For the following weeks, you're invited to follow Jeremy through his Silk Road Journey. You can get the whole story on his blog.
The Marathon of Sightseeing that is Turpan
By Jeremy
October 17th - 17:00pm
In a new hotel in Turpan
Wow. I certainly had a full day today. I’ve got lots to write about, and I may just have to do some summarization here. It’s becoming quite apparent that I’m writing a lot faster than I can get stuff entered on the weblog. Writing and typing take a chunk of time. When I’m already running around seeing and doing, I have less time than I imagined, and typing on a computer ends up being the last priority, since it’s the most inconvenient, and can be done when I get back to Shanghai, anyway.
So Osman picked me up right on time. We went and had some breakfast, then got on our way. As we got started, I told him that I had a couple of conditions. One, that he eat with me (as I’ve been with guides who think they have to eat separate from the guests, and that doesn’t really make sense to me, unless there’s a huge number of guests), and that I pay the bill. Two, that he be honest and forthcoming with me, as I planned on asking lots of questions. I told him that if he came through on both counts, that I could guarantee him a good tip. He actually failed on both conditions, but for reasons that I was totally willing to excuse, so I still gave him the good tip (how’s about 100% for a tip?).
Before I write about the place I visited today, I want to write about my experience with Osman and how happy I am that I chose him. He’s a 29-year old, unmarried Uyghur who has lived his whole life in Turpan with his now-retired parents, and makes his living driving tourists like me around the city and its sights. I was thoroughly impressed by him and his entire person. My first impression of him was that his hair was combed neatly and his clothes were clean and tidy. When he showed me his car, the outside was wiped clean of dust, and the inside was pretty much immaculate, if not new. This morning, he was on time. When I told him about my conditions, he told me, ”Oh, you don’t have to worry about me being honest. I’m a serious Muslim and we can’t lie.” He said it so simply and plainly, as if there were no other way the world could be arranged, that I couldn’t help but believe him.
Throughout the day, I discovered that he wasn’t kidding when he said he was a serious Muslim. He very faithfully does is prayers five times a day, keeping a small rug in the trunk of his car, in case he can’t be at a mosque to do them. That’s actually why he failed the first condition. He didn’t have lunch with me, because Friday afternoon, so he says, is the holiest time of the week, and he wanted to go to a nearby mosque to pray. And he was very forthcoming about all the questions I asked him about Islam and some of its related issues, like Sunnis and Shiites, prayers, Mecca, etc.
The only thing he wasn’t forthcoming about (in fact he – as politely as possible – refused to talk about it) was what he knew about some of the violent Uyghur revolts, such as the one in 1997. I mentioned the revolts, and he said, “Um…. Yeah… We heard that that happened.” I asked if Uyghur people still feel that way, and he replied, “I… that’s…. well, that’s political talk, and I don’t really like to talk about political stuff.” I asked why not, and he said, smiling and slightly laughing out of what I could tell was discomfort, “ I just don’t really like to talk about it.” By this time, I was already feeling a little bad for taking it this far, so I said that I could understand that and dropped the subject. I wasn’t just saying that, either. I really do understand his unwillingness to speak anything about Uyghurs and their independence. The Chinese government is apparently very carefully watching anyone they consider even vaguely suspicious.
All in all, Osman is a humble and devoted person, both of which are qualities I find HIGHLY important and especially rare anywhere, but even more so in China and Shanghai. His care for doing a good job was absolutely refreshing, and this was despite the fact that the arranged price was 100 RMB, about one-third of what he could probably get during the high tourist season. So that’s why I gave him a 100% tip. I feel like 100 RMB (which is only a dinner for myself in the United States, but is an entire day’s work for him) is money well spent in reward of qualities like those that Osman possesses.
Now, onto the day’s sights. I saw 9 different spots today - some amazing, some not even worth the trip. After each description, I give the destination a rank for the day.
1. Bezeklik “Thousand Buddha Caves” 柏孜克里克千佛洞
- In a valley behind the Flaming Mountains east of Turpan, there’s a spot where, beginning in the 4th century AD all the way to the 14th century, a series of 68 caves were dug into the Cliffside, and a large number of Buddhist paintings and statues were set inside these caves. A couple of explorers from Germany and England (at different times) took almost every good sculpture and even the murals on the walls with them, shipping them back to Europe. 
A large number were lost to bombings in Berlin during WWII. In addition to this loss, the caves suffered a large amount of defacing and destruction at the hands of the local Uyghurs, after they were forcibly converted to Islam. According to Osman, Islam doesn’t allow likenesses of anything living, like humans and animal, and ESPECIALLY deities. Plants and simpler life forms are okay, though. But because of all this pillaging and destruction, whether in the name of archeology or in the name of Islam, this spot was a little disappointing. Its location is quite nice, though. It was number 7 out of 9 for the day.
2. Tuyugou Town 吐峪沟镇
- This place, a small Uyghur town in a valley even further east of Turpan, is a place that many foreign travelers like to go, but that Chinese travelers rarely have interest in. Next year, though, they’re going to turn it into an official certified tourist attraction, where you pay entrance fees, etc… So I figured now would be a perfect time to go, before there are merchants setting up stands where they try to sell you irrelevant memorabilia trinkets and beverages whose plastic bottles will inevitably end up lying empty along the pathways.
This is a little town built all out of mud/straw/wood frame houses, and is one of those places that has been minimally affected by modern development. All of these brown houses are built at various levels, along with the contours of the valley, with streams running through the town with fresh water for washing, boiling, etc. A small truck with a couple of goat carcasses hanging from a bar drove through the small paths, with a guy riding in the back yelling “MEEEEAAAAT!!!” (in Uyghur, of course), old ladies would come out, strike a deal, and the guy would whip out a big knife, carve off a chunk of meat, and then they’d continue on their way. Many people are drying sorghum (a grain) and grapes on their roofs.
The town also has religious significance to some Muslims. According to a story/legend, six extremely pious Muslims hid in a cave here from an imposter Allah, and never came out. Coming here is said by some to be second only to going to Mecca. Osman, however, doesn’t believe this. He says that no one actually knows for sure where the cave in the legend is. He also doesn’t personally think there’s much to see at Tuyougou, as it’s just a backward old town to him, where they do things in old-fashioned ways. But he’s happy to bring tourists there. I’m quite glad he suggested it, as I wouldn’t have known to request going there on my own. It ranks number 2 out of 9 in satisfaction for the day, due to how un-touristy and full of individual character the place is, though that may change in the future. (more pics: A path between two houses, A mosque, A resident having an nice sit in the shade)
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