Silk Road - 22 May 2009 - Return to Urumqi, China

We drove back to Urumqi and went through a relatively mild dust storm. I couldn’t see the mountains because of all the dust in the air. I could smell the dust in the bus.

Lunch was in the hotel and it was good. After lunch we went to the museum. They have done an excellent job with in effect what little they have. Most of the good, original pieces are in Beijing museums. They had some petroglyphs there were about 65,000 years old. One of them showed a man skiing! They had a section on the history of the silk road and another fascinating one of the different nationalities that live in the province of ZinJiang. We also saw some of the mummies removed from the tombs that we had visited in Turfan. Interestingly many of them were Caucasian as opposed to Asian.

Our next stop of the day was at the government store where Bette bought her mutton fat jade piece. I saw some small dolls that I would have liked to buy but I didn’t want to spend 50 Yuan ($7+) for them.

We went to the Mukam Banquetting Theatre for dinner and a show. Since we were scheduled to get up at 5:00 am, I was not terrible enthusiastic, but I did enjoy the show very much and the food was not bad.

Mukam Banquetting Theatre - Kazak Singer
Kazak Singer Dancing with Tour Leader
Kazak Singer Dancing with Tour Leader (Bora)
Tour Leader had a good time
Tour Leader with Juggler
Bette and Suzy Dancing
Bette on Stage
Bette and Bora, Tour Leader, on stage
Mosque outside of Theatre