Turpan to Hotan (China)
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Turpan to Hotan (China) |
| Turpan to Hotan : through the Taklamakan desert |
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The journey from Turpan (top right) to Hotan
(bottom left) has taken us from the Northern Silk Road to the Southern Silk
Road. As can be seen on the map, the Taklamakan desert (meaning "he who
goes in will not come out" !) is skirted by oases towns that would
constitute the stops of the caravans going East or West. Before that we
drove to Kuqa, to the North of the desert.
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| Turpan to Kuqa : the Kuqa mountain road |
| In Turpan we decided we were bored of taking national roads which, since Xi'an, have been a lot better than before. Less traffic and better roads have enabled us to drive at least 400km or more per day. Our "Asia overland" guidebook mentioned the "Kuqa mountain road", open in summer only. This route promised scenic villages and mountain passes. Let's go ! |
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| Day ONE : at the top | Day TWO : Stuck ! |
| Kuqa |
| Despite raining in the morning, our afternoon in Kuqa was blessed with a glorious sun. |
 
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Views from the oasis town of Kuqa
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Kuqa children
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The desert countryside between the mountains we have just come from and the oasis town
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The Kizilkaha Signal tower. This 13.5 meter
high mud tower was initially built some 2000 years ago. It was used to levy
taxes on caravans and is made of just mud and wood ! It was apparently still
used 100 years ago.
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| Through the Taklamakan desert |
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This particular desert has the reputation of
being seriously more dangerous and less tame than Arabia deserts. It has
been called the following names : land of death, a very abomination of
desolation. Sir Clarmont Skrine, who served as British Consul-General in
Kashgar in the 1920s described it as such in his book Chinese Central Asia :
"To the north in the clear dawn the view is inexpressively
awe-inspiring and sinister. The yellow dune of the Taklamakan, like the
giant waves of a petrified ocean, extend in countless myriads to a far
horizon with here and there and extra large sand-hill, a king dune as it
were, towering above its fellows. They seem to clamour silently, those
dunes, for travellers to engulf, for whole caravans to swallow up as they
have swallowed up so many in the past."
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Close-up of a dune in the Taklamakan desert, Western China
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As can be seen on the map above, travellers on
the Silk Road had no choice but to stay on the outskirts of the deserts as
it is surrounded by mountains. To the north, the Chinese T'ien Shan, to the
south the Karakoram range (the most dense mountain range in the world with,
amongst others, the K2) and to the west, the Pamir range or "the roof
of the world". Four years ago, a cross-desert highway was built thanks
to oil money. Despite the dunes, it is now possible to blast through desert
at speeds much higher than 100 km/h on a road as smooth as a billiard table
(the only road in China so far on which we have been able to work with the
computer inside the car).
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The view behind us as we leave the mountain range and the oasis to enter the desert (left) and night falling in the desert (right). |
  
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The sand in the desert is so fine, your shoes
will stick to it giving you the feeling you are walking in a water puddle.
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That evening, we stopped in the middle of the
desert and slept in our rooftop tent, in the courtyard of a small guesthouse
that caters for oil workers. We tried out this amazing device that is a
satellite phone for the first time in a location hundreds of km away from
normal life. Just set it up with a clear sky to beam towards the
geo-stationary Inmarsat satellite and 5 seconds later you have a tone and
can IDD dial anywhere. Thank you to Eurodis
Enterprises Ltd. for lending us such a wonderful device !
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Having fun in the dunes
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Camels are still used in every day life
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| The Hotan Sunday market |
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As a testimony to their great past, all city
oases along the Silk Road remain trading places. Each city or village has a
weekly market to which thousands of people will come to buy or sell their
goods.
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This is not Mao and the local leader of the time having a good time. The story goes that this local farmer took his donkey cart to Beijing to shake hands with the big boss. |
We are doing well !
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| Xiahe to Turpan | Back to Trip page | Hotan to Kashgar |
