WE'RE IN STAR WARS // CHINA'S BEST SILK-ROAD RUINS

Welcome back to another post with the Timezone Junkies! In the last post we hitchhiked from Hami to Turpan and slept in a road tunnel under the motorway for one night before making it to our destination the following day.

Throughout history China has played an important role and none more so than during the Ancient Silk Route. In this post we will be visiting Jiaohe Ruins. It is one of the most important silk route ruins left in China and visiting it was an amazing experience.

However, before we could visit Jiaohe we had to get there! We managed to find out which local bus we would need to jump on and before boarding they inspected our bags and asked us to throw away our bottles of water, which of course we didn't do because after all, we were going into the desert! We just got on the bus and paid and they left us and our water alone. This is often the case in Xinjiang as security is incredibly tight under the Chinese Government. The bus dropped us off three or four km away from the ruins and we slowly made our way there.

Along the way we saw a beautiful lake and lots of traditional houses made out of mud bricks which are very common for the area. In some ways the traditional buildings look like those of the Middle East or Morocco.

We finally made it to the ruins after a walk of an hour or so, paid for the tickets and started walking again only to find out it was another 2 km to the actual start of the ruins. If so inclined you could pay for a golf cart to take you but being the Timezone Junkies (and cheapskates) we decided to walk. We arrived and were surprised by how many Chinese tourists there were at the entrance! However once you actually started walking inside the ruins and a little further away you soon lost them and you could wander around with the place completely to yourself!

So, what makes this place so special? Well for a start it is 2000 years old! Pretty impressive for a city built out of soil! One of the main reasons it is still in good condition is because of its geographical location, a desert. The lack of rainfall has made it possible to stay in such good shape.

In terms of defence it is very well located. It is perched upon a raised hill running 1.6 km long and 300 metres wide surrounded by a river that splits in two and goes around each side of the city.

We are just going to leave a montage of pictures below because there isn't so more to say about this place apart from how incredible it was to walk around on our own soaking up the 'Star Wars' atmosphere of the place and the great views from the edge of the cliff-face.

After many hours of exploring we decided to go back into Turpan and instead of getting the bus back into town we stuck our thumbs out and after a few minutes a car stopped and took us into the centre. Whilst in the car we tried to speak a bit of the local language and failed miserably! We all had a good laugh though.

When we got back to the hostel we met up with our new friend 'Eagle'. Over the days we spent there he told us a lot about Chinese history, mythology and he even taught Alex some Kung-fu! The day that we came back from Jiaohe he actually made us a delicious noodle dish which was absolutely amazing!

Here is an interesting fact for you about Xinjiang province and the Chinese government. You cannot have a beard until you are over 60 and when you do decide that you want one you have to apply for a permit! Crazy!

So that is it for this post, we decided to keep this one short and sweet! If you have any questions about the places we visit or our journey please feel free to ask, we would love more people to travel in this way!

If you would like to see the video we made about our time in Turpan you can see it here:

Thanks for reading,

Alex and Malin