Day 31: Turpan to Urumqi, Xinjiang

31 days later we had finally arrived in Urumqi were we greeted by the Feying peeps and taken to an apple orchard for some home cooking and beers.

Day 30: In Turpan, Xinjiang

Day 29: Hami to Turpan, Xinjiang

Distance: ? km
Expenses: gas 69rmb, hotel 60rmb
Events:

• Our hottest ride was the last 30km into Turpan.
• Stayed at the "Disco Hotel" though the disco wasn't open the two days we stayed there.
  
• D ate some awesome rotisserie chicken. The next day, P had to go back and try it.
• T got sick, we think from the heat, so P and D went out that night on a pub crawl. Went to a few bars, learned a new hand drinking game, and took a 10rmb donkey cart taxi. That was 10rmb well spent!
• D and P then stopped in a Muslim bar/disco. Some gerk tried to charge us 20 rmb for a beer, but after a little inquiry with the locals, we found that each was only 10 rmb.
• The Muslim bar was an interesting cultural experience. The boys would dance to a song, then the girls would dance, and then another chang in music would bring the boys back out. Later during other types of music, the boys danced with the girls in some kind of courtship ritual.

Day 28: Dunhuang, Gansu to Hami, Xinjiang

Distance: ? km
Expenses: gas 50rmb, hotel 55rmb
Events:

• P lost his camera on the ride into Hami.
  
• While P &T were waiting for D at a town about an hour from Hami a family came up to t and p and offered them some delicious watermelon.
  
• D bought some home made flat bread baked in a brick oven unique in shape but common in this region of China.
  
• Again D had mechanical problems which he manged to fix and refuses to talk about.

Day 27: Anxi to Dunhuang, Gansu

Distance: 150 km
Expenses: gas 30rmb, hotel 65rmb, mogao caves 180(peak season price)
Events:

• After a relatively short ride, went directly to the Mogao Caves after reaching the outskirts of Dunhuang.
• It was a hard call whether to enter the Mogao Ku at the price of 180 per person. P had to do some soul searching and in the end he decided to enter. His soul was wrong.
• We had a bad guide. She went into little detail about the paintings and questions about destruction due to the Cultural Revolution were avoided more than once.
  
• Ran into Evan when while shopping around for a hotel in Dunhuang. "It's a small world" was playing in the background.
  
• In Dunhuang they sell a special apricot juice. More dried fruit and assorted kinds of nuts are on sale the closer we got to Xinjiang.
• An outdoor chuar restaurant gave us the boot because we didn't order expensive food and were just drinking beer. Another tried charging us 5rmb for free sunflower seeds. Evan's Chinese is really good, so he had the waitress have it.
• Overall, we were disappointed with the site and the city, and it was probably the worst place we visited.

Day 26: Jiayuguan to Anxi, Gansu

Distance: ? km
Events:

• Rode about 250km through the desert with strong winds and no road except the expressway that forbids motorcycles. Later we learned that Evan took the expressway without a problem.
• A sign in the middle of the desert said, "drive careful harsh weather." From Anxi on, all the roads were nice.
• There were some sections, maybe a total of 1km at a time that were ok, but mostly included a variety of off-road terrain. We were lucky not to crash into a sinkhole that was 3m round and a meter deep. Of course there was no warning sign.