Today was mostly a travel day again. We drove from Turpan to Urumchi, through a windy area, blowing up to 60-70 kilometers an hour, if we did the math right with our guide. We racketed along in our van, driven skillfully by Yusuf, but still jerky, and we saw some accidents with the big goods trucks on the way. We passed the larges wind farm in Asia on the way - no wonder.
We had another great Uighur meal for lunch -- lamb pilaf with lamb kabobs. We have loved the meals in this part of the world -- simple, lamb-based comfort food. The city itself has large numbers of Chinese troops, in long convoys along the road and almost everywhere else we travelled in the city. The riots in Urumchi occurred nerly a year ago, in July. It seems likely that the troops are ensuring that the anniversary passes peacefully. We spent two hours in the Urumchi museum.
We saw two exhibits. The first was a set of photos, objects and dioramas for each of the many 'ethnic' groups in this Northwest China area. Uzbek, Uighurs, Tajiks, Hui, Manchu, Kazaks, Kyrgiz, Tatats, Mongolians, Russians, others. The exhibit was intended to demonstrate respect for this diversity. Many of these groups share Turkic language roots, an Indo-European language. Some of the groups use Arabic script, others Chinese characters, regardless of the roots of the words themselves. Other groups share a Mongolian language base.
The unique display in this museum is the collection of mummies and other good from graves around the Zinjiang province. We met the 'famous Loulan beauty', a 4000 year old mummy, dead at 45, with red hair, skinny nose and generally European features. We saw the mummy of the Chinese general whose tomb we saw in Turpan. His tombstone says he died of mental illness, which our guide says was worry over his inability to maintain peace in Turpan at the end of the Tang dynasty. And we saw a mummy from a 4000 year old desert site with carefully arranged poplar posts and boat-shaped coffins, with symbols that some interpret as a worship of fertility. Again, these burials have European features, and remarkably preservd clothing, shoes, even dainty jade jewelry.
A last thought: there were many photos of rock art and carved stone figures from the Altai mountains north of the Gobi desert. Surely we should investigate journeying to these mountains!
We fly tonight to Kashgar, city of romance, intrigue.....
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