Kanas Lake Tour

So after two very uninspiring days in Urumuqi, where we did nothing but eat food from the big supermarket Carrefour, Martin and I left on a four day tour to Kanas Lake. We did not want to take a tour at all, but after some swift calculations on my little cell phone, we realised that it would be soooo much cheaper that way. Of course we lose our freedom, but we help our pockets... and that is our ultimate aim these days!

On Saturday morning, we woke up at 6:30am (oh the pain!!) and managed to just about organise ourselves to be at the rendevous point (somewhere in the middle of the city) at the correct time. 7:30am. We expected to see lots of other tourists there, eagerly awaiting the bus. But this was not to be, and we spent almost another hour waiting for the bus to arrive, as well as the other passengers. But eventually we were all on the bus and ready to go... 10 hours driving through the desert ahead of us.

The day in the bus didn't turn out to be so bad, mostly because I'd recently acquired a new book to read ("The Bonesetter's Daughter" by Amy Tang. Wonderful book, would recommend it!!). After one long-ish stop in the desert to see some famous land forms (in "The Ghost Town of China" so named because apparantly when the wind blows through these rock formations, it sounds creeeeepy!!), a few other toilet breaks, and a finished book, we arrived in Burquin.

I don't really have much to say about Burquin, all I really remember is the little hotel we stayed in and the street it was on. We spent an hour or so wandering along the street before retiring to our room to sleep. We woke up too early the next morning and were ready about half an hour before everyone else... very annoying as it was cold and my body would have enjoyed an extra 30 minutes in my warm bed :) I mostly blame my poor Chinese, our tour guide is constantly rattling off useful information, but I catch hardly any of it!

That morning, we took another 3 hours to reach Kanas Lake. The drive was gorgeous, through mountains, ravines, forests etc... stunning. When we got there, it was all far too touristy for our liking - loads of huge tour buses parked in the parking lot, thousands of Chinese tourists hanging around screaming at each other and a queue for the toilets that was unbelievable. The toilets themselves were also rather a treat. The stench was unbearable and as most of them didn't have doors you just had to go with about 20 other woman staring at you while you did your thing. I was such a novelty that some of the women actually bent down to get a closer look (at what I don't want to even think about... I just got out of there as fast as I could!!).

After being grouped together by our tour guide we were rushed through the gate, and onto another bus. The only vehicles allowed in the lake area are the specially assigned buses, which you can just get on and off whereever you want. We spent the whole day there, just soaking in the gorgeous views. It was stunning!! Definately one of my favourite places in our travels so far. Even though I hated seeing all the tourists around, we were still able to creep away from them in places and just enjoy the scenery.

Kanas Lake in winter.


Cresent Moon area.


That afternoon we also hiked up one of the mountains next to the lake, and the view from the top was gorgeous! We could see all the way to Friendship Peak, a mountain on the Russian border! While the rest of our tour took a bus back down the mountain to save time, Martin and I caused trouble by saying we wanted to hike all the way down again. After getting the telephone number of a lovely man (his name is Levy, and he lives in Chengdu with his wife and daughter) who spoke excellent English, our guide was satisfied that we'd be ok, and we were allowed to do the trip by ourselves. We spent a lovely hour and a half walking down the moutain, enjoying the views of the snow capped mountains all around us.

When we reached the bottom we took one of the lake buses back to the entrance in time to meet the rest of our tour. Or so we thought! By now it was about 7:40pm and we were supposed to have been there at 7:30pm. After discovering that they hadn't waited for us, we phoned Levy to find out what we should do. Thank goodness we had my phone :) We were told to walk for about another 30 minutes down the hill, and soon we'd find the complex of hotels that all the tourists were kept in. Martin managed to hitch a lift with a nice man in a 4x4, horray for my tired feet!

Once we reached all the hotels it wasn't hard to spot some members of our group, so we followed them to find out where we'd be sleeping. Levy was wonderful - he helped us get our bags out of the bus, bought us some muttom kebabs for supper and showed us where we'd sleep... we had to separate because they were all dorm rooms and of course, boys and girls can't share a room!! ha ha ha. I was in a room with 2 other women, both of whose respective other halves were in Martin's room with him.

That night I almost froze!! I was so cold I hardly slept at all, even though I was wearing my gorgeous long-johns, about 3 tops and was under a thick duvet. When Martin came to make sure I was awake, he found a very grumpy cold girlfriend.

That morning we drove again to Kanas Lake, to watch the sunrise. Sadly, the weather was terrible and it was bitterly cold, so the sunrise was not great. It was really cloudy and misty so we couldn't see much and after a while it started raining so everyone decided that we wouldn't wait it out. We left the Kanas Lake area and headed in our tour bus to Hemu. This part of the tour was not in our original plan, we were told nothing about an extra trip to a little village called Hemu, next to Hemu river. Martin and I had caused another stir the night before because we refused to pay extra for this trip. All the other Chinese tourists had coughed up the money, but it was really expensive for something we weren't told about from the beginning. Luckily Levy helped us talk to the tour guide and miraculously we were told that we could come for no extra charge. Horray!!

The trip to Hemu took a few hours, more driving through the twisty turny mountain roads. But I wasn't complaining, it's autumn now so the trees were the most gorgeous shades of green, yellow, orange and red - absolutely stunning. When we arrived in Hemu we were really glad we hadn't paid anything extra. It was stunning, but still touristy. There were lots and lots of wooden houses being built everywhere (you can imagine how much worse the tourism will be in a few years time) and we were often hassled by boys on horses trying to get us to pay for a ride. We had a nice time regardless, took a walk up the side of a mountain with Levy, got some gorgeous photos and enjoyed the fresh air!

Hemu river.


After spending the afternoon walking around, we were back on the bus headed for Burquin again. Another uneventful evening, just catching up with sleep and eating instant noodels.

The next day, we were back on the bus returning to Urumuqi. Nice drive back, Martin and I nabbed the back seat so we stretched out and slept a lot of the way. Lots of toilet stops along the way, including one of the most disgusting ones we've seen so far.... couldn't describe it. You'll have to see a picture one day :)

When we got back to the city the fun didn't stop... Levy had invited us to dinner that night. He gave us an hour to get back to our youth hostel, shower and change and meet him at the restaurant he'd picked out. No problem we thought. But getting the local bus back to our youth hostel proved to be harder than we thought - so annoying, and we eventually had to take a taxi (how we hate them!! money stealers!!). Once at the youth hostel, we still had to check in and pay for a night's accomodation, and then ask them to unlock the shower so we could get in. This all took rather longer than an hour and when we eventually sat down at the table with Levy (and our tour guide) we were really late. Ooops.

We had the most delicious dinner with the two of them - lamb kebabs, rice and more lamb, and sweet yoghurt for pudding (which we ate first because it arrived and we were hungry!!). We also found out that our tour guide had paid our entrance fee to Hemu (Y120, about 8 pounds... doesn't sound like much but not to be sniffed at considering the small amount she's probably earning!). Such a sweet and lovely lady - we couldn't believe it and felt really bad about insisting on not paying for something we weren't told about. Ooops!

So now were just waiting till tomorrow when we leave on our 24 hour bus journey to Kashgar. I'm really looking forward to going to the markets there (perhaps buying myself a silk treat!) and getting to the Pakistan border. Horray :)