Turpan to Kashgar,

Took the bus from Turpan to Daheyan in order to catch the train to Kashgar, there's a lovely new tollway for most of the distance and that is what was used on my way into Turpan, on the return however the driver took an entirely different route through the back blocks on mostly dirt roads and the trip took at twice as much time. Just as I was beginning to think a monumental mistake had been made and that I was on the wrong bus, we returned to the sealed road and shortly after arrived in Daheyan.
Departing at 1501 precisely, the train has passed through several forms of desert landscape, surely making this one of the worlds more interesting train trips. I've seen black rolling hills with not even the most rudimentary sign of life, flat black sand that stretched to the horizons on both sides, soaring snow caped mountains and wide valleys dotted with sheep, cattle, horses and even a camel, ruins of villages of past generations, jagged rocky hills with raw seams of coal showing at one stage and the discolouring reds, browns and greens giving evidence to the mineral riches contained within them. Now a flat scrubby desert in the midst of a severe dust storm so intense that the train has slowed to a crawl on several occasions and along it all the occasional oasis of cultivated farmland.
My respect for the caravan traders of the past has appreciated significantly in the course of this journey and I've gained more of an appreciation of just how significant an event it was to be cast out through the various gates of the great wall into the unknown expanses of this unforgiving landscape.
To go from the second lowest depression on the planet and the lowest train station on earth up into and through permanently snow capped mountains in a matter of several hours is one of the more memorable travel experiences I've had, such a pity the grime on the windows made photography impossible. I really don't think the tourist authorities appreciate what a spectacle this is. It seems that unless they can charge an entry fee and set up souvenir stalls all selling the same junk that the Chinese have trouble recognising a real and natural tourist attraction , I enjoyed the view from the train ride more than all of the so called significant sites in and around Turpan.