Urumqi is a far flung frontier city in the far north west of China. The city's Mongolian name Urumqi (pronounced Ur-room-chi), also known by Chinese authorities as Ulumuqi, Wulumuqi or even Wushi, has always conjured up a most fascinating destination, especially having the dubious reputation of the furthest place in the world from an ocean (2,250 km). And it certainly is both remote and exotic - and fascinating.

Our China Eastern Airlines flight from Shanghai to Urumqi is always mildly disappointing as the cabin staff insist all the window shutters be closed for most part of the journey. We have travelled this five hour flight many times and one of the nicer parts of the flight is to look down on the fascinating mountain and desert landscapes of the provinces of Shaanxi, Gansu and Xinjiang.

For this trip, I took the liberty of occasionally slightly opening my window shutter and was rewarded by glimpses of wonderful rural scenery and fabulous desert land and river formations. From Shanghai to Shaanxi tiny terraced farms clung impossibly to steep mountain slopes. Resembling upturned molars, every mountain crevice was filled by lush green farm plots. Huge deserts swallow a lot of Shaanxi Province and soon the land transformed into large expanses of buff treeless plains intercepted by strangely contoured bare mountains. We were initially puzzled by what looked to be huge dry river beds, their extensive tributaries contorted and entangled like a mass of riddled tree roots. We now assume these are snow fed river beds that become alive, flooding the bare plains during the warmer weather. 

Closer to Urumqi, our trip took us over the snow powdered deeply gorged Tian Shan Mountains and the relentless arid desert plateaus. The countryside around Urumqi is formidable. Surrounded by the beautiful Tian Shan Mountains, the hazy barren desert gives way to small irrigated farm plots and then the conglomerates of endless high rise condominiums and unexpected skyscrapers of modern Urumqi, a city plonked in the remotest and harshest environment imaginable. 

Airport settings are never a good welcome to any city. Despite its pretty mountain backdrop, the sprawling outskirts of Urumqi are depressing. Collective farms with central cement block housing resembling concentration camps are located next door to large industrial areas and their belching chimney stacks, coal mines and poverty stricken housing. It is a formidable environment with hot dry summers and bitterly freezing cold winters. 

Conversely, the city centre is thriving and prosperous. The parks are green, manicured and covered with flowering petunias, and the streets clean and well maintained.  

Urumqi is a city of some 1.5 million people. It is a fascinating melting pot of Uighur and Han Chinese peoples and modern sky scraper buildings sit oddly side by side with mosques, old city housing and fabulous bazaars. The most striking feature of Urumqi, and of other cities in the far west of China, is that most of the people no longer look at all Chinese. They are of course not Chinese but are mostly of the minority Uighur group. And indeed, the Uighur people do not regard their part of the world as China but as their native East Turkestan. The local Uighur people are Central Asian both in appearance and culture, are of medium to large build with dark complexions and broad friendly faces. Veiled Uighur women, elegantly dressed in beautiful and bright long flowing gowns and men wearing traditional pointed pill box style hats walk the streets next to young modern people in expensive designer outfits or jeans and T shirts. Interestingly, we have seen very few fully veiled women in Urumqi.

In central Urumqi, Buiks, Lincolns, Mercedes and a huge array of large four wheel drive cars reveal a prosperity enjoyed by the wealthier inhabitants of Urumqi, the Han Chinese. In fact it is staggering to see the number of extremely expensive cars and the number of designer wear shops and huge cosmetic and perfume sectors of the Urumqi department stores. This part of Urumqi is in stark contrast to the abject poverty we saw on the outskirts of the city during our first visit to Urumqi by bus from Turpan in 2007.

It is always good to be back in Urumqi, the capital city of the Province of Xinjiang. We have used the city for our last four trips to China as a convenient base for our travels into Central Asia, Pakistan and the Middle East. We are now of course very familiar with Urumqi which always feels like home. We always stay at the Hoi Tak Hotel in Urumqi. It has a five star rating, a great restaurant with a wonderful buffet dinner and is conveniently located in the centre of the city just opposite the lovely Renmin Park and the Tian Shan department store and supermarket. 

Our China Eastern flight (MU 5633) is also very convenient, arriving at Urumqi Domestic Airport in the mid afternoon. As usual however our taxi was caught up in a major traffic jam on the road leading into Urumqi city. Local taxi drivers are of course very practical. Our driver gestured to a policeman walking along the road and offered him a lift, and soon we were driving on the wrong side of the road, avoiding the traffic but causing a huge commotion with understandably angry drivers and other police patrol officers. Their anger however diffused immediately they saw our policeman passenger and we arrived at our hotel in no time. No-one argues with the police in China, especially in the highly sensitive Xinjiang Province.

In fact it was interesting that for this trip, for the first time ever, our applications for our Chinese visas were initially refused by the Chinese Embassy in Australia. This we were informed was because Chinese authorities were becoming extremely sensitive about possible riots in Xinjiang. This did not surprise us. Tensions with the Uighurs desperately wanting an independent Turkestan are always just simmering beneath the surface, and deadly demonstrations and riots had broken out in previous years between the Uighur peoples, the Han Chinese and the Chinese authorities. We were eventually granted our visas on the basis that an agent organised our tour.

On our first afternoon in Urumqi we had made an appointment with Mr Abdullah, Managing Director, Silk Road Adventures. We had used the services of this agency on a number of occasions and have always been most impressed with their professional, flexible and friendly approach. While we had almost become good friends over the Internet, we had not yet met Mr Abdullah in person. Not only did we want to meet him, we needed to pay him for our accommodation in Urumqi and also wanted to inquire about the possibility of a future trip along a southern China route from Kashgar to Lhasa, Tibet and then onto Zhongdian in Yunnan Province (this last leg is often known as the fabled "Tea Horse Road" where tea was once traded for horses).
 
Mr Abdullah was a delightful man and we thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon with him. However, when we talked about the possible trip, he looked at us as if we were mad. "Well, you two ARE very adventurous and the countryside is wonderful but....". We soon got the message. Apparently for a lot of the trip there is virtually no accommodation other than local homes with very basic facilities and the roads are not surprisingly pretty hairy.

Our Tea Horse Road trip is now definitely off the menu! Perhaps if we were a lot younger we tried to convince ourselves. The truth is of course that we both like up market accommodation and hate roughing it!

We should really try some local Uighur restaurants when we are in Urumqi - but we never do. I expect that it is because we are usually tired after four days travel from our home just to get to Urumqi and also, as mentioned, the Hoi Tak Hotel puts on a wonderful evening buffet dinner. 

That night we met Martina. During our meal we had noticed with some interest a young black suited European woman working in the dining area. When we asked her what her home country was and why she was in Urumqi, Martina virtually fell into our arms. As it happened, she was working as part of a hospitality management scholarship with the Hoi Tak Hotel. Martina was from eastern Germany, did not speak the local language and was desperately lonely living in the hotel of this far flung, and for her, totally foreign city. We felt very sorry for her. Urumqi would have been very challenging for a young European woman on her own. We have kept in contact with her and were delighted to receive an email later in our travels saying that she had made some friends and had (at that time) fallen in love with a young Uighur man. 

The next morning we walked to the now very familiar Erdaoqiao Markets located in Jie Fang Nan Lu, a leisurely 50 minute walk from our hotel. These markets are always great fun and Alan thoroughly enjoyed himself negotiating with the local watch sellers, while as usual, I was too ashamed to even watch the performance. The Longines gold watches he bought were fabulous replicas and to this day we have not had a genuine Longines watch owner realise, or even a jeweller identify these are indeed fakes! What is even better, the ones we have bought on previous visits have lasted us for many years. The watch sellers are located in the Carrefours Department building just opposite the Erdaoqiao Markets.

On our way back to the hotel, an unusually tall Chinese man approached Alan. "I am even taller than you!" he exclaimed. And so I had to take a photo of him and Alan side by side. To his amazement Alan was a good bit taller than our newly found friend. It was all a lot of fun and laughter and part of what we always love about overseas travel and the spontaneity of the friendly local people. In fact, to this day, we have never found anything other than friendliness from the Chinese locals, regardless of their ethnicity.  
 
A tiny local grocery shop the "Day n Night" located just a few shops away from the Hoi Tak Hotel, was also a very friendly affair. Their beer was cheaply priced, they sold a good variety of snack type foods and the shop was very convenient, especially when we found out where the cold beer was located! Again, we established a friendly relationship with the shop owner and it was great fun browsing through their food items. 

On previous visits to Urumqi, we had always shopped at the Tian Shan Department store just across from Renmin Park. This large supermarket was fascinating (if you avoided the live turtle counter) and sold a huge array of food items as well as wines and spirits. We were disappointed that the store had been totally refurbished and restructured, resembling more of a department store than a food hall. Prices were high and the array of food goods had diminished. And so we were more than pleased to stay with our little Day n Night grocery shop. 

An early night was needed for our flight to Islamabad first thing the next morning. We enjoyed our buffet meal and farewelled Martina, wishing her well for her future.