The Silk Road

China's National Day (our 4th of July) is October 1. The nation takes a week off (including schools) to celebrate. Terry and I joined other BYU China teachers for a week's tour of some great sights along the ancient Silk Road of China. We had paid our money and reserved our seats, but we were in doubt as to going until two hours prior to departure. The school was having problems getting our “resident visas” and they had taken our passports to the police station to get the paperwork done. We made daily contact to see if they'd speed up the process, but no results. We packed our bags and two hours before the bus arrived to take us to the airport we received a call that our passports and visas were back. Off we went to check out the Silk Road of China (ancient road transporting silk across China to Europe). We flew six hours to the farthest northwestern province of China (bordering Russia and Outer Mongolia) and worked our way down through the Gobi Desert, visiting ancient desert villages and ending up in Xi'an, the eastern end of the Silk Road. Our transportation included airplane, bus, train, donkey-cart and camel. All methods of traveling were enjoyed without mishap. On the train we were in sleeper bunks with four to a room (I use the term “room” loosely). At one point, we had over eight folks in our room laughing and having a party. I’m sure everyone who knows me knows how much I enjoyed riding that camel. It was my highlight! Very interesting when they are getting up and down--hold on!It was a glorious six days getting more acquainted with the people, geography, history and customs of these wonderful Chinese people as well as the great BYU China teachers who shared the journey with us. Our flight home was delayed about four hours so we got home, had a couple hours of sleep and went back to teaching classes. Exhausting, but worth the adventure.
Urumqi is 90% Muslim population. This is one of the many mosques in this city.

We started our journey in Urumqi, China at this beautiful lake appropriately named Heavenly Lake.