Backtracking again, I took the fast train (25 hours) from Kashgar to Urumqi and found it just as nice as the first time. Maybe it was because the national holiday just ended, but I have never seen a Chinese train so empty—none of the hard sleeper compartments had more than two people in them. My roommate was a middle-aged Chinese woman who spoke no English. Of course this didn’t stop her from feeding me grapes, oranges and pears and forcing me to take a nap during the day. She even covered me up with a blanket when she thought I was asleep. I must have kept her up during the night with my cough because in the morning she forced me to take some dubious-looking medicine and insisted I keep an entire package of throat drops.
My next door neighbor was a 21-year old girl who spoke basic English. Her language skills were better than most “English speaking” Chinese I meet although she apologized throughout the hours we spent talking. Everyone I meet asks me what I like about China and what I think about it. It’s hard to say, the third time around I’ve decided that it seems to be getting a little cleaner and a little more organized. This change of tune may be influenced by the bureaucracy of Central Asia and may be due to the Muslim influence on hygiene in Xinjiang. I did say that the main thing that I don’t like about China is that it’s dirty. The next morning she came back to tell me that, when discussing what I said with her grandfather, he told her it’s not just a social problem but an economic problem. Maybe, but there are a lot of rich people in China these days.
Even though Urumqi, China isn’t a huge tourist destination I really enjoyed my four nights here. Just like the eight days I spent waiting for my Kyrgyz visa two months ago, I spent my time getting massages, buying DVDs and eating some KFC. The longer I travel the more I appreciate these little Western luxuries.
My second time in Urumqi was better than the first, mostly due to the fact that David was in town this time. Most people make fun of me for my internet addiction but many good things come of it. I have met quite a few travelers through my site and David is one of them. He’s been living in Urumqi for a few years now and opened his apartment (and wireless internet!) up to me while I was in town. Although we first met through our mutual blogs (check his out here) we met in person in Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia during the Naadam festival back in July.
Because I was in a comfy apartment with internet access and good company I stayed two extra days in Urumqi. I have to admit, I think I’ve been fooling some of you out there who don’t know me well. While I’ve been writing about the madressas of Uzbekistan and driving around remote Tajikistan I’ve been preoccupied with something other than my surroundings—the new fall TV season. It’s true, I miss my shows. There’s a few that left off on a cliffhanger, Supernatural and The Office come to mind, and I just had to know what happened.
So while I had the opportunity I downloaded some TV, like the first new episode of The Office, off of iTunes. It wasn’t that easy—to download the episode I first had to download the newest version of iTunes and to play the episode I had to download the newest Quicktime. All of this takes a lot of time on a Chinese internet connection and m y old G3 computer. To add insult to injury, once I downloaded everything I discovered that my five-year old computer’s processor isn’t fast enough to play anything on the new Quicktime.
After all of that time I’ve only managed to listen to the new Office, but even that made me feel a little better. It’s okay, besides, I spent a bit of my time in Dushanbe, Tajikistan reading up on spoilers for all of my shows anyway. That goes to show that as far away form “the real world” I get I’ll always find a way to keep up on the little things that remind me of home.
Besides getting my TV fix I took care of other pressing matters, like getting a massage. My first night in town David and I went out for dinner and massage. I didn’t know that you could get an actual massage at a massage parlor until 2am. His friend met us and we opted for the foot wash, which turned out to be a foot soak in Chinese medicine and a leg and back massage lasting 90 minutes. Not bad. We went back for another massage a few days later, this time with one of his roommates and her two sisters. We all got the 90 minute massage, which was unlike any massage I’ve had before. Because “I’m not too thin” I was given the massage almost completely by foot. The young girl stood above me balancing on metal bars attached to the ceiling. It was great because a lot of pressure was applied without the squeezing that always leaves me a little sore. She even did a little twisting and pulling, much like thai massage. At the end she used hot sandbags on my back while scratching it and then cradled me on the front of her legs, rocking me back and forth on the hot bag.
Staying near the University and Uigur district I enjoyed a lot of restaurants and city life I would otherwise not seen. It was especially interesting to spend time with his two Uigur roommates who were more Western than many of the Chinese girls I meet. I even think I managed to get one hooked on Supernatural after she professed her love of Buffy. We also met up for a game of ultimate frisbee with some of David’s local friends and expats who are either in town teaching English or studying at the University. I didn’t think I would do very well with a frisbee, let alone in the rain on asphalt but I didn’t sabotage our team too much. Overall my time in Urumqi recharged me after being worn down by the bad roads, the bad internet and the bad governments of Central Asia.
10 responses to “Home Sweet Home: Urumqi”
Glad things are looking up! I am cuious…does anyone talk about North Korea? Its all I see on the news these days!
I’ll give you the link to a really good viewer for your comp. My old iMac is ANCIENT and I could never play anything I downloaded on it. But then a friend told me about this one program that plays almost every type of video/audio file out there.
It works like a fricking miracle! If it can work on my comp, with a couple of hiccups in the first minute, it can play on ANY comp!
Okay, now I must go and read the rest of your blog. I’ll comment later with the link to the program, ‘kay?
oooh… did you get to see Supernatural yet? I, too, love the show. It is pretty good this season. The season premiere was really good! Sounds like Urumqi is a great break from the -stans.
Nancy,
When I had cable TV in Osh and Kashgar the BBC International and Chinese English station CCTV 9 both had a lot on N. Korea. But since then I’m not really exposed to media at all. None of the other travelers are talking about it really, not even the Korean in my dorm room in Lhasa.
Ali,
Ahh, thank you. I tried MPlayer and VLC ( I think that’s the nake). Both said it didn’t support the format. It’s iTunes so the format is .m4v. I tried cahnging the extention to .mp4 and that didn’t work, surprise, surprise. I can watch everything else in MPlayer.
By the way, the wireless internet I had was through an apple connector (I could stream from my iPod to the stereo too) and David is also an iBook user. It was nice to be in Apple-friendly surroundings.
Julie,
Oh yes. That’s the first thing I did in Lhasa. And it’s good. Not just eye candy but drama and action and vampires… I am almost to the point of not being embarassed to admit I watch WB shows. I am not at the point where I can call it The CW though!
Shoot, it was vlc that did the trick for me. If I hear of anything else I’ll leave a comment.
In the meantime…try downloading off of eztv.net…if it’s accessible where you are. They’ve been the most reliable when it comes to torrents…and the quickest to post new eps of a lot of shows.
http://thesprawl.se/
i must be getting old (not really), yours is the first blog i have ever read, it’s great. I live in Dushanbe with my family. We’ve been here a long time. Hey, i’d just like to ask if you could recommend some cheap 3star hotels in urumchi or give us the contact address for someone who can. gratefully
Karen,
I stayed in a 3 star hotel in Urumqi that I liked. It was in the plaza in front of the train station. If you walk out of the station it’s on your left. If you’re standing in front of the post office you went to far, it’s to the left of the post office. I paid 100 yuan, but I’m pretty sure they charge more for couples etc. I don’t think my friend in Urumqi knows about hotels, since he lives there. I don’t have the name or phone number with me, but can get it to you when I get back home in a few months if you have that much time.
Hi,
Presently I live outside of Guangzhou, and was thinking of taking the Trans-Siberian this summer to St. Petersburg, via Ulaan Bataar. But your trip interests me. Is there train/bus accesss that you know of from Urumqi to UB,and then through the ‘Stans
all the way up to say, Estonia?
Taking the train from Beijing to UB and on through Russia shouldn’t be a problem. Sometimes the Beijing to UB route gets sold out though. It’s funny to note that that route is also a lot more expensive than going from Hohhot to UB. With the Olympics you might want to pre-book that. I also think that the Russian tickets and visas are hard to arrange. You might have to go through a travel agent. There are entire web sites dedicated to the trans Siberian and getting visas/tickets for the route so do your googling!
The only train line (let alone real road) in Mongolia runs North-South between China and Russia with UB in the middle. There’s also no border crossings that foreigners are currently allowed to take aside from the ones that link up with the train. I have a friend who tried to cross in the West of Mongolia (North of Urumqi) to China and was denied.
And to even get into the West of Mongolia you would be taking public buses for a week or more or have to fly in MIAT. I also tried to avoid China on my route but there’s only way I figured out I could do it:
You would have to already have a Kazakh visa. Fly or drive from UB West to Olgiy. Look how far that is on a map! There’s a flight every once in a while from there to Eastern Kazakstan, but not Almaty. It’s a small town. I remember something about needing special permission… you’d have to ask the Kazak Consulate for more details.
Once you got into Kazakstan you could bum around Central Asia (not so many trains there) or directly take the train up NW and connect to on e of the legs of the trans-Siberian.
Going south into Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan etc. would be a detour for sure. But there are many routes to Europe from there like going from Turkmenistan to Iran or from Turkmenistan by boat to Ajerbaijan and then heading to Europe. I’m not sure how much tie you have…
Now looking at the exact wording of your question again you wouldn’t want to go to Urumqi, then to UB and then to the Stans. It will take you days by train just to get between UB and Urumqi. It took me 3 weeks, although I stopped along the way.
You would want to go to Mongolia first, swing back down into China to Urumqi, take the train to Almaty Kazakstan and then head back into Russia. I think that would make the most sense time-wise and geography-wise unless you wanted to try to fly from Western Mongolia to Kazakstan. I’ve never been to Kazakstan but it’s more developed than the rest of Central Asia and much more expensive. Kyrgyzstan is more like Mongolia with yurts, horses and hiking and Uzbekistan is mostly more dry and flat with interesting Islamic architecture and cultural significance.
One last thing, Diana. St. Petersburg and Tallin, Estonia are really close. I remember being in Estonia and wishing I had a Russian visa. And if you’re interested in Scandanavia Helsinki is just a 3 hour ferry ride from Tallin and then you can pick up a ferry to Stockholm and so on. But I do heard that Latvia and Lithuania are nice. I’ve never been.