seen in our lives.
Once we arrived in Hotan, we met up with our friend Ubul Hussain again and he took us to his house. Where we were dined a treated to fresh fruits...
his house was situated on the outskirts of town in a beautiful country area which reminded me a lot of the house I grew up in.
Mike playing guitar in the dining room.
Ubul giving Adnan some food.
Outside of Ubul's house.
Uighur Corn (its dried first (see below picture) and then reheated and served... makes it extra crunchy and probably helps keep it for the winter.
More visions of wind energy in a Uighur magazine (are you surprised to see an entire society inside of China that uses the Arabic alphabet!?)
Playing along the riverbanks near the city.
People eating watermelon near downtown then throwing away the waste on top of the stand.
Mao shaking hands with a famous Uighur villager that tried to ride a donkey to Beijing from Hotan to meet him several decades ago.
Along the way Mao, heard about him and decided to send an airplane to pick him up before he got half way there.
I found a wood-shop near Ubul's house and they let me come and also let me take some pictures.
Ubul's relative that runs a restaurant near their house, we had the best noodles there.
After that Ubul took us way out into the countryside where we found a great place to swim in a rapid running water canal... the concept was interesting, you jump in and then you get going about 40 miles an hour!
A picture of the canal I drew
Its a little scary, then to get out, you paddle upstream as hard as possible and then start grabbing on thin tree branches on the side of river. We had so much fun that we did it about ten times, but more than that is impossible because you have to swim so hard to get out of the water.
Playing in the river
Before leaving we visited Ubul's house and saw his father again
That night we had to get on a bus to go to Kashgar! our long awaited destination, the city of music for the Uighur nation... although not international recognized this is the capital of the Uighur people and the invisible nation of Uighurstan.
The first stop was the famous musical instrument factory, here we met the owner Muhammad and spent hours playing music together... it was a wonderful time.
I eventually purchased four Uighur string instruments and shipped them back to the United States.
Uighur Music Instrument Shop
Back room
Cool Sunset in Kashgar
Music Shop
5 Generations (the shop has been by this family for 5 generations.)
Kashgar was a lot more modern than we hard imagined, but by far the most pleasant surprise was the hospitality of the music store owner.
Before long, we decided that we should take a trip up the Pakistan-China Highway to the border of Pakistan... this was a memorable and majestic journey to the roof of the world and the historic border of Pakistan.
We went all the way to Tashkorgun, where we made friends with the local Pakistani workers, they took us to diner and taught us many things about the Hunza and Tajik cultures of the area.
Along the Pakistan-China Highway
Me and Adnan
Some Kyrgyz people who enjoyed our music (they actually brought the entire town out and were running around dancing and singing!
Our Taxi Driver, who somehow resembled my friend Saidali from Uzbekistan but 50 years of age.
At the top of the past
Entering Tajik County (this is right next store to Tajikistan a really interesting place.
Our Pakistani and Tajik friends
Our Pakistani friends at the breakfast joint (Pakistani food place) hard to find!!
Another cool thing that we saw in Tashkorgan was the stone city inside of the city, hear you got a contrasting view of the old abandoned city, perfectly flat steppe-lands below dotted with Gur's as well as modern house just below the city walls, and in the background 7,000 meter peaks. It was really really beautiful.
Pictures of us on the city walls.
A Gur with Solar Panels outside of the city.
A guy hauling some hay.
Guys traveling by camel.
Me Adnan and Omar standing in front of the 7,000 peak to the south... it had a bunch of glaciers on it.
Another picture of the mountain.
Alpine Desert!
A Kyrgyz family we play music for (the Kyrgyz people in this area did not mix their language with Russian so it is a pure form of the language.)
That commenced our journey through China, our next step would be Kyrgyzstan, we would take a taxi across the border over a pass, we were looking forward to getting out of this country and seeing another.
Farewell friendly China, and see you again someday.
没有评论:
发表评论