Welcome to our little corner of the Internet. Kick your feet up and stay a while.
day full of emailing, videos editing and an interview at the Urumqi Architectural Design Institute. At this institute we spoke to Mr. Ma about the urban development of Urumqi for the book Maren is writing about ‘Perspectives along the Silk Road: from an urbanizing China to an urbanized Europe’.
e packed up our car and were all set to go to the Heaven Lake, about a 2 hour drive from Urumqi. Heaven Lake, or Tian Chi, is a small, long, steely-blue lake nestled below the view-grabbing 5445m Peak of God.
rumqi, or Wulumuqi in Chinese, is the capital city of Xinjiang and sprawls 20 km across a fertile plain in the shadow of the Tian Shan mountains. Close to two million residents make this a surprising city of high-rise apartments, tower blocks and one of the greatest assets of the city: People’s Park. A fantastic place where young and old, …
injiang, China’s far-flung western frontier is really not around the corner. Three weeks on the way now and after driving again for 9 hours brings us from Dunhuang to Turpan in the middle of China’s Death Valley. At 154m below sea level, it’s the second lowest depression in the world and the hottest spot in China. Only a week ago …
atch episode 2 – Into the Wild in Sichuan – on Youtube or Youku and read all about our 2nd week below. I’m honking vigorously while driving. Not an unusual sight here in China. However, there are no pedestrians and traffic jams where we are. Welcome to rural Sichuan province, where honking my way through groups of yaks has become …
oday, the Mogao caves are on our list! These caves display, simply said, one of the greatest repositories of Buddhism art in the world. Some of the art and statues are over 2000 years old! The site is located near Dunhuang, in the middle of the desert. An ‘Indiana Jones’ movie-set alike! The caves are impressive for sure although you …
aking up in the morning in our tent in the middle of the desert is quite an experience. Our bed is formed by the sand below us, quite comfortable actually, and sand is literally everywhere! In our ears, armpits, between our toes etc etc. It feels good to be a child again, in this giant sandbox!
he sun has something magical. We are chasing it every day westwards until our arrival in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. While we were sitting in the middle of towering-high sand dunes in Dunhuang the sun gave us an amazing light show, playing with shadows and her light strokes.
e left the green, fertile plains of China behind us and made our way to the steppes, desert and a whole lot of nothingness in the western parts of China. It was very tempting to make a left turn to Lhasa (still 1296 km away) but we decided to stick to our plan and head for Dunhuang in Gansu province.
agical Qinghai Lake is the largest lake in China, situated at 3000 meter above sea level. Just an excellent spot for camping and a little photo shoot for the car! (and yes, we need to clean the car)