Tips for Urumqi
 

Hello: I'll be heading over to China in a few weeks and have Urumqi as a destination on my itinerary. Although I've been to Beijing and its environs before, I've never made it to western China. Has anyone any tips, recommendations, etc., for a peregrine Westerner traveling to Urumqi? <BR>Thanks.

Plan to spend as little time there as possible, and more in whatever other Xinjiang destinations you will be visiting. It's an unlovely city, little different from others across China, and with very little to offer the visitor save the mummies in the Provincial Museum and the bustle of the Uighur quarter. But the Uighurs are best met in smaller towns around the Taklamakan rim which their way of life has been better preserved.<BR><BR>If you have a chance to skip Urumqi altogether, take it.<BR><BR>Peter N-H<BR>http://members.axion.net/~pnh/China.html

Peter<BR><BR>What would you say about Turfan?

Small, and despite the grafting of an ugly modern Chinese city on the side, retains some of its former flavour, with grapevines providing shade in the streets and drying towers for turning grapes to raisins. The Uighur here are a far larger force, used to visitors, and welcoming. There are numerous private minibus operators offering day trips out of town to sights both genuinely interesting and oversold. In the former category would be the ruins of two ancient cities, a cave-temple site (shockingly maintained, however), a grave site, and an ancient tower; in the latter the Flaming Mountains photostop and the karez irrigation channels, but these are pleasant enough, too. It's worth haggling with the driver to take you to further flung cave sites not because they caves themselves are so interesting (and indeed, you may not be able to gain access) but because these are often in or near villages which are 100% Uighur.<BR><BR>Peter N-H<BR>http://members.axion.net/~pnh/China.html

Peter<BR><BR>Thank you very much