Going down

I don't know how far it is to Turpan, but I know, by bus it takes two and a half hour. I usually count on how many hours it takes by bus that many days it will take me to cycle. Today however I reach Turpan the same day. I just cannot find a suitable place to sleep. The road is rather boring although I come through the worlds largest windmill park, I read later. However none of the mills I see are working, but this could have something to do with the lack of wind. For a long while I see no one, the road I cycle is not open yet but (because of that) of very good quality. I do see these railroad workers pushing a rail along the tracks and women sweeping the sand of the road. This seems like a waste of time, but they probably have their reasons for this. Later I bump into a couple of camels. Note these have two bumps instead of the ones with one I saw earlier. When I reach the time I want to stop cycling for the day I am in the middle of an empty plain and there are no nice spots to stop. With 30km to go I stop at the side of the road and eat a little of my Chinese powerbar, sugar mixed with raisons and nuts all pushed in a huge bar. Then a tractor comes by, with the idealspeed for hanging on to. I put my stuff away as soon as I can and start chasing him. For 15 minutes I go as fast as I can and I am able to overtake him. When I indicate I want to hang on to his cart, he stops and suggests I put my bike on the cart and indicates I can sit on the adze. After a while we stop for a couple of beers, but we manage to reach Turpan, the second lowest point on earth, 154m below sealevel.

In a bar I run into a Dutch couple, who are on a grouptour following the Silkroute. Later we are joined by 2 older Dutch ladies. They are staying in the hotel at the other side of the street, where I also hope to find a place to stay. Probably much less comfortable, but also against a much lower price

I decide to take it easy in Turpan, (like I did in Urumqi) and just cycle a bit through the city and his surroundings for a couple of days. On the 7th September I plan to visit the famous minaret and mosque, but upon arival I decide I can see it well enough from the outside and cycle on I end up with a Uighur family who invites me for dinner, when I take a picture of their house. When waiting for dinner I work with this happy fellow for an hour. We hang crapes on bamboo sticks to dry. I take some other pictures of the family, which I deliver the same evening. The family is delighted and they offer me a lot of grapes and bread, as they cannot invite me to their evening meal, because they just finished it.