Yellow Crane Pagoda E & BW had arrived late last night and despite the late night arrival, they were ready at 0830 to begin the day with breakfast at Hubu Alley before heading to Yellow Crane Pagoda. BW is fluent in Mandarin and can read.  Until now, I was the best Mandarin speaker amongst us […]

Qingchuan Pavilion With my bodyclock on New Zealand time, I woke at 0540, lazed around before having breakfast of muesli and coffee (from the machine in the lobby). I arranged to meet KL & M at 0900 downstairs before going out to explore Wuhan.  First up, we took a car to Qingchuan Pavilion.  There we […]

Continuing to Wuhan On the flight from Auckland to Haikou, I had about 4h30 sleep then sat with my eyes closed for a further 1h30.  We landed about an hour earlier than the scheduled time of 0500. Immigration at Haikou was super-fast.  KL & M had missed the arrival cards on the plane as they […]

Train to Urumqi I walked to Hami’s railway station around 0900 after breakfast in my room.  I didn’t have to wait long before the queues formed for boarding the train to Urumqi. Departing at 1010, time went quickly as I attended to online chores on my phone.  I chose to arrive at Urumqi South where […]

Hami’s sights are concentrated all in one place in the south-west of the city which I reached by taxi. Kings’ Mansion  I lined up to buy the ticket for the Mansion (or palace) of the Hami Kings just before it opened at 1000. Like my old guidebook said, it is a bad recreation of the […]

Flying to Urumqi I had the alarm for 0445, time for a pre-arranged pick-up at 0530 by a taxi.  It was a fixed rate arrangement, with probably a 50% premium, as I was worried that taxis may not be available at this ungodly time, especially when people consider 0530 to be 0330. Waiting on the […]

What I’m not doing I’ve done most of the things I can do in Hotan.  There were a couple that I decided against doing: Mazar of Imam Asim: This mausoleum lies out of town and Uyghurs used to pray here.  More recent reports have suggested that the area is off-limits to foreigners. Yue Tu Gan […]

Train to Hotan I took a taxi for Kargilik station at 0815 for my 0919 train to Hotan.  At the security checkpoint for the station, they had trouble summoning a cop and I had to wait about 20 mins. When boarding came, I noticed they had trouble locating my train booking at the turnstiles.  I […]