Xinjiang, China’s Central Asia and incredible Tibet – Day 3

Day3:

The hotel at Burqin named as Friendship Peak Hotel was really nice one, actually a 4 star hotel in Chinese standard and we had a good sleep and feeling much better after yesterday’s 12 hour drive. The breakfast was as usual Chinese here, we already knew we had to depend mostly on standard things like egg, cookies and lots of breads. The Kazakh bread we tasted here was nice, far better than Chinese noodles, we had it as much as we could, so we don’t have to again bother with Chinese food in between and bought fruits like date, apple, banana from Burqin. Our next stop would be Jiadengyu which is 150km away from Burqin and deep inside Altai area but as that’s just a gateway town for Kanas Lake, so everything is 5 times costlier than Burqin, so better to buy your foods and other things you need there in Kanas from Burqin rather than depending on Jiadengyu.

Route Map for the day:

The drive started and we soon realized it’s the completely different view of vast grasslands of Altai region with a nomadic culture all around. This area has a mixed culture of Kazakh, Mongols and Tuvans. This drive will offer you number of picturesque camping spots lined with birches, willow, poplar and crossing the expanse of Siberian Prairie land you would descend to a valley of forest and pastureland. We saw lots of nomadic settlements and their make shift camps who go down south as temperature plummeted to 40 degree below zero in winter and the whole area gets covered with snow. This region certainly adds to diversities of Xinjiang which looks purely Siberian landscape between November to May.

Burqin – A small town with close European look than Traditional Chinese:

A break from yesterday’s desert look, scenery turns green:

Vast Pastureland:

And Nomadic Culture with lots of Mongolian and Kazakh Yurt:

The vastness of grassland is simply amazing:

The road continues it journey to deeper Altai Region:

Reaching picturesque Jiadengyu – the Gateway of Kanas Nature Reserve:

Day3 Continued…

We reached Jiadengyu by noon and after check in the hotel there, we decided to explore Kanas lake on the same day. Kanas has a lot of walking trails around lake edge to provide fascinating hiking experience for those who are short in time and for those who can spend couple of days, hiking from Kanas lake to Hemu valley in east with an overnight camping at Black Lake is a great idea. Baihaba is another tuvan village in west but unfortunately being just close Kazak border fencing, foreigners are not allowed there. We took precisely 1130 stairs to go up the Guanyu (Fish Watching) Pavilion from where you can get almost a 360 degree view of Kanas Nature Reserve with full view of lake and the friendship peak further away, we were lucky to have a very clear weather and seen the whole Altai range with friendship peak clearly in front of us. Friendship Peak is more famous as 4 point borders of Mongolia, Russia, China and Kazakhstan and view from this 2000 mtr high pavilion is simply stunning with the curvy Kanas lake below. This area in Xinjiang is costliest in whole province, even in Jiadengyu / Burqin room rent for a night goes to 700 to 800 RMB in shoulder season and you won’t get any accommodation in high season of summer. There are few accommodations inside park area which are either too costly or too basic and we decided to stay the night in Jiadengyu only. The hotel was good but was crowded with Chinese tourists, actually the Kanas area is very popular among Chinese Tourists and we found people from far south east province of Chengdu or Guangzhou also came to visit in large numbers. The night was chilly, in September mercury plummeted 15 notches below zero and with central heating on we managed the night but getting outside for some night shot was just not possible, Siberian cold has something special in it for sure.

At the entrance of Kanas Nature Reserve: