Camels and Terra Cotta Warriors

This is part 2 of our Silk Road Trip that we took during the National Holiday from October 1 through October 7. 

We took an overnight sleeper train from Turpan to Dunhuang.  Dunhuang is right at the edge of the Gobi desert where camels are still used to haul tourists and some goods through the desert.  We had the opportunity to have a camel ride for a couple of miles up and around the dunes. The ride was long enough that we were getting quite saddle sore by the time we were finished. 

There were hundreds and hundreds of camels being ridden by tourists. It was quite the experience!

The next day we visited Mogao Grottos which is a UNESCO site. The grottos are dug into the hillside by Buddhist worshippers.  The grottos were dug and covered with paintings over a period of 1400 years. They are now protected and preserved. The paintings are very, very beautiful. 

This is a sample from the gift shop.

We flew from Dunhuang to Xian where we spent the next 2 nights. Our hotel in Xian was really nice and quite western with all of the amenities. 

Early the next morning we toured a shop where they showed how reproductions of the terra cotta warriors are produced. Of course, we bought Rick one for his birthday since it was his day!  We bought a larger sized one and had it shipped home. We also bought a smaller one to take back to our apartment to enjoy for now.  

Our next stop was of course to see the real deal!  It was so amazing to be able to see the location where 7,000 unique warriors were uncovered just in the mid 70's. The warriors were created around 220 BC. 

The next day we were able to take a bike ride on the ancient city wall surrounding the city of Xian. 

We returned back to Guangzhou and to our students at SCUT after a week of traveling. Thankfully we had a day to recover before we started teaching again on Friday. 

Silk Road Trip

All of the foreign teachers in Guangzhou were invited to the National Day Celebration at the White Swan Inn. The celebration was for the organization of the communist party and was celebrated for a full week. 

The food and the hotel were both so amazing.  Seafood, pastas, chocolates, ice cream, etc., etc., etc.

We flew from Guangzhou to Urumqi for the start of our Silk Road travels. Urumqi is in the northwest part of the country and it took a full five hours to fly there from here. Kind of like flying across the US. We stayed in one of the nicest hotels in the city which was probably a two star but certainly had all of the necessities.  The Ughur bazaar where we purchased beautiful scarves and tried on fur hats. I also got some saffron that I have been using very sparingly for some delicious and healthy tea.

Our next stop was in Turpan where we visited the ancient city of Jiaohe and toured the the ancient irrigation system called Karze Wells. 

This was the view from our hotel window in Turpan. Clothes are drying from a basketball hoop, 3 dogs are sleeping on a rug, and the area is filled with grape clusters that are drying into raisins. 

Trying out a bicycle built for 3 at Jiaohe. 

This is some kind of melon that was being dried. This area is very arid and the crops are irrigated with water from reservoirs from the Karze systems. The raisins are very delicious and I'm not a big raisin person. 

We visited with a Ughur family where we bought our year's supply of raisins. My favorite raisins were called rose raisins and they even have a slight rose flavor.