2018, Central Asia

We land in the oasis of Turpan (also known as Tulufan) after a brief stop of our plane in Hamì, one of the main cities of the Taklamakan desert in the Xinjiang. The hot and dry weather is considerably different from Beijing’s, which comes as a relief.

Xinjiang is also the home to the Uigurs, an ethnic group of Turkic (i.e. Mongolian) origin barely known in the Western world (by the way, did you know that present day Turks originate from the Mongolian steppe?) We don’t see any on the plane - even if, according to the official numbers, they should compose around 50% of the population of the region.

Turpan welcomes us with a very heavy border security: along with another three foreigners, we are escorted in a police car to the police center of the airport, where officials take photos of our faces and ask us a couple of common questions (where are you going, what are you doing in the city, and such). Thankfully we are helped by a young German lady of Chinese origins who translates questions and answers for us.

The guy appearing to be in charge of the police office kindly offers to escort us to the brand-new high-speed train station, where we can finally catch a taxi: we realize the entrance to the airport is actually blocked by the police forces and no vehicle is entering the area.

On the road to the hotel we cannot but notice a police station every 2 kms or so, presided by lightly armed officers. Also, strangely enough, an impressive number of cars are prototypes, covered with mimetic sheets. We can recognize very well known brands of vehicles, and models which we haven’t seen on any European street yet.

The hotel, hidden behind a bigger and older one, is apparently brand new. The tenant doesn’t speak a word of English and struggles scanning our passports with the check-in app installed on his phone. He’s rarely met a foreign tourist but, today it’s his unlucky day: another French tourist, arrived just before us, is waiting for his documents to be processed too. We wait a full hour until we can finally go to the room.

A great part of the afternoon is already gone: the long flight, the check at the police station and the check-in at the hotel have eaten up the vaste majority of the day. We decide to hire a cab and pay a visit to one of the major highlights this land has to offer: the ancient city of Jiaohe, one of the most important military centers of the Han dynasty, built some 1500-2000 years ago. The town, carved into a huge rock almost 2km long and 30 meters tall, is incredibly well preserved: nowadays it is still possible to wander around the small streets of the city, enter its main buildings and stand at the top of the complex, with a nice view on the oasis.

Back to Turpan, we start looking for something to eat but, to our major disappointment, the main pieces of information in our possession - thank you Lonely Planet - are totally wrong: the night market, supposed to sell all kinds of local food, from Chinese to Uigur’s, is nowhere to be found: it maybe closed months, years ago? Our lack of any understanding of Chinese is not helping much.

We find ourselves walking for a couple of kilometers trying to find an acceptable place for eating. The choice is hard: despite the large number of restaurants in the city, many seem to lack of hygiene. We end up in a small place serving excellent spicy noodles, with Air Conditioning probably set to -20 celsius. The total price for the meal is 34 yuan, not even 2.5€ per person, including drinks. We can hardly find cheaper.

It’s already 11 PM in the evening, most shops are still open, while old ladies go back and forth with their carts selling vegetables in the street (“bomi bomi, mai bomi!”). Officers are still standing outside their police stations, located on each main crossroad of the city - even in the center. In the pleasantly warm air, people still enter and exit restaurants while their children look at us, westerners, as if we came from another world. And, maybe, we do.