back to chaikana?
okay, okay
here's the pictures

What really happened

We're back, in Weining. but here's where we were. And once we get around to typing up all of our notes and such, we'll post them.

We're headed towards Beijing on Tuesday the 20th, and are flying home on August 1. (so that we can make it back in time for Gene's birthday on the 2nd.)

Mon Tue Wed Thurs Fri Sat Sun
June
10
PM: leave Weining		 11
AM: arrive Chengdu		 12
AM: leave Chengdu on train for Turpan/ Turfan		 13
train
14
PM: arrive Turpan		 15
Visit Jiahoe		 16
Overnight train to Kuqa		 17
Visit Heavenly Mountains and Kizil 1000 Buddha Caves		 18
Kuqa market / Overnight train to Kashgar		 19
PM: Arrive Kashgar		 20
Kashgar Market
21
Kashgar		 22
Kashgar		 23
Kashgar		 24
PM: leave Kashgar		 25
train		 26
early AM: arrive Dunhuang
late PM: leave Dunhuang		 27
Travel: Arrive Lanzhou, catch next bus to Xiahe
28
Xiahe and Labrung		 29
Xiahe and Labrung		 30
Travel to Tongren		 1
Hang out in Tongren, Travel to Xunhua		 2
Hike from Xunhua to Dandesi		 3
Travel: Hike from Dandesi to XUnhua, bus to Lanzhou		 4
PM: Leave Lanzhou
July
5
PM Arrive Chengdu		 6
AM Leave Chengdu and arrive home in Weining		 7
Back to work		 8
 9
 10
 11
The latest and greatest
I updated the plan (below) to reflect what we are actually doing..

We're in a internet cafe in Kuqa where Gene is being well behaved and getting actual work done and I am being badly behaved and installing software so that I can fail to upload pictures of everything that we've been doing.

We've been visiting temples, mosques, old city ruins, caves of buddhist paintings and market places in Western China. Our plan is to continue to do exactly that for the next three weeks. We've been spending a lot of time on trains crossing the gobi desert - the scenery is just amazing. We've decided to move here and build a mosque to live in - we picked the location and everything. To come visit, just fly into Beijing, transfer to a flight to Kashgar, then to Urumqi, then take a 16 hour train train ride to Kuqa, then an hour taxi ride over some very nice mountains (the road should be completed by next year), and then the camel will pick you up and take you the last 3-4 miles. let us know when you're coming so that we can send out the camel(s) (the big choices we have to make now - how many camels should we own?)

We found a nice mosque too - ours will look exactly like Emin Minaret, with adobe, rammed earth walls, etc. Anyone want to join the summer work camp?

Gene took me on a horse drawn carriage ride back to our hotel for my birthday. Except that it was a donkey.. and actually it was a cart for hauling straw and not really a carriage. And it wasn't actually my birthday. And instead of ending up at our hotel we ended up lost.

But other than that it was amazingly similar.

Actually, for my birthday, gene took me on a scenic trip through the barren desert (it was gorgeous) drinking cocktails (wine mixed with beer) with three very enthusiastic Uighur policemen. Never let anyone tell you that we don't know how to have a good time.

We're headed off to Kashgar at 5 am tomorrow morning.

having a great time, etc. -Christi 18/06/04