13th May 2009

今年的母亲节没办法陪妈妈了，直到昨晚才补上一句“母亲节快乐”给我妈。虽然往年有时也是因为在大学无法帮她庆祝，可是今年感觉特别不同，可能是因为距离更远的关系吧！昨晚和家人通电话，感觉特别的安慰与开心。很久都没有这种感觉了。
我好想家，特别是现在这个时候，如果有家人的关心，一切就会变更好了。家是永远无法取代的地方。各位朋友，要珍惜与家人一起的时间。

9th September 2009

今天我们跟旅游班大一的同学一起去石人沟。昨天我们才听说他们决定要去，我们也没问清楚那里是什么地方，要做什么活动。结果早上九点半去集合的时候，才知道是要去爬山，可能会玩到六七点，午餐还要自备。我们就赶快到早上的市集买了面包和早餐。
之后我们大队出发，一起走到友好的巴士总站，然后再坐巴士到水磨沟巴士总站。一个小时后到达，之后还要包车才能到达石人沟水库，一人五块钱。石人沟水库像一个世外桃源，山明水秀的，空气也很好。它是在一个高原，有很多草原和山，还有一个人造湖，很像人间仙境。那里有很多哈萨克族，所以可以看到他们居住的毡房，到处都有牛、羊和绵羊。我们一直往里面走，还在半路野餐。

The "Shi Ren Gou"...the scenery very beautiful..

大约走了一个小时后，他们就选了一座山，我们也跟着爬上去。那座山的山路真的很崎岖，好恐怖哦！我还差点滑倒。如果真的不小心的话，我就没命了。我真的好怕，所以到了半山腰就不爬 了，没想到下山更难，我当时很希望自己是山羊，它们都好厉害爬山。我以后都不敢拿自己的生命开玩笑了。有一班同学还爬到了山顶，我们在山下等了很久，还担心他们下不来，幸好大家都平安无事。等的时候，我们还跟山羊玩，这是我第一次看到那么多山羊一起上山。

Took after I climbed up to the hill..very dangerous lo..luckily i returned safe and sound..

There were many goat there....a rare scenery in malaysia...

回家的路上，班长李柏松还要让我们感受一下人工湖的美丽，还特地绕路。那条路比我们原来走的路更险峻，如果一不小心，就会掉去湖里了。我这个人就是比较粗心的，所以就会很容易踏空，真的很讨厌走这样的路。就这样，惊险的旅程终于熬过去了，让我心有余悸。回到宿舍已经差不多晚上七点了。我们那时也用太多力气，肚子都在打滚，所以就在食堂吃晚餐。

3 days 2 nights trip in Korla (库尔勒) and Kuqa (库车)

Last Friday was Labour Day so we had 3 days holidays. Miss Ma helped us to find a travel agency and we started our journey on Friday. These 3 days we travelled by a taking a bus that prepared by the travel agency. There were about 40 plus chinese travelling together with us. We called our tour guide as Xiao Zhang.

Below was the schedule for this trip.
1st day
9am: The bus departed from Urumqi.

This was the bus that brought us around to the tourist attractions.

1pm: We reached 库什米. We took 拌面 as our lunch at a Halal restaurant. Then, we continued our trip at 2pm. When we were going to reach Lop Nur Village in a few more km, the police of Korla warned the driver to rest for a few minutes at the roadside after long journey.

When on the way to the Korle...

7pm: After sitting on the bus for about 10 hours, we finally arrived to our first destination, Lop Nur Village(罗布人村寨). Luo Bu Ren village was near with the world’s second large desert, Taklamakan Desert and the world’s largest inner river, Tarim River. We could witness desert there. It was too spectacularity. We gave our first time to desert in this village. We rode camel a round at the desert. Each ride costed 50 Rmb. Riding on camel was quite adventurous. One round trip could not meet our satisfaction, we wished we could ride once again. When we reached top of the desert, we overlooked the Taklamakan Desert. The scenery was so beautiful. It could not be seen in Malaysia. We left the village to our hotel we were going to stay in Korla City tonight at 8.30pm.

The Lop Nur village...



Riding camel on the desert near Lop Nur Village..very fun...

Introduction about Lop Nur Village: Lop Nur used to live in this near to Tarim River. They can be known as an isolated race. Their main food was grilled fish that caught in the Tarim River. This race was continually lesser because of some plague. To introduce this race to public, they were moved to this village for touristy purpose now. Lop Nur were famous in their longevity. This might be due to their diet.

11pm: Due to the village was far from the town, we took about three and a half hour to reached our hotel, 华山宾馆. Besides, The drivers did not recognised the road to our hotel. it was quite funny. This delayed our time to the hotel. The tour guide did not arrange the room appropriately. This arose complains of some tourists. This problem solved after some arguments. The room were not enough so Chai Ching and I have to share the same room with the tour guide. We were so hungry because we had not had our dinner that time. Since it was so late already, most of the restaurants closed. It was hard to to find our dinner. We had our first 手抓饼in Korla. This hotel was not satisfied. It did not prepare towels for us. However, condoms were there for us. It was so unbelievable.
Korle city..quite crowded..

2nd day
8am: We started our next journey to “The Mystic Grand Canyon of the Tianshan Mountains” (天山神秘大峡谷), Kuqa (库车). When on the way to the canyon, there were car accident between two lorries. We had been trapped on the road for a about half hour.
1.30pm: We reached Kuqa City. We had our lunch here for 1 hour. The city was quite properous. It seemed better than Perlis City (Korla City too). The drivers lost his way again and delayed our time to reach the canyon.

3pm: The Mystic Grand Canyon of the Tianshan Mountains was reached. The canyon was really splender. The canyon presented in different pattern, we had to use our imagination to imagine what the figures of the hills. The route of the canyon was quite long, about 5km. It was pity that we could only walked until 3km because of shortness of time. Some of the route was ruggedness because the route was filled with rock and sand. I fell down once when on the way. Luckily, I did not hurt. We reached 卧俯神, and then returned to the jumping-off point. We departed to the 经贸宾馆 in Kuqa, our second hotel at 8.30pm.

The Mystic Grand Canyon of the Tianshan Mountains

Introduction about the Mystic Grand Canyon of the Tianshan Mountains: The Mystic Grand Canyon of the Tianshan Mountains is located in Kuqa. Kuqa is in southern Xinjiang at the southern foot of the Tianshan Mountains. Formerly, it was an important town on the central Old Silk Road, it is now under the jurisdiction of Aksu Prefecture, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. It was influenced by multiple cultures, the Qiuci (龟兹) civilization as represented by famous Qiuci City was formed.

10pm: The hotel was reached. This hotel was better than the first hotel that we stayed last day. It was very big. The tour guide bullied us. She prepared a three person standard room for us and one of us had to stay with another group of people. In the end, Huey Nee become the victim. We were quite unhappy with the arragnement but it did not blow our mood of having “dinner” in the city. Although it was quite late now, the city was stil crowded. There was food agora there. We ate field snail (田螺) and some barbecue. It was quite delicious. There was something occur in the when we were resting in the hotel. I was awaken by a “pop” sound after I slept at 1am. The external connector socket which I brought was burned when Ching was trying to plug on it to boil water. The room nearly caught on fire. I bought the external connector socket in Urumqi because the socket was different from the plug in Malaysia. The product made in China was quite untrustworthy.

Our dinner....

3rd day
7am: The departure time was brought forward an hour earlier so that we could reached home earlier. We would be going to Golden Beach (金沙滩).

1pm: We had our lunch at 乌什塔拉. We ate 汤饭, because it was the cheapest food in this restaurant. We continued our journey at 2pm. The driver oversped when on the way to Golden Beach and was being fined by the police for 700RMB.

2.30pm: We arrived to Golden Beach. Actually this beach was located at a lake, named Bosten Lake(博斯腾湖). I was very surprised that there were beach beside the lake. The lake was so big that it seemed larger than the sea which between Malaysia and Singapore. I would mistake it to be sea. The sand would blink in gold colour when it was reflected by the sunshine. It was very unique. Nevertheless, I still prefer to Langkawi beach in Malaysia. Langkawi beach was more beautiful than here. Xinjiang was far from sea, they hardly had a chance looking at sea. Hence, they were very excited to see this scenery. For us, seaside was very common so there were not much feeling. After an hour, the trip was over and we prepared to back to Urumqi.

Golden Beach...

Introduction about Bosten Lake: Bosten is Mongolian, and means 'stand-up' in Chinese. Boston Lake is the largest freshwater lake in Xinjiang one of the largest inland freshwater lakes in China. water area of Boston lake is about 1000km2. It located at the north of Korla. It is famous with its unique lush scenery surrounded by the harsh Gobi Desert. It is known as 'a bright pearl of the Oasis'. It is rich in fish and reeds, and is the largest fishing area of Xinjiang Province and one of the four biggest reed producing areas in China.

11pm: We reached our hostel. When on the way back to Urumqi, there was delay, the bus spoiled once. Luckily, after repaired for some time, it could start up again.

Comments:

The whole trip finished in three days. We spent most of our time on the bus because the tourist attractions were far from each other because Xinjiang was very big. Besides, the tour guide and the drivers were unprofessional. The our guide did not explain well when we were on the way to those tourist attractions so I did not even know where was I. She also did not prepared the hotel rooms appropriately and triggered unsatisfied of the tourists. There were two drivers who followed this trip with us. Sometimes, they did not know the way to the place and cause the delay of our trip.

Furthermore, we fated to the police in Korla and Kuqa. The police kept stopped us at the roadside and delayed our time. This trip did not went very smoothly. However, this was an unforgettable trip for me because most of the sceneries was unable to see in Malaysia.

Due to the long-distance trip, toilet was few. The driver once stopped on the roadside and asked the tourists to pee at the wild on the roadside. Men on the left while women on the right. It was very funny. Chinese were very open-minded. Beside riding on camel, I had my first time in doorless toilet. Haha……