Village Tour

Selling raisins and nuts

Colorful bedrooms

 We took a bus ride out to a little village by Tarpan. Can't even remember it's name, but I loved it. Parts of it looked like the ancient city ruins that we'd explored, but people still lived here. We were allowed to walk the dusty roads, poke our heads into their homes, and wonder at the simplicity of their lives. These families grow grapes and dry most of them into raisins. It is extremely hot in the summer, so often their beds are on the roof to take advantage of any passing breeze. Hey, we did that too, but on our deck!

Grandma watching the kids while the parents are working.

Learning to drive.

Hey! Somebody is home!

Some beautiful doors

These buildings were for drying grapes and were all over the hills.

A peek into a couple more doorways.

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Two car garage

 On the way to the ancient ruins of Gaochang. This picture's for my girls!
This is our donkey ride out to the ruins.

There was no tour guide, so I can't tell you much of the history of this place. It was fascinating to see and try to imagine the lives of the people who carved a living out of the desert.

Lots of yummy Chinese food on this trip. Here's a couple of the more interesting ones:
This one was cooked with very hot rocks tossed into the food. Sizzlingly delicious!

 See that stack of wooden dishes? Each table gets a stack.  They're filled with different stuffing and molded into the shape of the filling type - duck, or walnut, or frog, etc! Yummy, and quite a talent to make!

We traveled by bus to Turpan where we met a man who was the mayor of the town and the main Communist leader there. He invited our group to his house for some refreshments. He's the man on the right. We sat out on a patio with grape vines over and around us.

While we were eating he invited his daughters to dance for us. And then they invited us to join them - which many of us did. It was great fun!

 

In the front of his house.

This was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. There they are:

And here I am! That's my friend Kris in front of me.

There we go out across the desert. It was a gorgeous day.






Our caravan -Don't we look like cardboard cutouts?

  Two escapees looking for a snack. Lots of screaming from the lady in back, but I was jealous!

We trekked out across the sand dunes to this oasis Temple and Crescent Lake.

It was great fun!

Next stop, Turpan. The hotel looked very impressive from the outside and in the lobby, but was pretty rundown up on the floors - wiring definitely not up to code. :) We loved walking around the town and through the lovely covered walkways.

Later we took a bus ride out in the desert to visit some ancient ruins. Quite a different  experience walking down these streets.

Hi Friends - Forty of the BYU teachers just got back from an amazing week on the Silk Road tour starting in the NW China city of Urumqi - 8-9 million people, but very isolated by desert and distance from the big cities in the east. We stayed in a beautiful hotel and joined some locals for tai chi in the morning.