18th May was a Monday and the girl at the youth hostel very kindly organised for Ostragon to join a group of Chinese medical and engineering students from the south western Guiyang city of China on a trip to the desert.  This was their first time in Xinjiang and they had planned a number of exciting little trips, including this one.  As they had an extra space in the car, they were very happy to have Ostragon along to help defray the costs.

They left at about 0900 am, a driver, two female students, one male and Ostragon.  They started by going to the outdoor shop to pick up a couple of tents - they all had their own sleeping bags – and one or two other pieces of equipment and then they drove east south east from Urumqi.

This route led them through a wide valley, or narrow plain, between two mountain ranges, which acted as a channel for the prevailing winds which blew from the west.  The Chinese had taken advantage of this to populate this vast flat area with thousands of windmills generating electricity.  The windmills were mostly turning a relatively slow pace as they drove through and stopped to take pictures of this very impressive sight.  The mountains were blue on one side and red on the other.  They drove for several hours in this direction, finally arriving in the town of Turpan where they stopped for lunch.  All meal arrangements were organised by one of the female students; she was very picky and the group always ate well and very cheap.

The town where they had stopped, Turpan, sat in a wide desert plain and was irrigated by a massive underground water tunnel system which has been in existence for over a thousand years.  With the combination of plentifull water and the dry hot climate, conditions are ideal for growing grapes and vegetables and this is indeed what these people do, by the ton.  Their dried grapes are delicious indeed.  Ostragon was not aware at the time that Xinjiang had been used to test nuclear devices by the central government; had he known this and the terrible medical consequences this has had on the Xinjiang population, his eagerness at tasting all the local fruit and vegetables may not have been so strong.

After this pause, the group continued, pushing through arid country to a canyon of dark red earth that cut through a mountain range of red rock;  they stopped to look the ancient city of Jiaohe. The sun was high and the air vey hot and dry.  This city was carved out of the living earth and served as a Chinese outpost during one of the earlier forrays of the Chinese Dynasties to this far off land.

Towards sun down they arrived at an ancient village with a number of Buddha's caves.  The group stopped and visited the village, which is known for its ancient mulberry trees and they picked the mulberries straight from the branches, soft sweet and very good, with a mottled, bumpy texture.

They were invited in to tea by the guardian of Buddha's caves, who recommended they not attempt to visit because the caves and surrounding mountain faces had started to collapse.  This did not deter the group and they pushed forward, up to a point, gaining a glimpse into one or two of these 1000 year old caves where people have come from all over to worship.  They stopped at the main, modern village, under a mile away, to buy more mulberries and dried grapes, being hosted for an instant in a merchant-farmer's main room.  The farmer had a beautiful daughter with bright green eyes and stunning aquiline features.

As the sun started to set they continued their journey to the east, going through more irrigated farmland, finally getting to the edge of civilisation beyond which stretched the desert.

By the time they stopped, it was getting dark, so they walked up the sand dunes and into the desert, having parked at the edge of some irrigated farmland.  They pitched their tents and started to prepare some food and as they did so the stars came out, one by one, each one brighter and brighter until the whole, dark purple-blue sky was lit up like a diamond firmament.  The clarity of the milky way stretching across the sky and all the formations, this Ostragon had not experienced since a time long long ago, when was caught between the parallel walls of a distant more ancient time.

The team of girls cooked away happily, producing chicken and other things and they ate, and at last, they feel asleep, some in their tents, Ostragon under the stars.


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