Silk Road trip photos

[lohtecksiong]

# 31 Road leading to the Turpan Grape Valley （吐鲁番，葡萄沟）, unique vineyards and fruit trees, an ancient city of Gaochang. Along the way, you can see almost everyhouse has air-ventilation huts to dry the grapes to raisins. Different grades of raisin are availalbe at a very cheap price (relative to Singapore cost)

With its shady vineyards and trees, this provides a welcome place of relaxation amidst the hundreds of square miles of sand.You may take a seat under the vintage frames, savor various grapes, enjoy the beautiful Uigur girls in their ornate costumes, and be fully intoxicated by this refreshing palace of grapes. Taking a walk along the grape corridor, you will find drying rooms on nearby slopes. Every year over 300 tons of raisins are made here.
# 32 Wei Wu Er （维吾尔族）tribe dancer (have to pay a small sum for photo taking)

# 33 Gaochang ancient city （高昌古城） - a devastated city after centuries of inter-tribes battle. A donkey-ride will bring the visitors around the city where you can see the remains of the buildng structures

The city's name means 'the King City'. It was founded during the first century B.C. and abandoned during the 15th century.Ascending a height to enjoy a distant view, you can see the whole city in a plane shape of an irregular square, which is divided, into three parts the exterior city, interior city and the palace city. The total area is about two million square meters
# 34 An ear-marked building where the famous monk Tangsheng preached to many buddhism followers

 

[lohtecksiong]

# 35 Inside view of the building where Tangsheng gave the buddhism lessons.

 

[lohtecksiong]

# 36 Wei Wu Er tribes having a relax time playing Wei Qi

# 37 Pretty shop owner at the entrance of the ancient city of Gaochang (Turpan)

# 38 A display of Wei Wu Er tribe traditional string insrtuments

 

[velasco]

loving all the dessert pics! wow!

 

[LWW53]

Woow, Lohtecksiong, I love your desert pics! They look like scenes from Lawrence of Arabia. (Whistles the famous Maurice Jarre score ). Great work.

 

[lohtecksiong]

# 39 Listening attentively to the history of Kaner Well （坎儿井）.....The Kaner Well is an extremely old form of horizontal water collection construction developed to exploit the underground water. It is used mainly to draw underground water for the irrigation and drinking. The Kaner Well, the Great Wall, and Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal are the three major ancient projects in China. There are nearly 1000 Kaner wells in Turphan, stretching a distance of about 5000 km.

# 40 One of the tunnels inside the Kaner Well. It is amazing fo find out that the ancient people have such incredible wisdom and knowhow to build such a great project.

The Karez Water System Folkways Paradise is located at the Ya'er country in Turpan city, 3 kilometers away from the city urban, and 2 kilometers away from the 312 national highway in the south.

 

[maxmax]

Overall how much do you need to spent?
I believe your camera must be fill with sand while at the desert.

 

[lohtecksiong]

Maxmax, thanks for viewing. The 14 days tour package cost about $1818 fo Sept/Oct period, twin room sharing. The tour fee varies from agent to agent and also different season of the year. It is advisable to check with a few tour companies.
I carried two cameras for the desert shooting (short and long range), it was fortunate that the wind is not strong, hence no sand but a bit of dust due to the camels movement.

 

[zoossh]

tecksiong, you can write as uyghur instead of wei wu er, just like we write mongol instead of meng gu. looks more natural.

 

[rocksnstones]

Hinthere..may I ask whats the cost of the trip ?thanks....

 

[David Chin]

Teck Siong,

You wrote: #17 Jiayuquan Pass, first built in 1372 BC .....

I think you could have inadvertently typed BC instead of AD. Jiayuguan or Jiayu Pass (嘉峪&#20851 was built in 1372 AD during the Ming Dynasty. Construction of the Great Wall commenced as early as the 6th century BC but the various sections were not joined and unified until the Qin Dynasty by Qin Shi Huang.

 

[aosis]

thank you for the valuable information and nice picture story

 

[Godzilla Invades]

A very nice journey of photos of Silk Road.

It's one of the place I am planning to go.

 

[lohtecksiong]

Teck Siong,

You wrote: #17 Jiayuquan Pass, first built in 1372 BC .....

I think you could have inadvertently typed BC instead of AD. Jiayuguan or Jiayu Pass (嘉峪&#20851 was built in 1372 AD during the Ming Dynasty. Construction of the Great Wall commenced as early as the 6th century BC but the various sections were not joined and unified until the Qin Dynasty by Qin Shi Huang.

David, thanks for pointing it out. Yes, Jiayuguan Pass was constructed during the Ming Dynasty in 1372 AD, it represents the western starting point of a section of the Great Wall. It is commonly referred to as the finest example of its kind on earth, the pass is the best preserved of the Great Wall's ancient military fortresses.

Rocknstones,
The package tour cost about $1800 for a 14 days trip and it varies from different travel agencies. It is better to check with a few established companies to make a compasion. You may be able to get a discount at the NATAS fair which is held twice a year. Better still, if you can form a group, your have better bargaining power.

 

[night86mare]

i do like the ones in the first post a lot. for the rest, tend to be a wee bit lacklustre in comparison.

 

[lohtecksiong]

# 41 Leaving Turpan and heading to the Southern Pasture （南山牧&#22330. Located 80 kilometers from urban area. Along the way, enjoyed the nature scenery of the snowcapped peaks mountain, dragon-spruce trees and wild flowers, and of course the cold weather.

# 42 An uphilled road to the Southern Pasture where the Hasake tribes lives.

# 43 Beautiful mountainous scene - notice the Kashkar tents were built at the foot of the mountain

# 44 One of the snowcapped peaks mountains.

# 45 An Hasake （哈萨克族）elderly pulling a horse to the tents for the tourists to take a horse aride around

 

[zoossh]

for better communication and understanding, you can correct the term into kazakhs. it is also considered more respectful to those people by using their endonyms (how they call themselves in their mother langauge) or at least direct translation (kazakh in english, 哈萨克 in mandarin) rather than using double transliterations.

and i think the colors for #42 and 45 are coming out, whereas #37 can have more contrast to boost the colors.

 

[MRSAMO]

Is this you? :bigeyes:

This is one of the most interesting set I have seen on CS (another is the switzerland set).

Wonderful photos, they tell me I haven't seen the world enough (and I used to live in China!).

 

[muahchee]

HI THERE!!!

awesome photos! i wish i could visit the place too.

 

[lohtecksiong]

for better communication and understanding, you can correct the term into kazakhs. it is also considered more respectful to those people by using their endonyms (how they call themselves in their mother langauge) or at least direct translation (kazakh in english, 哈萨克 in mandarin) rather than using double transliterations.

and i think the colors for #42 and 45 are coming out, whereas #37 can have more contrast to boost the colors.

Zoossh,
Thanks for providing the proper name of kazakhs; you have a good knowledge of the China ethnic tribes.
Yah, on second look, I agree the contrast of #37 is not sufficient. Thanks for the critics, this is where I can improve.
多多指教。