About 60 persons took part in the trip to Xinjiang. We left the conference site around 2:30, heading directly for the Beijing Airport in order to make the 5 o'clock flight to Urumuqi. Flying time was three and a half hours, and by the time we reached Urumuqi it was already 8:30, but being two hours late in time zones the sun was only just about to set as we came out of the Urumuqi Airport. We had supper at an outdoor restaurant before checking into the hotel for lodging. Dining outdoors under a trellis of vines and mingling among the ethnically dressed locals, it certainly added flavors to the bake bread and roasted mutton that were served. We were quite satisfied with our first encounter with the far remote Xinjiang.

The hotel we checked in turned out to be a surprise. It was not a camel tent but the newly completed 4-star Yindu Hotel with ultra-modern accommodations, complete with a shopping mall and flying stairway in the lobby, yet, relatively inexpensive. Thanks again to our tour organizer, Wang Lianxiang of IWHR, and his team of assistants, all of us quickly checked into our assigned rooms.

As usual our wakeup calls came at 7:00 (Beijing time), corresponding to 5:00 local time (if the nation were divided into time zones, but was not), and by the time we walked out of our rooms, the first rays of sunrise just emerged from the distant majestic Tianshan Mountains. Without wasting a moment of time, we had breakfast in the hotel balcony. It was of the luxurious buffet style, which should be enough to nourish us for an entire day.

The schedule for the day started with a visit to the fabled Tianchi (Heavenly Pond) crouched within one of the peaks of Tianshan. Tianchi is located due east of Urumuqi, but to reach it we must drive north and then loop back south to ascend the mountains, sneaking through a narrow passage called Yixiantian (A Crack in the Sky), before entering this "heavenly" domain. It was good to start outdoor activities early in the morning for it got hot quickly. By 10:00, still some distance from Tianchi, we stopped to rest in a nearby town, and parked our tour buses at a gift shop for us to sample the local souvenirs. As we found out later, a list of gift shops was already included in our travel itinerary, and there was no rush to buy anything at the first encounter. Out in the streets I saw very little commercial activities going on. Apparently shopping hours started in the late afternoon. Not for us, of course.

On the way to the mountains we saw a relatively barren landscape totally devoid of forest. The only recognizable plant cultivated by farmers on sparingly isolated farms was the sunflower. With precipitation only in the 100 mm range, it was not clear what else could be planted here. (Though I knew that cotton growing was a major industry here, I saw no evidence of it so far. Later on I found out that amidst the vast expanse of barren land there were pockets of oasis with underground water supply, where the economy thrived.)

As we ascended the Tianshan mountains, the first thing that greeted us was the sound of torrential running water, a most unexpected phenomenon. Rushing like rapids was a channel of white water hurrying down the side of the highway. We stopped to take a look. The water was crystal clear, churning and tumbling pass the rocky riverbed, as if to provide music to welcome guests from a distant land. At this elevation the air temperature was down to a comfortably chilly range. The scenery was indeed "out of this world."

Before we reached Tianchi, we went through the Crack, and several smaller ponds. Pine trees lined the lower parts of the mountains below the timber line. Our tour guide told us stories related to these sites, but they were not as interesting as the scenes outside.

Finally, in the early afternoon we came face to face with Tianchi, a glacial lake at 2,000 m above sea level and with a surface area of 5 sq km -- taken from a tourist book, for those who are interested in details. That's only the "chi" part of Tianchi; the "tian" part is something else. The "tian" part cannot be conveyed in human terms, and clearly each person would see it in a different way. I shall just show you a picture of it, and let you come up with your own description.

From novels we read about a rare flower, the "snow-mountain lotus," which possesses magical medicinal property, is a native of Tianshan and nowhere else. Clearly any plant that thrives in such high altitude and at such low temperature must have exceptional quality. There was a large supply of snow-mountain lotus here -- nearly every vendor sold them, and at a low price too, which unwittingly distracted the mystical quality of the plant. If it were sold at a much higher price, the customers might actually believe in its unusual attributes.

After lunch our group took the obligatory boat ride through the lake in order to get near to the opposite shore, and was given a chance to claim to have been "drifting on" Tianchi. Being an energetic group we also climbed the surrounding hills briefly to explore whatever that was not told on the tourist book. We were satisfied with reaching a minor peak to gain a better view of Tianchi from a high vantage point.

Returning from Tianchi we stopped outside the city to inspect a sediment-filtering plant. In the evening we had dinner at a nearby restaurant and to meet with the local academics and water resource personnel. Walking from the hotel to the restaurant we passed through a huge outdoor market place occupying most of the streets next to an elevated expressway. At 6:00 the market was busy with business. A regional produce was the "dish-shape peach," which I had heard of before, but only had the chance of seeing it here for the first time.

The next morning after breakfast we would check out of the Yindu Hotel, spend our morning touring the city, and then depart for Turfan along the ancient Silk Road. Urumuqi was a very interesting and colorful place to visit. Members of our group did a lot of shopping. We also visited a jade-carving factory with a souvenir store on the side.

After having lunch in a fancy restaurant in town, we took off for Turfan in the afternoon. Along the way we stopped to look at an experimental site using windmills to generate electric power to take advantage of the strong wind available here year-long. The windmills were imported, and we were told that each windmill could generate enough electricity to serve 500 households.

Later, we stopped at a resting place in the town of Daban. Daban was mentioned in a very popular folk song which we all sang while we were young, called "The pebble-lined road of Daban." Ever since we encountered the song, Daban was only a distant place to us. Here, shaded by tall poplar trees, a plaster status of a donkey carriage carrying the bride to her groom living in another village, as depicted in the song, was reproduced in life size. The resting place was actually another souvenir shop.

The city of Turfan is located in an inland depression some 280 meters below sea level. It is known for its extremely hot temperature. There we were, plunging into it in early August in the hottest season of the year! If not for its fabled Silk Road, why would we've come here? We wanted to testify to the ardous trip taken by Monk San Zhuang on his way to and from the land of Buddha. As students studying aboard that we once were, we must honor Monk San Zhuang to be the torch-bearer among our ranks.

We drove to Turfan in three separate vans. Actually the temperature along the way, though hot, was quite bearable. The landscape was extraordinary barren however -- wide expanse of pebble ladden flats stretched out in front of mountain ranges of badly eroded cliffs. Not a single tree was in sight. Sparingly, some cattle munched on pathes of grassland. Our tour guide, a young man in his thirties, told us that his parents volunteered to come here to help develop the land. Leaving behind their ancestral land in the coastal Zhejiang province, they travelled by train and on foot carrying their belongings to reach their destination in some remote development unit. Along the way we stopped to look at some imported wind-driven power generating facility, and also it gave us a chance to relieve ourselves behind trenches.

By late afternoon we reached Turfan, and checked into the Luzhou (Oasis) Hotel. It had a unique local flavor. True to its name "oasis" the boulevard in front of the hotel was shaded by grapevines. Its coolness felt indeed like entering an oasis amidst burning sandy flats. No program had been planned for that day. After supper some of us took a leisure walk around town, while others had a ride in the donkey carts. Life was slow here. Near the market place we saw water flowing rapidly through an open ditch by the road way. Vendors used it to wash produce and to carry away waste. How was this life-blood going to survive the booming tourist industry when demand for water would be many times higher than it could provide? Would one day in the near future the local people who sat contendedly nearby lose this precious water supple, which nourished their families for generations? I was afraid that the inevitable would come, and soon. Could we, professionals in water resources, do anything about it?

The next morning we must check out of the hotel, and send our belongings to the train station ahead of us so that when we completed our local visits we could go directly to the train station to catch our train to Dunhuang, which was known for its Buddhist grottos. The train would stop at Turfan for 8 minutes, and there would not be enough time for us to load all our belongings during such a short stop at the station. Our belongings were actually taken to another station to be loaded. With full confidence in our organizer Wang Lianxiang, we let this elaborate scheme to play out by itself. We also kept a few rooms at Luzhou Hotel so that some of us could take a bath after we came back from our day-long trip.

We first visited an abandoned Emin Minaret, once a sacred shrine, and then to the nearby Grape Valley, known for its grapes, the sweetest of them all. Grapes were cultivated everywhere, and brick structures used for drying grapes into raisins dotted the surrounding. We first visited a grape farm, and were entertained by a performance of song and dance. Xinjiang people were known for their inclination to sing and dance, which conveyed special ethnic flavor. We were also entertained by the best tasting melons, for which Xinjiang was known for.

While annual precipitation in Turfan is under 100 mm range, evapotranspiration is over 3,000 mm, it is clear why surface water is totally absent here. To reduce evaporation lost, water must be conveyed through covered channels. A net work of such channels are hidden underground. At the grape farm an entrance to an underground channel was shown to visitors. Such sites were called Kan'er wells, which were located at different sections of the channel to allow workers to enter the channel for repair. The channels were themselves referred to as Kan'er wells. It seemed to me that it would be easy enough to dig such a channel, but what puzzled me was how to keep the channel from leaking in a land composed of sandy silt. If any of you know how such channels are built, please let me know.

In the afternoon we went to see the Jiaohe Ruins and Gaochang Ruins. Jiaohe and Gaochang were major cities along the northwest passage two millennia ago. They were once nourished by rivers passing through the region. After the rivers dried up, the cities were abandoned. We anticipated that water resources would be some of the most precious commodities in the 21th century. Shouldn't we learn something from studying these sites here?

Next stop would be the Flaming Mountains, which we all learned from reading the classic novel Journey to the West to be the hottest place on earth. We drove up the mountains to the Thousand Buddha Caves of Baize to view the cave carvings. In the valley below the land was lusciously green. What a welcoming sight it must have been to many weary travelers who took their ardous journey through the fiery desolate land. Why is this place so hot? I think it is the radiation effect. The south-facing cliffs serve as conveging lenses to focus the Sun's rays onto this area. What do you think?

In the evening we were invited by the officials of the Xinjiang Water Resources Department and members of the Xinjiang Agricultural Univeristy to a dinner. After dinner many of us attended a song-and-dance performance. Returning from the performance and an eventful day it was a hectic rush to take baths in just three available bathrooms. By 8:30 we drove to the train station to board the 9:30 train to Dunghuang's Liuyuan station. To accommodate all 60 of us, the train added two extra sleepers on this run, with promise of air-conditioned luxury. After we had boarded the train, we found that not only was there no air-conditioning, but also without electricity for lights. Everybody graciously endured the minor inconveniences without too many complaints. We just slept with the windows open, as we didn't need the lights for putting on the pajamas anyway.

We arrived at the Liuyuan station at 8:15 in the morning, and were driven to Dunhuang to view the grottos immediately. Dunhuang was quite a distance away from the railroad; we reached it in the afternoon around 2:00. We were now in the Gansu province, and a new group of tourist agents came to take care of us. As cultural relics the Dunhuang Grottos were far too complex to be viewed in a few hours. I was happy to be here to gauge of its size, leaving the artistic details to a later day.

We checked in to the Dunhuang Guesthouse later in the afternoon, and in the evening we visited the Mingsha Dunes and the Crescent Moon Spring. As if all that traveling the days before was not tiring enough, many of us actually climbed the tall sand dune in front of the Spring just to see if the sand dune actually "sang" as one walked on it (Mingsha meaning "singing sand"). I detected no such peculiarity. A small spring was positioned at the foot of the dune, which people came by taking camel rides, while we reached it by climbing the dune. In a land of desert, a small spring must mean a great deal to the local people. Coming from places with unlimited water supply, we seldom think of water resources as precious. A lesson should be learned here.

The next morning we departed early to visit the ancient Jiayuguan Fortress, the extreme western garrison of the Great Wall. It took five and a half hours to get there by car. A slight drizzle started to fall as we embarked on this long journey, and the weather was rather chilly in fact. We came here for romantic reasons, largely because of its depiction in Tang poems (which we all read in our youth), which recalled with great sorrow and remorse for the soldiers who forsook their homeland to defend these fortresses. Every sunset and full moon reminded them of their loved ones at home. The grandeur of the Tang Empire rest on the shoulders of these brave men.

We also visited some ancient tombs of the Han dynasty, left behind from some two millennia ago. There were interesting wall paintings depicting daily life at the time. Before we left the area we were taken to a jade carving factory to visit its souvenir store. By them members in our group were quite good at haggling for a bargain. At the end, some came out with a smile, while others feeling dejected.

By the time we checked into the Changcheng Hotel it was already 9:30. It was the last day of our tour. The next day we would board a plane from the Jiayuguan Airport to fly to Lanzhou, and then change plane for Beijing.

It rained in the morning when we were boarding the plane at the Jiayuguan Airport. Being a minor airport I was afraid that the plane servicing this route would not fly due to bad weather. Fortunately that was not the case. Tourist business was so good in this route that it was served by a 4-engine British-made all-weather jet. Boarding the plane at 9:40 we arrived at Lanzhou Airport by 11:00, where we had our lunch. The scheduled flight from Lanzhou to Beijing was delayed for two hours due to bad weather. Many of us use the extra time to buy souvenirs from the airport stores, which were doing a booming business. We finally left Lanzhou at 2:00, and reached Beijing at 4:00.

Our tour ended at the Beijing Airport, and we would be on our separate ways after that. From July 30 to August 5, our group spent many memorable moments together. It was sad to say goodbye to each other. Totally exhausted and drained of energy, it was good for us to find a moment of solitude to rest and repair. We hope we would meet again, some day, some where on the globe, across the strait, over the oceans, for professional reasons or in friendship.

Photo source: George Leung (1997)