I joined a tour of Xinjiang Province, China, in September of 2001.

The itinerary, faxed at medium-ugly resolution, looked like this:

...which, had I been able to read Chinese, would have roughly translated into the following: 9/7 - Fly from Beijing to Urumqi to Kashgar 9/8 - Lake Karakol 9/9 - Fly to Urumqi 9/10 - Fly to Yining 9/11 - Sayram Lake, bus to Bo Le 9/12 - "Strange Rock Place", bus to Kuei Tun 9/13 - "Devil City", oil-producing region 9/14 - Bus to Lake Kanas 9/15 - Bus to Altai 9/16 - Day in Altai, Fly to Urumqi 9/17 - Fly to Beijing

Xinjiang is the huge border state that separates Han China from Asia Minor. It's mostly inhospitable terrain, seemingly composed of alternating endless mountain chains and vast, uncrossable deserts. This is actually reflected in the Chinese characters for "Xin Jiang": the character for "Jiang", meaning "boundary" or "border", contains an iconic representation of two deserts separated by three mountain chains.

Xinjiang

The oases that dot the edge of the deserts were once important waypoints along the Silk Road. Surprisingly (but only because the territory is claimed by the PRC), the natives of the territory are Caucasians, possibly Turkic in appearance.

Package tours through the region have become very popular recently, so travelling with a group from the local Chinese Community Center seemed like a reasonably safe way to go.

Xinjiang Province

Xinjiang shares a border with an unbelievable number of countries, including Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Mongolia. Within China, it neighbors Xizang (Tibet), Qinghai, and Gansu provinces.

I prepared for this trip by reading the LP China chapter on Xinjiang, of course, and then sought out contemporary accounts of travel through the region. The two that I read were "Night Train to Turkistan", which I can't really recommend unless you're a Mark Salzman fan (the book does offer the following travel tip: If you're stuck in the hinterlands of Asia and can't get people to listen to you, have a white woman do your talking), and a hilarious account of one man's quest to get home from China, "From Heaven Lake", by Vikram Seth. Seth's book starts out in Xinjiang, though his primary journey is on a route through Tibet.

Night Train to Turkistan

From Heaven Lake

Matching up the itinerary to the descriptions in the Lonely Planet China guide is actually a little harder than it sounds, since the Chinese names are somewhat different than the Romanized names in the book. For example, Sayram Lake becomes "Sai Li Mu Hu", and Urumqi becomes "Wu Lu Mu Qi", after being shoehorned into Mandarin (and rendered into Pinyin). My edition of LP listed both names, but their index did not. On the other hand, their section on Xinjiang wasn't very big, so it was possible to skim through the whole thing looking for, say, a description of "Xiang Fei Mu", which was listed as the Abakh Hoja Tomb.

Incidentally, my edition of Lonely Planet China was printed in 1994, but the information given about Xinjiang turned out to be mostly valid for 2001 anyway. Some things just don't change.

Had I been able to read between the lines, this is how the itinerary should have read:

• 9/7 - Two painful China Air flights into Northwest China.
• 9/8 - Bumpy bus ride through an improved goat-trail to Pakistan--watch out for falling rocks!
• 9/9 - Godforsaken flight to Urumqi. At 11:30 PM, if it's on time.
• 9/10 - ...and because we haven't given China Air enough business, another death-defying flight to Yining.
• 9/11 - Visit Sayram Lake, say goodbye to your luggage before boarding the bus to Bo Le. Did we mention the electricity rationing?
• 9/12 - Look at some stupid rocks. Take another interminable bus through more bad roads. Hope you don't need Dramamine.
• 9/13 - Stay on bleeding bus ALL DAY as we scurry from one miserable little industrial town to another. Gotta make that timetable! Visit a scenic location from "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" by driving past it at high speed, but stop to look at some f---ing oil derricks. Bad roads should be second nature to you by now.
• 9/14 - Bus to Lake Kanas. Did you enjoy having no electricity? How about unheated rooms in subfreezing temperatures as well? Did we mention that you'll be staying on a mountain? Hope you brought enough thermal underwear, Yankee.
• 9/15 - Bus to Altai. Also known as: Frankenstein's Laboratory for Civic Art.
• 9/16 - Spend day in Godforsaken Altai, fly to Urumqi.
• 9/17 - Fly to Beijing, start vacation.

I hope you enjoy my story.