3 Days Urumqi-Turpan Tour
Destinations: Turpan -Urumqi
Tour Description: silk road cultural short visit tour that begins in Urumqi and either can be ended in turpan or in Urumqi ,you do home stays in turpan ,visiting the Uyghur family and having lunch with Kazakhs in Heavenly lake ,
Tour Overview: This is a private tour, we will assign private guide, car, van and bus according to the size of the group, and no other participants will be allowed to join in your group . Also the tour is totally flexible and last minute changes also can be arranged to make it fit to your request. however, if you request any additional service and would like to do some adjustment in this itinerary, please feel free to contact us via email or filling up the contact form in contact page of our website in what area you are not satisfied, we can adjust the itinerary according to your every request.
Destinations: Turpan -Urumqi
Duration: 3 days /2 nights
Best time:
Where to Start: start from Urumqi and ends in urumqi
Additional Requests :if you have any requests including home staying with locals, learning about how to cook Uyghur food ,visiting food markets, please mention to us when you book the trip , we will make special arrangements without changing the program
DAILY ITINERARY
DAY 1 URUMQI ARRIVAL
Arrive Urumqi by flight and picked up by guide and driver at the airport , and start visiting the city , first go to Autonomous regional museum for two hrs and come back to visit the international grand bazaar in Urumqi ,after visit then
check in hotel in Urumqi,
DAY 2 URUMQI –HEAVENLY LAKE-TUPAN
In the early morning drive to heavenly lake visit the lake few hrs and drive back to turpan in the afternoon ,check in hotel in turpan
DAY 3 TUPAN CITY CULTURAL TOUR-URUMQI
Turpan is located in the Turpan Basin which is deepest basin in China, northeastern part of Taklimakan desert. it is the Key city on the Middle Silk Road and unique Uyghur Buddha cultural City throughout the Buddha cultural period in the history of Uyghur’s until the 14th century ,then Islam became completely dominant religion in this area after middle of 14th century that Uighur Buddhist royal family escaped to Tibet after big defeat in the war between the Islamic Uyghur’s from the west , that’s why Turpan has considerably best preserves Buddhist historical sites and some of them very well preserved ancient ruins that protected by UNESCO
Today spend the whole morning to visit historical sites in Turpan, visit Emin Minaret, Karez well Museum, Bezaklik Buddha caves ,jiaohe ancient city , Tuyuq valley,
Emin Minaret (sugong Ta in Chinese): Islamic Uyghur mosque with tallest minaret in China (44m, 144ft), built in 1777, an elegant and circular Uyghur traditional architecture
Karez Wells: More than 5000km long Karez was one of the greatest constructions of China ,Turpan’s Karez water system is made up of a horizontal series of vertically dug wells that are then linked by underground water canals to collect water from the watershed surface run off from the base of the Tian Shan Mountains and the nearby Flaming Mountains. The canals channel the water to the surface, taking advantage of the current provided by the gravity of the downward slope of the Turpan Depression. The canals are mostly underground to reduce water evaporation.
Jiaohe (Yarghul in Uyghur )ancient city: it is called Yarghul ancient city Uyghurs and well preserved, excavated mud ancient city ruin in the world . earliest settlers of this city was no later than 1800 years BC, it is abandoned in 14th century AD when the Islam became dominant in the area ,All the houses, even few floor high, were built by excavating the clay ground .that’s the distinctive part than any other ancient cities throughout the silk road .The city was built on a large islet (1650 m in length, 300 m wide at its widest point) in the middle of a river which formed natural defenses, which would explain why the city lacked any sort of walls. it is recently protected by UNESCO
Tuyuk valley: lovely old valley in which the small typical Uyghur village located, when we walk around the village we can absorb the Uyghur old residential lifestyle in Turpan
Bezaklik Thousand Buddha caves: complex of Buddhist cave grottos dating from the 5th to the 9th centuries. There are 77 rock-cut caves at the site. Most have rectangular spaces with rounded arch ceilings often divided into four sections, each with a moral of Buddha. The effect is of entire ceiling covers with hundreds of Buddha murals. Some ceilings are painted with a large Buddha surrounded by other figures, including Indians, Persians and Europeans. The quality of the murals varies with some being artistically naive while others are masterpieces of religious art.
Drive back to Urumqi in the afternoon ,and transfer to airport or hotel
