Impressions from the Southern Capital 南京: October 2013

I’m getting ahead of myself on this trip, but we talked to Jeff yesterday and mentioned we had ridden camels, and he said he had to see that.

The camel holding area -- see all the people climbing the dunes. (The orange dune boots)

After riding on a night train from Turpan to Dunhuang, spending the entire day visiting a UNESCO historic site, the Mogao Grottos, our trip organizer decided we weren’t tired enough, so we had one more stop--the Mingsha Shan or Singing Sands Mountain. This is a huge sand dune and home to about 700 camels. Since I had ridden a camel before in Morocco and I wasn’t feeling great, I had decided I would sit this one out. Brad told me the ticket was already paid for, so don’t decide until we get up to the camels.

All aboard!

As we arrived at Mingsha Shan, all we could see was a huge line of camels stretching from the base of the mountain all the way to the top of the dunes. Hundreds of people atop the two-hump, Bactrian camels were making their way up the dune. Supposedly the two-humpers are more mild-mannered than their one-hump relatives, the Dromedary camel. We’ll see! As our camel driver motioned for our group to enter the staging area, I decided In groups of five, we climbed aboard the sitting camels, got our feet in the stirrups and then we were off. My camel didn’t like bringing up the rear of our group, and even though he/she? (I didn’t want to check) was tethered at the rear, he/she kept trying to move up. The pictures tell a much better story, so I’m leaving up to them to illustrate the ride. Bottom line—I’m glad I did it.

what the heck!

Still smiling.

Brad has a new friend, too.

Look at the line in front of us!

A little artsy desert shot.

What goes up, must come down.

Met some friends, too.

"Look mom. I'm flying a camel."

The camels had wireless.

My camel almost took a bite of Brad's leg.

The proof I did it.

The proof we did it.

Epilogue: Many people also experience the dunes on foot, climbing up and then running and jumping down – similar to Sleeping Bear Dunes on Lake Michigan or Jockey’s Ridge on the North Carolina Outer Banks. One interesting addition to the climb were orange fabric boots that people pulled on over their shoes to prevent sand from filling their shoes. I see a new business opportunity in the U.S.

Sorry it’s been so long since my last post, but internet connections have been at a premium, intermittent at best. Now you’re going get more than you will have the time or the desire to read. But here goes.

China celebrated the 64^th anniversary of the People’s Republic last week with a week-long holiday. This meant the beginning of a trip to western China for Brad and me and about 50 other teachers in the BYU China Teachers program, our first chance to leave Nanjing.

We flew from Nanjing to meet the rest of the group in Urumqi, Xinliang Uyghur Autonomous Province. In Mandarin Urumqi is call Wu Lu Mu Qi, and is home to the largest population of Uyghur (pronounced wee-ger) people in China. They are Muslim, and if I hadn’t known we were still in China, we could have been in Turkey or Afghanistan. The province borders at least nine other countries, including Pakistan and Kazakhstan. To call it remote is an understatement. Getting there was like flying from New York to California. China has moved millions of Han Chinese (the largest ethnic group in China) to this province in an effort to dilute the Uyghur population. It’s been the scene of periodic uprisings, as the Uyghur strive for maintain their autonomy. Thankfully, things were calm during our visit, but our guide said tourism has been down sharply this past year because of the unrest. This area was an important land crossroad on the old Silk Road that led from China to the Mediterranean Sea, before ships took over the transportation from west to east and back.

You can find everything on the street. Loved his hat!

We arrived mid-afternoon and met up with the rest of our group. It was great to see so many of people we had met in Provo in August. They are wonderful people and great traveling companions. Climbing aboard a huge bus, we made our way into the city and were dropped off in the Muslim market. All the signs were in Chinese and Arabic, but the Uyghur pronunciation of the Arabic would not be recognizable to other Arab speakers. Strange but true! The market went on and on, with lots of items for sale from food to herbs and spices to shoes to jewelry to scarves to hats. One of our favorite vendors was a man who we think was selling some sort of anti-venom serum for arthritis sufferers. He wound poisonous snakes around his neck and allow scorpions to bite him, just to demonstrate the wonders of this serum, which sold faster than he could get it out. He put on quite a show. We wandered in the market for quite a while, watching the food-cooking techniques and sampling the dried fruits, which were abundant. You’ve never seen so many meats cooked on a stick, some recognizable, some not. I particularly liked the naan (Arabic bread), baked in huge open ovens and stacked for sale.

So many herbs and spices. Didn't recognize all of them.

One of the highlights of our time in Xinliang Province was our guide, Li. She was so knowledgeable and made everything interesting, even the process of drying grapes. More about that to come.