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Turpan is now up there with Xiahe as the coolest places in China. Well, I use "coolest" figuratively since it is officially the hottest city in the country and the temperature floats around 100 degrees during all daylight hours. Even at night I don't think it even got down to 80. But even with the heat, this city was incredible.
It's a small city, but because of all the heat, the main road in town is completely covered in grapevines as respite for the poor souls who venture out during the day. While we were there, the vines were heavy with grapes making this covered walkway a lovely place (along with the pool we found) to spend some of the hotter hours. Also, because grapes are such a huge part of the city, they are sold everywhere, in a dozen varieties, plus the same varieties in raisin form. Wherever we went people offered us grapes, to sell or just because. Turpan is also known for its handmade noodles which are just delicious. I really don't know how I"m going to go back to packaged noodles after having spent so much time here.
This lifestyle of this city is different from the rest in that nobody is on the streets in the middle of the day. People get their things done in the morning, then don't come out of their homes again until 8 at night. After that, the city life continues until far past midnight, the only time it's even vaguely comfortable to be outside. Because of this, mom and I started up a siesta for ourselves and slept through the most sweltering hours of the day.
The sites around the city are wonderful too. Even more so for the comparitive lack of other tourists. There were some extremely otherworldly city ruins from 1500 years ago or so (they were so hot we took a donkey cart back to the entrance at the end) and some more little grottoes. The grottoes were great because to get there we had to drive by the gorgeous Flaming Mountains then walk through a little Uiger (Chinese Muslim) town and climb up rickety stairs with other Muslim pilgrims. It was a wonderful and beautiful experience.
Another fun bit of our time in Turpan was meeting up with Steve, a very cool guy studying Mandarin in Beijing. He hung out with us in the evenings for a couple of days and we adventured out to eat strange things (*ahem* snails *ahem*) and dance with the locals. We ate lots of grapes together and bartered for Pashminas using his superior Mandarin to help us out. When we get back to the capital in a few days we're definitely going to go to the Dirt Market together. He's a great guy and a great traveller.
Next stop: Urumqi and Tianchi
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