October 4th
134km (844m vertical)
Spent the morning battling brutal headwinds while climbing gradually out of the Turfan Depression. This slowed me down to 10km/h at times as I pushed hard on the pedals and tried to make myself as aerodynamic as possible. Very tiring with little to show for the effort. Headwinds suck.
At least we got a change of scenery from the dead-flat desert as we climbed through large, sandy hills that were dotted with Muslim cemeteries and grape-drying buildings. Raisins from this area are famous, apparently.
The afternoon was flatter and less windy. Its amazing how we can be in the middle of the desert one minute, then suddenly in a busy little town, and then back into the vast open desert again on the other side. The towns here truly are oases.
There were many complaints at lunch about the rock-solid bread, which was the only variety that Miles could find yesterday, during Ramadan. The Chinese themselves don't eat much bread, so once we leave the Muslim area we will see much less of it. The hotels always have big doughy dumplings stuffed with meat for breakfast, and sometimes they have deep fried dough with sugar on it – like a Chinese doughnut. These will have to do.
Camped tonight beside an old, half-buried, half-destroyed building. I crawled in through a window and felt like the Indiana Jones characters from “Devils on the Silk Road” that would search old ruins like this for treasure, artwork, etc. The only things I found were a carrot, a paper airplane, and an empty beer can.
Jost climbing:
Riding through the sandy mountains:
Muslim cemetery in the desert:
There were hundreds of these mud buildings, used to dry grapes:
A young Indiana Jones?
The inside of our campsite "ruins":
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