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Thursday 2004-07-01 - Turpan, Xinjiang (China)
Hot!
Turpan lies in a basin, the lowest point of which is at 154m below sea level: the second-lowest on earth and sometimes called the “Oven of China” because it’s so hot. So hot, in fact, even I think it’s hot! (It wasn’t this hot last time I was here, but that was at the beginning of October — now it’s summer.) Our hotel, the Turpan hotel, is along the renovated Nian Qing road though, a pleasant avenue completely shaded by grape vines with walking paths on both sides, and the central road accessible only for public transportation. The hotel is OK, nothing special, but doesn’t offer a place to sit outside in the shade — no problem: the local branch of John’s Cafe across the road does. While the kitchen here isn’t as good as that in the Kashgar branch it’s a nice place to gather for a meal or drink — or just sit and write. After a drink in the shade, Carla and I brave the hot sun to find the bazaar, about the only ‘sight’ in Turpan I haven’t seen yet and rumored to be nice.
The rumor is correct. It’s a really very nice bazaar, and since most of it is covered we can stay in the shade to look around and shop a little. There’s a pleasant kind of organized disorder — or is it disorganized order? Trades and goods each have their own corner or street, a whole hall of restaurants, another with just dried fruit and nuts, a street with shoes, and so on, but it isn’t all straight and new either and large enough to get lost in the labyrinth of streets and halls. We see all kinds of foods that are new to us; frequently we are offered a taste if we just look (pickled whole garlic bulbs for instance — I get a clove to taste and it’s very nice) and we end up buying a bag of spicy rice crackers: nice with a cold beer). The people, both buyers and sellers, are a mixture of Uyghurs and Chinese here, all very friendly. I also get myself a nice pair of red-and-black fabric shoes I can use as house shoes — I can use the salesman’s stool to try them on and they cost me only 15 Yuan (1.50 EUR); I don’t even bother to bargain!
