Life in the desert
Trip Start
Sep 21, 2011
1
9
Trip End
Nov 03, 2011
Turpan, Shaanxi, China
Friday, October 28, 2011
the expectations of trying to find a public bus to cover the 50km to town faded pretty quickly when i arrived at 3 am in the morning..so i gave in and bargained down the price of a cab..
but the cost of the trip was much more than i had offered so we had to wait for the next trains to deliver more people, to leave with a full car..not too bad since i had the chance to stay in a warm taxi and continue my sleep.
after some reading and some convincing by a local taxi-tour guide i realised that there was no chance to visit a few things just by bike, as i had planned before getting there, so decided to join this japanese guy who wanted to see all the sightseeing in the area.
i was surprised by this guy's english..and he told me he was working for IBM in Sydney..what..i come all the way here..in the middle of the desert and i find a guy who lives in sydney..nice...and..hmm where did you say you work? IBM...any chance you know Aya (a japanese friend who also works for the company)...and yes..they know each other..c'mon man..what are the chances..
so i spent the whole day visiting things with him..
first town was pretty cool..everything made out of mud..and covered in dust..man my mum would go crazy dusting everything here..
but there were 2 spots that were awesome..
i decided to stay outside one of the sightseeing spots..an ancient mud city...because i was going to visit one later in the day..
and i had the chance to wonder around this little village..where i approached some old locals which were doing something on a table outside their courtyard..and i ended up taking photos and helping them out to remove stems from the raisins they made..they were very nice and gave me a little bag of them too..
i never knew how they dried out raisins..i guess i never really put too much thought into it..but here they hang grapes off some wooden structures inside these buildings with walls which allow air to freely flow through..in this way the dry desert air removes all or most of the moisture from the grapes..and then they are picked ready to be eaten...you might find some grains of dust..but that's minor...
then on the way back to the car..i met these ninjas who stopped me and they wouldn't let me go unless i took some photos of their sick poses..so how could i say no..was pretty cool ey..
the next stop was
