Part 2 of Canuck's May holiday trip
The weather cleared up as we traveled the 3 hours needed to our provincial capital city, Wulumuqi, also known as Urumqi. The kids were as noisy as expected, a veritable din of shouts and laughter etc, all in Chinese, of course. They also began the to-be-never-ending gobbling down of fast food snacks packed for them to
eat by loving parents for the trip. Soon the bus was awash in trash.
We drove directly to Heavenly Lake, a locally famous and very picturesque green-
water mountain lake edged by snow-capped mountains. It was lovely, and there were still few tourists since it was relatively early in the day. When we left it
was already crowded with camera-toting tourists. Everyone took lots of photo shots. When I asked our guide how long we would remain there, he said about 10 minutes … so I did not walk around the area … and we left 2 hours later. I cannot yet understand the reasons I am told such blatantly wrong information. This
seems to happen quite often to me.
We ate as a group in a restaurant, out of the rain which had begun again, then boarded the bus and visited a museum. It was new and well designed to show off cultural aspects of the many minority nationalities in Xinjiang. I enjoyed this opportunity but most of the kids passed through quite quickly. At least we did not lose anyone.
We stayed overnight in a clean and comfortable gust house, good WC with shower,
good TV, good lighting and quiet.
Next morning, after breakfast in the hotel, we picked up 3 "coaches". These were
young men who would teach the kids games and I thought would go into the mountains for hikes when we arrived at our destination. Every morning they got the kids up at 8:00AM for morning exercises before breakfast and then various games and
military-like activities. Thank goodness I did not have to take part.
Then we were back onto the bus and out to the ring of surrounding mountains where our sojourn was to begin.
On the foothills south of Urumqi are slopes prepared for winter skiing. There are pommel-lifts and rope-lift towers standing out in the now-bare fields for pulling skiers back to the top of the slopes. It was at one of these now empty for
-the-summer ski facilities where we were to spend the next 4 days. As we pulled
into the site 5 big dogs came rushing out, barking and seeming to growl in anger
at us. I wondered how well we would all get along here with these huge German shepherd dogs protecting the place. I was to be pleasantly surprised …
-to be continued-
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