Tian Chi

 
Mike was feeling tired, so the rest of us hired a car and went out of the city to Tian Chi (Heavenly Lake). The drive out took us past barren desert and rock, past some Kazakh Yurts, and a river until we arrived up in the mountains. From there we walked up many, many stairs, following a beatiful river, up to a waterfall, a gorgeous greenish blue lake, and up to a second larger lake with boats. We wanted to continue up to a small structure at the top, but ran out of time. We ended up walking around a narrow trail with a guide rail, around the second lake, before we started back to the bottom. It was a tiring walk, especially since we never really get a chance to fully recover before the next walk. There's too much to see and too little time. It was amazing to be up in such a beautiful place. We spent time on the way up resting at spots and just taking it in. The waterfall, the lakes and river were all very soothing, and peaceful.

 

From there we returned to the hotel, got Mike and met up with a Pakistani man named Tasawar, whom we met on the bus the day before. He met us at a restaurant near the hotel. Mike stayed back to rest and we went to the Uigar market again, for some more ice cream. We checked out some musical instruments, talked at length to Tasawar who spoke Uighar also. After that we checked out a large department store much like one you would find in the US. It was fun trying to explain that Andy wanted to buy a towel. After being led to many other things, we finally found one. I met a super cool robot on the way out.

 

We thanked Tasawar for his hospitality then grabbed the bus back to the hotel for some sleep.