Day 37 - Turpan to the Sleeper Train

Day 37

This morning, we took the bus ride to Jiaohe Ancient City ruins and walked all around to see them.  It was a civilization that was here during the Tang Dynasty.  I thought they did a great job in their restoration.  They still have more they are doing, but it was great what they have finished.  After that, we went to see the underground wells system that was developed – the Karze Well.  It was an amazing underground system that allowed them to get the water from the mountains to the lowlands without a lot of evaporation in the extremely dry climate.  The displays showed how they lived at this time.  It was interesting. 

Ruins of the Buddhist colony that are being restored.

More of the ruins.

Jiaohe Ancient City.

More of Jiaohe.

Jiaohe Temple

Jiaohe.

Jiaohe was built on this mesa.  It had a river that went around it and they used that for their farming and were pretty well protected from their enemies.  They had over 100 pagodas on the north (the are closest to the bottom of the picture).

More of Jiaohe.

They had outfits that you could pay 20 Yuan and get your picture taken in it.  No, I didn't take them up on it.

Lunch was almost that same as yesterday with a lot of similar dishes and they bring them out one at a time and put it on a “lazy Susan”. I’m sure they call it something else, but that is what we know it as. 

After lunch, we went to see a place that was telling the story of the Monkey King, a Chinese tale that they are very proud of.  We were sort of pretty sick of hearing about it by the time we were done today, but we were all intrigued enough to try and find the story to read it.

Statue of the Monkey King.

More of the statue.  These are the Monkey King's helpers.

Monkey King...

Monkey King...

Monkey King...

And, you could have your picture taken with the live characters of the Monkey King!

Then we went to the grape valley and saw how they take care of the grapes and dry them.  They dry them right on the vine and the best grapes (according to our guide) are the ones that are dried at just the right height.  David and I bought 2 kilos of grapes to take home with us.  They are that good!

Yes, they sleep right among the grapes in the summer.

You could pay money to watch a cock fight.  Poor birds.

I just thought this tree was interesting.  It looks like it should be dead, but it is still very much alive.       

These women were working as they sat there.  Beautiful things, but the price was matching it.  

Part of the Grape Valley.

We made a visit to a grocery store before dinner so that we could get food for snacks and breakfast on the train.  They were not able to book all of us on the same sleeper train, so they had to split us up between two trains that left about 45 minutes apart from each other.  David and I were put on the second train.  I believe the tour guide was extra glad at this point that we had Lily with us because none of us knew anything about the Chinese train system and this way he was able to go with the first group and make sure everything went well there while Lily took care of the second group.  We waited around and finally got on at about 11:15 p.m.  Lily made sure we were all settled in our cabins before she went to bed.

Train station toilet.  One woman on our tour got motion sick from the ride there and had to come in and use this!  We ALL felt bad for her. Every so often, a flush of water comes through to "clean things".  I decided I could wait...

Train coming into the station.  We had tickets for a "soft" sleeper, which meant that we only had four people to a room and a "mattress" that we could sleep on.  Sheet and pillow were provided.  We slept in our clothes, for the little sleep that we got.  "Hard" sleepers have six to a room and just a plank to sleep on.  There there are the chairs and benches to sleep on and those that stand up for the whole ride.  It truly was a memorable experience.