In Which I Spend All Day on a Train: Croatia to Bosnia

​Our next stop on our Silk Road journey was the city of Turpan (the English name) in the Xinjiang region of China. It’s also known as Turfan and Tulufan (in Uighur and Chinese) while I, on the other hand, refer to it as Turpan Alley, because it is a bit of a hole. Turpan was a fertile little oasis town back in the day, and today (and probably back then too) is known as “China’s Death Valley” because it’s one of the few places below sea level and also because IT’S DUCKING HOT AS BALLS. It’s so hot and sunny and dry that walking around the city would have been uncomfortable even if it wasn’t a bit of a hole. Apparently, the Chinese like to say that Turpan is farther from the ocean than any other place in the world, which I don’t doubt but that is a chitty thing to brag about. (I hate feeling landlocked! I love being near water! This trip is difficult for me.) The best part about Turpan (and Xinjiang) is that this climate grows some insane delicious watermelon. 

​Turpan was an important Silk Road stop because desert traders in desperate need of fresh water love them some temperatures hotter than at any other point in their desert struggles? is that why? Or maybe because of the watermelon. Actually, Turpan had an impressive system of irrigation that I’m sure increased its draw to caravan-peeps seeking water. They brought fresh water down from the snowy Tien Shan mountains, which is the name of the brand of bottled water that we found most in Xinjiang and then in Kyrgyzstan so hooray for longstanding traditions. Archaeological sites in the Turpan Depression (the fitting name for the whole region, although they mean because it’s so low in the earth and not because of what it does to you) uncovered important old stuff from many centuries ago that helped researchers understand the goings-on of traders and others passing through. In fact, Turpan was the site of important discoveries of certain specific goods. Silver coins were big here – in fact, the plethora of silver coins found here helped prove that China’s main trading partner along the Silk Route was not Rome, as many romantic history buffs (are there such a thing) would like to think, but the Iranian world, because zero coins from the Roman Republic were ever found anywhere in China. I knowww. Zilch. Anywhere. You’d think even once drunk on a dare a trader would try to go to Rome. But then I guess they wouldn’t return. Or they just didn’t have enough time in their lives to go there AND back. They were walking, people! Turpan was also big on burying their dead in paper outfits they made in craft sessions, I imagine, like an ancient version of stitch-and-bitch. A lot of boring but informative documents – contracts, meeting notes, whatever – were pieced together to make clothes for corpses. You might be thinking, no way no how corpses were preserved let alone regular old paper that could actually be read! But yeah, that’s how dry Turpan is, that lots of paper and lots of corpses were preserved with no effort on their part other than to Be In The Driest Hottest Land Ever. (We saw some of those corpses in the Urumqi Museum (coming next). I am very much done with such things.) Today, the important things to see include the Emin Minaret, which is impossible to find in the maze of little backstreets, and the ancient ruins of Jiaohe.

​The big other draws in the city are the Bazaar and the Night Market – both of which were nowhere to be found during our visit! This is a good time to tell you about the Xinjiang region of China, an autonomous territory in northwest China where these Silk Road sites lie. Being all autonomous, Xinjiang has a separatist movement with its native Uighur people trying to become their own state (that’s what that means) of East Turkestan which is a cute name. China of course wants to quash that but good, and has been kind of sending Han Chinese people into Xinjiang to balance out the population – or dilute the local culture and traditions. It’s all very tense and uneasy. All the Chinese train stations had crazy security, but it’s enhanced beyond anything I’ve ever seen before in Xinjiang. Police are everywhere. In Turpan, there was a police building on every single block – I am not exaggerating – with at least 5 policemen patrolling outside. They say it’s because of terror threats from the local Uighur people, who are mostly Muslim and who look completely different from the Han Chinese. It seemed a little like a control method to keep them down. Throughout the region, we saw average Uighur locals stopped by police to have their phones examined, which is police state bullshit. They are definitely treated like second class citizens in their own land, which is like Indigenous People 101.

All of this to say, we think that maybe the Bazaar and the Night Market – two very crowded very public gatherings, the kind that are difficult to police in excruciating detail – were shut down due to ‘safety precautions’ but possibly as a way to continue curbing the goings on of the Uighurs and take away their traditions and culture. However, Turpan is one of the more Chinese-friendly of the Xinjiang cities; the officials are friendlier towards the locals and it’s more easygoing, if you can believe it with police on every inch of ground. (Kashgar, for instance, is considered more of a problem and the government is a lot more hostile there towards the Uighurs. (Kashgar, incidently, was my favorite part of Xinjiang, but we will get there.)) But then again, I haven’t been able to find anything about these events being permanently closed, so maybe we just happened to be there on a bad day. It sucks that we couldn’t find these two fun events, and I really hope that we just couldn’t find them, because it obviously would be much, much worse to be right that the Chinese government just up and decided to clamp down on the locals doing their thing.

​So, let’s talk about what we actually did do. From Dunhuang, we had to drive two hours (inexpensive taxi that we had the Silk Road Yododo inn hire, which was annoyingly difficult but easier than it would have been to deal with getting one ourselves as we keep learning) to the Liuyuan Train Station to get a fast train to Turpan. The security at Liuyuan was our first real look at the Xinjiang craziness. There were dozens – dozens! – of police and security officials, and it was not a big station at all. They found our camping utensils – a magnetic set of a fork, spoon, and baby-sized knife – plus our Swiss Army knife, and were not pleased. You CANNOT get on trains in Xinjiang with anything weapony, including all sizes of knives and scissors. We learned this at this point. I think our foreign privilege gave us a pass and instead of confiscating them, security officials taped up all the knives so we can’t get into them (not without another knife, lol) but let us keep them, and they made us sign a book with our passport numbers given. I guess in case there was report of a crime committed with a tiny little camping knife, they would have our info.

The train to Turpan was only 4 hours, which is absolutely nothing to us now, and then we got a taxi to our hostel, called Dap Hostel – like giving dap? Hilarious. The hostel was a legit travelers’/backpackers’ land, with tons of dirty yoots smoking and drinking at all hours in an inner courtyard that all the rooms encircle so you have no choice but to listen and smell it all. I did not like this place. The staff was very stupid and the bathrooms were gross. There was one trench sink, like 4 feet long, with one drain and three faucets and everyone would stand cramped together to brush their teeth and spit together and it was harrowing. The service was bad. Z asked for a coffee one morning (they have a chalkboard coffee menu at reception) and one girl said okay. No one brought any coffee. We asked a different girl. She said okay. No coffee. We asked a third. Then we asked the original girl and she said ‘you didn’t get it?’ It took over a half hour for someone to pour Z a cup of coffee from an already made pot. Then we asked if they could call a taxi for us on our last morning to the train station. Two staff members spoke in Chinese to each other for 10 minutes before turning to us and saying, “There’s a bus that goes.” Thank you. You’ve been helpful. If we wanted to take the bus, we would take the bus. And actually, it’s not a direct bus, you have to switch buses, which is bullshit to do when a taxi would be cheap and easier, and also, you are a travelers’ hostel you should know how to call a taxi when it’s the main way of getting around your city. 

Who knows if Turpan ever stood a chance with me, because if I hate where I’m sleeping, it’s hard for me to loosen up enough to accept anything. As for the aforementioned sights that actually did exist, let’s start with the Emin Minaret. We walked around the dusty heat of small residential streets trying to find the mosque for almost an hour, and it was supremely difficult. There are few signs, and they are incomplete, leaving you in view of the minaret but with no evident way of actually reaching it. We both said we’d never been so close to a destination – seemingly so close you could touch it – and yet so far – seeing no clear way of actually reaching it. In the end, we had to ask three different random people in the area how to navigate the maze of their homes. One teenager on a bike, one ancient woman on her front stoop, and one shepherd who was, well, herding some sheep. We finally found the back entrance of the complex once we had finished all our water and we quickly bought up some bottles of clear liquid from a chest on the site. We assumed it was cold water. It was cream soda. (Say it with me: FFS CHINA!)

​The Emin Minaret stands tall as the defining monument in central Turpan, blending Uighur architecture and history with Islamic traditions. It’s made of wood and brick and is pretty cool considering how it looks nothing like China. There are very few Muslim buildings in China, almost all of which are in Xinjiang, so it’s rare and interesting to see the mixture of Chinese and Islamic art or architecture. A guard let us look inside the basic mosque and we just walked around for a little. There’s a toilet, so that’s good. 

The big thing to see when in Turpan is the Jiaohe Ruins, about 10 kilometers outside the city. We shared a taxi with a rando from the hostel and usually they charge a flat rate to Jiaohe but this driver just used the meter and it was cheaper so score. Jiaohe is an archaeological site and used to be an important place along the Silk Road, including at one time being the seat of the Protector General of the Western Regions, which is the highest ranking military post of Chinese officials stationed in the west. Jiaohe was a city full of residential districts, temples, stupas, and of course government offices. All the ruins now look the same since it is, in fact, in ruins, and the site is a vast expanse of white dusty broken rocks. Walking around the ruins for hours was the hottest I have ever felt, well, until later in our trip. Our skin was melting. The sun was like a few inches above my head, it seemed. As the cherry on top of this sundae of discomfort and frustration, the toilet on the grounds was padlocked and there are no staff members anywhere near the actual ruins, only at the visitor centre and ticket office which is 3 kilometers down the road. I know. Say it with me.

​When we bought tickets at said visitor centre, they didn’t tell us that everyone should take the shuttle bus around that costs 30 yuan extra. We were like, we can walk, we don’t need to pay for the extra bus. The woman selling tickets should have said, well actually everyone takes the bus it is dumb not to. ACTUALLY, they should just add the cost of the bus to the ticket price and be done with being stupid, because there are no signs on the road for how the F to get there. So we were on this deserted winding road like, where do we actually go? We walked down where we saw shuttle buses going and it was three kilometers away in the sun and heat and oh my goddd. For the biggest site in the area, not having any signage is pretty ridiculous. Ugh but why would they ever have signs for pedestrians at any site, right? We already learned this! Anyway, we finally found it, and it was hot. It was fine, for an archaelogical site, but without enough descriptive signs (not just not in English, but like, none) it was hard to care. 

​The best part of walking, though, was some fortuitous happenings at the end of our visit. On the walk back, we were so hot and so dehydrated that we were really craving some of that famous watermelon. Across from the exit/entrance to return to the visitor center was this lovely little path covered with a trellis with what looked like a restaurant underneath. An old Uighur couple was sitting on carpets on the floor, and we peeked in and saw some watermelons under a big table. So we went up and pointed and communicated that we would like some watermelon. The lady was super friendly and picked a giant one up and weighed it and then was just going to sell us a whole damn watermelon, and we were like no no we want to eat it now, like sitting here, and also we don’t have knives they taped up our knives and she understood and took it in the back to cut up and motioned for us to sit at the table. And then we realized, oh shit, she’s gonna bring us like an ENTIRE watermelon cut up and not just a few pieces like we want. Lo and behold, a few minutes later she came out with a silver platter stacked with an entire sliced watermelon, plus several bunches of grapes. I’ve been talking a lot about how good the watermelon is, but Turpan is actually famous throughout China and the stans for having incredible grapes and thus incredible raisins. I know, raisins, they’re the worst, but no the raisins in Turpan are delicious, as are the grapes, and here we were being given soo many grapes! It was so lovely and kind. We were cracking up at how much watermelon we were housing. It was probably the best watermelon I’ve ever had. And the grapes were amazing. Everything was. When we really could not force any more into our bodies, the lady took the platter away and then came back with all the rest of the watermelon AND the grapes packed in a plastic bag for us to take away. NICEST PEOPLE IN ALL OF CHINA! We stood up and went over to them to pay and they both waved our wallets away and shook their heads. We were like what, come on, are you kidding me? And they would not accept any money. We felt really bad – we ate your fruit guys! – but they really were vehemently against us paying. It was the nicest encounter in all of China. Probably this entire summer actually. 

Aside from that lovely experience, it was hard to find food in Turpan. And not just for me finding vegan food! Just finding food, period! Like for Z too! One night we lucked out and finally found this great Han Chinese restaurant with a picture menu that had tofu and vegetables and ALSO had purple velour booths with the chintziest chandeliers you’ve ever seen. It was inexpensive and really good food but it took way too long for it to arrive. The homestyle tofu was great. We also finally got to try the weird jelly noodle dish that’s all over China. It’s a weird texture but it was done well here – SO incredibly spicy! And hooray for veggies! The waitress also recommended that we get these crunchy fried tomato sticks and we were like, wow sure that sounds really interesting! Too interesting – she meant potato. Lol. They were actually good, like french fries but with a little bit of a sweet exterior too, but we would probably not have gotten them if we knew they were potatoes! Fried tomato sticks sound good, right? Or gross? Make them and let me know.

​ So I have no idea what this restaurant was called, I’m sorry, but if you go to Turpan and ask the people where you are staying about the purple velvet booths I bet they know it. We had enough leftovers to eat for lunch the next day (no one stole them from the hostel fridge!). It seems I forgot to take a pic of the potato sticks, oh no, but just imagine fries with like, seeds? 

​We should have returned there the next night, but instead we tried to find John’s Information Cafe in the backyard of the Turpan Hotel which according to our guidebook was a great place for backpackers with decent food. John’s no longer exists. In its place, literally in the backyard of this hotel, is a kebab grilling joint where you point to kebabs and they grill them so everything tastes the same and you reek of smoke for days. It was not my favorite place. I pointed to sticks of vegetables and what they said was tofu/doufu but it did not have the texture of anything resembling tofu so I didn’t trust it and couldn’t eat it. The texture was just so wrong. Shame. 

​The best part of Turpan, aside from the watermelon couple, was the bread babushka in the alley outside our hostel. She had a stand with the BEST breads I’ve had since my St. Petersburg babushka. Unfortunately, she wasn’t out the day we left. Shame. Also I forgot to take a picture of her cart. Shame. Here is a picture of the rival bread man across the alley from her and much inferior.

So, Turpan Alley. That’s really all I have to say about that. Some interesting sights but I didn’t learn as much about the Silk Road as I did in Dunhuang or our later Silk Road sites (or as much I learned about Turpan from my books, which like…come on you should learn more at the actual site right! Otherwise people will never leave their couches! Ohh…couch…I miss you…). There are so many incredible places in China, lots we saw and lots we have still on our list, that I think this is really for Silk Road aficionados and not novices like me. I can recommend street bread and eating all the watermelon and grapes. Shout out to our watermelon friends.