Part two ...
Next stop, and our favourite place, was the "Grape Valley". Terraced old vineyards build onto the slopes of the valley, restaurants under hanging trellis' of sweet grapes, raisins of every variety and flavour, dancing girls, donkey-carts, irrigation ditches; this is a fine place to spend an afternoon and dinner. Fresh
-cut grapes from over-head finished our "drafan" dinner, the mutton and rice dish I have grown to love so much here. The grapes hanging in lush bunches overhead
are green, juicy and seedless just like what we in Canada call "California grapes".
Then on to a very famous ancient city built upon a plateau at the conflux of two
rivers, the ancient City of Jiaohe. Clay bricks have lasted more than two thousand years here in the dry desert climate.
Next the Emin Minaret, an old tower surrounded by a new mosque. I took a photo from the entrance, not wishing to pay another fee to see "new" buildings.
Then Flaming Mountain, supposedly famous but to me only a red-clay high hill. Nearby the Ancient City of Gaochang has only the high city-walls left to view. Here, Jane was looking at an old brass lock being shown to her by a souvenir seller when suddenly it refused to reopen after being locked. The seller expected her now to purchase it for 80 rmb. Our taxi driver finally took it back into a repair shop in the city to have it repaired while we waited in the hot sun. He returned with it still "broken" and to save trouble Jane paid 40 rmb and left it
at the shop. Sometimes I think the whole episode was contrived to cheat the tourist ...
All these tourist sites charge a fee to enter before they then charge again for
anything extra within that might be interesting. I feel sorry sometimes for the
tourists.
Finally, an extra 60 rmb to the driver to take us to the railway station where we spent the night in a hotel next to the station, awaking at 5:30 AM to catch the 6:40 AM train for Kuitun, which was delayed by flooding to the east and arrived 3 hours late. We returned to our hotel room to wait but it had already been cleaned (5:40AM!) and we had to pay another 10 rmb each to rest there rather than
in the railway station.
The train was packed with travellers but most of them detrained in Urumqi. I had a nap while stretched out on the "hard-seat" and arrived refreshed in Kuitun.
We usually take a bus or taxi from Kuitun to our nearby home in Dushanzi. Many
taxis carry passengers between these two areas. Jane likes to help the Dushanzi
taxi drivers by giving them her fare rather than choosing a Kuitun taxi to bring her back to Dushanzi. It is illegal for a Dushanzi taxi to pick up a passsenger in Kuitun although it is done all the time. Every so often the police enforce the law. Two days ago I was in a rear seat after being picked up in Kuitun by
a Dushanzi taxi, the traffic slowed down to a stop and suddenly a policeman came to the driver's side and shouting, tried to remove the keys from the car ignition switch. The driver and the policeman struggled. Finally another policeman
opened the passenger door, told the woman passenger there to get out and he got
into the taxi. We were told to get out whereupon the other woman got back into
the rear seat and they drove away. Jane said the other woman passenger seemed to
know the policeman ...
Today, as we looked for a taxi to take us to Kuitun from the railway station, I
jokingly said to Jane that if she finds a Dushanzi taxi for us the police will probably stop us again. A Dushanzi taxi stopped and Jane got into the front seat
while talking on her cell phone. I opened the rear door, tossed in my backpack
, put one leg into the taxi and just as I was about to put in my other leg, the
taxi drove away, leaving me to jump back out onto my other leg to avoid falling,
and leaving the door open with my backpack inside! I shouted loudly but the driver was too busy looking into his rearview mirror at the police in a taxi behind him and Jane was too busy talking on her phone to notice that I was not inside
. Behind me was another taxi with a uniformed policeman inside. He was laughing at me! Both taxis drove off down the road and out of sight. I phoned Jane on
her cell phone immediately but there was no connection. I began walking and phoning until at last she answered to say that she had only finished her call to find I was NOT in the rear seat! The driver knew I was missing but would not take
her back to me since he was afraid to get caught by the police. She got into another taxi and returned to find me. I got in but she decided to remain in Kuitun on business for her school and told the driver where to take me. But, this driver picked up another passenger who seemed to want to go in another direction.
The driver stopped another taxi and told me to get out and into it ... this all by "body-English" since we cannot understand each other. Finally the last taxi
took me back to Dushanzi and I walked home from the main street where I hand-signalled for him to stop.
It is nice to be home again!
David and Jane
