Train tickets in China are rare. Seats are numbered and have to be reserved in advance. So, we went to Turpan train station, which is some…..50km away from the city. Even the airport is not so far away. There is an explanation to this: Turpan lies below sea level, while most of the railroad joining the major cities in XinJiang province lies at an altitude around 800 meters. Turpan station is at an altitude of 900 meters, and this was quite an advantage in times of steam locomotives, who could avoid the long climb from Turpan to this elevation.

Now, talking of major cities, I exaggerated a little; on our 673 km train transfer, we just passed 1 city, Hami, and this was not a big one. Besides that: desert, desert and desert again. Nothing else. I am getting desperate; will this never end? There are 1.6 billion Chinese in this country, and, on a distance of nearly 700 km we only passed one City. So where are all these Chinese hiding?

Liuyuan, where we finally arrived after a nine hour long journey is a boring city built around a noisy train station. The only interest is that both Taklamakan routes, the North and the South route join here. Besides this, there is nothing here. Just a few houses surrounded by desert. So was our hotel. Air-conditioning was not working, and there was no water, but a lot of noise.

The next day we cycled 143 km to Dunhuang, a city with multiple interesting attractions. I do not want to annoy you, but once again we cycled a long day through the desert, crossing just one small village.

My motivation is going close to zero…..

Little water spot on the route du Dunhuang

No more drinking water here