天池
We paid 220 yuan each for this one day tour booked online on the CTrip app. The cost includes entrance tickets to the site itself which costs 155 yuan for a standalone ticket. Still, we decided on shelling out 220 yuan each as the listed package included transportation to and fro from the city with an in bus tour guide and lunch. Payment was made online and we were to meet the tour group at 0830 the next day.
A street corner in Urumqi that morning.
All 50 seats on the bus were filled that morning with Mainland Chinese tourists. Our in bus guide was a Chinese male who surprised us with his black shirt and ripped jeans. After conveying information about the day’s outline, he brought out the ultimate titanium; convincing us to spend more. Apparently, there were other hidden costs that were not explicitly stated in the terms and regulations despite my best effort to read every detail of the package in detail before booking. There was a cable car ride at Heavenly Lake up towards Maya Peak which costs an additional 220 yuan. We didn’t need that ride to Maya Peak as we simply just wanted to visit Heavenly Lake. It seemed Mr Casual Wear’s responsiblity to push for sales, he seemed dismayed by our refusal, claiming that there is nothing to see if without the cable car. “You both think about it again.” he reiterated, moving to the next passenger behind us with wads of cold hard cash in hand collected from other passengers who have opted in. Unable to momentarily accept that an additional cable car ride would cost a hefty 220 yuan (SGD$44), I asked the passengers to the side and front of us about their choice. It seemed that almost everyone on the bus was going ahead with the cable car ride. It wasn’t easy too for Mr Casual Wear who had to break the news, explain, persuade and keep track of the preferences of 50 people.
Mr Casual Wear wasn’t entirely wrong. With 220 yuan, you can get to the Heavenly Lake. However there were other attractions around Heavenly Lake as we learnt and most tourists would spend on the cable car ride to Maya peak as part of the visit. We later decided to purchase the tickets to Maya Peak ourselves directly from the counter (210 yuan). Which meant that our tour organizers earned 10 yuan for each taker of the cable car ride to Maya Peak which wasn’t much indeed.
All tourists need to register before entering the scenic area. Chinese citizens had to scan their identity cards before entering whilst foreign tourists will have their details taken by on site officers. Interestingly, our tour guide also advised us to reply the park officers that we came on our own, rather than part of their tour. The tour wasn’t entirely guided, we were given one last instruction to meet at the parking lot at 1700 for the ride back to Urumqi and everyone scooted off to explore the surroundings of Heavenly Lake.
Routes within the park are served by internal shuttles. Once all passengers are aboard, a guide boards the internal shuttle to introduce the attraction you’re heading to. Our first guide spoke about Kazakhs (哈萨克民族), it turned out that the first stop we were heading to a market place that was empty but peaceful, the businesses of the Kazakhs in the market were dependent on tourists but they did not do any hard selling, and went to the extent of graciously allowing tourists to take photos with their yurts, fox fur and yak heads.
After exiting the souvenir shop located at the end of the route, we boarded another shuttle with a new in bus guide who briefed us about the second stop, Heavenly Lake. The second guide handed out 10 yuan discount coupons for cable car tickets, which allowed us to buy the tickets ourselves at 210 yuan. Heavenly Lake was an 800m uphill walk from the bus stop, there were also tram services one could pay for.
Getting to Maya Peak was a journey into freezing cold. The cable car line was high up in the mountain fog, which we ascended towards by transferring from tram to tram. With only a wool sweater on me, I was shivering in unbearable cold at the entrance of the cable car ride towards Maya Peak. Perhalps I was chilled to the bone, for when we later alighted from the cable car, the surroundings strangely did not feel any colder then the start of the cable car line thousands of feet below. Our surroundings were covered in blankets of dull fog which was a pity but it was an experience like no other.
Left image: Surrounding grey and brown landscape. Right image: Maya Peak’s viewing deck.
In less than an hour, we were back on the cable car, nibbling a piping hot tea egg that warmed my frozen hands. We took a tram down to Heavenly Lake and from Heavenly Lake, transferred to another internal shuttle which took 40 minutes to get to the parking lot where the bus and Mr Casual Wear would wait for us. We were a few minutes early, reaching at 1645 and took a look at the makeshift stalls around the parking lots that sold local produce where we bought camel milk candies and dried blueberries.
Left Image: Group Dinner. Right Image: An accomodation recommended by those on the tour bus, we were looking to change our accomodation in Urumqi when we return to this city after our time in Kashgar later.
Our dinner was settled with the tour group near the scenic park at around 1800 before returning to Urumqi City by tour bus. It wasn’t dark yet when we reached at 2000. And no, we weren’t going retire for the night just yet!
We were going to spend the night on a train and wake up the next morning in Kucha, a city South-East of Urumqi!
Details of the overnight train tickets purchased from CTrip. We had previously purchased tickets for two hard sleepers as there were no better options available. Just before departure, we kept an eye on the page and managed to snatch two soft sleepers as they were made available by travellers who cancelled their journey in the last minute so we refunded the original hard sleepers and upgraded!
As the skies were still bright at 2000, we decided to spend some time shopping at the local Parksons mall before retrieving our backpacks from our accomodation in Urumqi. There was a significant amount of milk products and dried produce at the local supermarket which we were free to try before making our purchases! The journey from Urumqi to Kucha was just a few minutes short of 10 hours and I was spoilt for choice for my in-train snacks.
Left Image: Bubble tea gimmick drink from Parkson’s Miniso. Right Image: The sight of packaged treats at Parkson’s!
We cabbed our way to Urumqi’s train station and reached at 2200hr. Our cab driver from our accomodation to the Urumqi railway station seemed impatient, it wasn’t his day for he drove so recklessly we did not even dare to breathe during the 20 minute ride.
Left image: Interesting architecture located directly opposite the train station. Middle image: Massive main hall with the different boarding gates along the sides of the building. Right image: Over the counter train ticket purchase/ exchange/ refund to destinations within Xinjiang province and major cities in Mainland China.
There are two train terminals within Urumqi itself, namely Urumqi Railway Station (乌鲁木齐站) and Urumqi South Railway Station (乌鲁木齐南站). To avoid arriving at the wrong station, we double and triple checked our e-tickets and made a point to arrive more than two hours earlier before departure. Urumqi Railway Station was a evidently either a new or well maintained building, with its spacious, bright interior and relatively comfortable toilets.
It was 2100, we had plenty of time to retrieve our train tickets from over the counter before our train’s shceduled departure at 2322hr. We also decided to make changes to our online booking from the hard sleeper to soft sleeper option over the counter for the later Kucha to Kashgar leg of the journey in a few days as it was a rather heart stopping experience to let go of our hard sleeper tickets online in hope of snatching soft sleeper tickets. Fortunately, there queues at the counters were short and we easily retrieved our hardcopy train tickets in five minutes by providing our CTrip booking reference and passports as proof of identification.
Left image: Diced Chicken (宫保鸡丁) dinner from Liang Xian Sen (梁先森) food outlet at the train station, 22 yuan. Middle image: Boarding the overnight train, this train terminates at Kashgar with stops along the way, Kucha being one of them. Right Image: The train conductor exchanged our hardcopy train tickets for this card which they would collect before we leave the train.
Image of soft sleeper, four bunk beds in enclosed room. Comfortable but there are no charging ports within. All charging ports are located along the walls of the common corridors, with two per carriage and a fold down seat beside which you can rest on and admire the view beyond while waiting for your phone to charge. The hard sleeper consists of six bunk beds, three atop each other without a door to block out the light and noise.
A train steward making his way down the aisle selling bottled drinks.
At 0149, I received my first message ever since I touched down in Xinjiang. Emergency calling unavailable. Temporarily turned off by your operator. I was charging my phone along the common corridor as this message lit up the corners of my screen. This Google Pixel could not be used anyway, I simply stared out of the window into nothingness. It was pitch black, once in a while I would see flashes of light from the headlamps of vehicles travelling alongside the tracks. Just like I had no idea of how the landscape before me looked like, I had no idea what to expect in the coming days.
Emergency Calling unavailable notification in the wee hours of 28 May 2019.
We spent a comfortable night in our bunks and were woken up by our alarms at 0700. We were alone, the guy in the bottom right bunk bed had already left. There were still two hours before we reached Kucha, during which the train steward made his rounds calling out for breakfast orders and we exchanged our in house cards for the hardcopy train tickets with the train conductor and stared in bewilderment at the vast stretches of land rolling away into oblivion from our windows. The train pulled up at a number of stations that were simply empty. Stark grey.
Left and Right images: 0700hr on 28 May 2019.
Left image: Came across a taped note whilst looking through my Chinese yuan bills. No seller would accept this, would have to be more mindful to check through my change in the following days. Right image: A pack of chips as a snack for our breakfast in the middle of vast plains.
We pulled into Kucha train station on time at 0913 as estimated. Our absence from the train was almost immediately replaced by many who boarded, supposedly bound eastwards for Kashgar in another day and night.