The Silk Road of China

What a week!  From the humid, lush, green of the Chinese east coast, we flew 4 hours west and entered a different world.

Vast mountain ranges.  Sand, gravel, rocks, and not much else.

From pictures I've seen of Afghanistan, this area must be very similar.

 At times we wondered if we were on the "Star Wars" world of Tatooine.

 It certainly is a different place--head scarves, mutton carcasses for sale on the street corner, and lots and lots of poverty.

 We traveled with the BYU Kennedy Center teachers who are donating a year of their life teaching English to Chinese university students.  Great people with diverse experiences and backgrounds.  We were the young ones of the group, and Alice was REALLY the young one. (And the only youth.)

 One of our modes of travel, besides plane, taxi, and bus was this donkey cart.  Five people could sit on the rug and the donkey clipped right along.  We were glad it was October instead of July, for a part of the area we visited is below sea level and can reach 120 degrees F.  We enjoyed days in the 70's and cool evenings in the 30's.  And we loved the bright blue skies!

 Since it can get so hot, many beds were on rooftops or at least outside the square-shaped adobe homes.  This little old lady was just sitting on hers, watching the traffic go by.  

 This is a rendition of a Uygher home (the Chinese minority originally from the Middle-east).  There is a main corridor after the main door that comes in from the street.  Animals, cars, bikes, etc. can be in this area.  Often it leads to an interior courtyard.

The living areas open off from it.

 This was an interesting sign, especially since the Chinese are some of the most environmentally unconscious people that I've ever seen. If someone is eating watermelon, the rind is dropped wherever they finish--even if a trash can is nearby. Trash is thrown from cars.  Piles of trash lie everywhere.  In a nation of a billion+, you can imagine what this can be like.  So it's nice that a beginning is being made.

 The Uygher people are Muslim, and are the majority in this province, and so mosques abound. 

 This small silk rug (about 1 X 2 feet) was for sale for 118,000 yuan.  At 6 yuan per U.S. dollar, that's an amazing sum!  ($19,600).  What makes it so valuable?  The number of knots per square inch.  There were also ones for sale for about $300 dollars. They were still beautiful, but I think I'd hang them on the wall rather than let anyone walk on them! 

 Even in remote Urumqi, KFC and Carrefour!  But we ate local food.  I picked up a piece of chicken with my chopsticks and was about to pop it in my mouth when I recognized what it was.

 We took a few fun pictures with it, but it stayed on the plate after that.  I can now eat much spicier food (and still enjoy it), but I draw the line at heads, feet, and entrails.  Not if I can help it!