Hami, Xinjiang

I am in the land of Melons. This area of Xinjiang is famed for the Hami Gua, a melon that is eaten all over China. Just in case we forgot, driving in this morning, we were greeted with a delightfully tacky statue of a Hami Gua in the middle of a traffic circle. Even with such a structure, my attention was directed to a nearby KFC.

Our last rest day was in Turpan, an area of XinJiang that is very famous for grapes. Cycling into the city, we passed hundreds of small brick structures walled in a lattice pattern. Later we found out these buildings were used to make Turpan's second most famous export. You guessed it, rasins.

We are three days into our 7 day stretch to DunHuang. The past two nights have been very cold, but we have enjoyed the now expected natural beauty of Xin Jiang. Our first day out of Turpan, we passed the "Flaming Mountains." These are petrified dunes, that when looked at from the right angle, Richard Simmons can be seen making out with Christopher Lowell. Seriously.

Ok, not so seriously. They are red sandstone hills on the northern edge of the Turpan Basin that when the sun light hits it just right, the hills look aflame. Brilliant orange, red, and purple colors play tricks on your eyes. They really look like they are on fire.

Cycling yesterday, we climbed small hills with spectacular purple mountains in the distance. "Purple Mountains Majesty..." kept playing over and over in my head. I had to remind myself that I was not in America. Although our local Texan likened the landscape to his home state.

Our disgusting tour guide has finally left and we are enjoying the help of a new guide. Before our old guide was put on a bus back to Kashgar, he had the nerve to ask each of us staff for a tip. Each of us responded in pun "Here's a tip, learn how to use a shower," or something similar. Zabi, our new guide, heard me and our boss expressing our disgust and shortcomings of our previous guide. Needless to say, he has been working extra hard ever since.

I'm going to take a short vacation from the tour in about two weeks. My cohorts in Beijing convinced me to come to Hong Kong and play in an Ultimate Tourney. It took little convincing other than Sandy telling me she could get a round trip ticket from Lanzhou at 60% off. Big Brother, Here I come! I can't wait to see all of you.

It's hard to believe that the tour is nearly one month from being over. We have already had a meeting for next years Tour D Afrique which will commence the second Saturday in January. Many of the staff have already been on the trip and each time they recall a memory gets me even more excited for the trip.

It's getting late in the afternoon and I am going to try and fix my iPod. It wants me to reconnect it to iTunes to restore, I hope it is not broken or all of my pictures from Turkey to Samarkand will be lost, which would be a huge shame. However, my favorite pictures are from Kyrgyzstan so it will not be a total loss.

As always, I hope all is going well with you all. Take care and I will be in touch.

-CB