My Photo Album Silk Road Tour August 2000

Section 3: Turpan and Urumqi
 

Grape Valley Turpan (Xinjiang province) is a desert oasis, graced with grape vines and abandoned ancient cities. It is also the hottest spot in China - the temperatures in summer can reach close to 50 degrees.

 

Accident on a Salt Lake At the very bottom of the Turpan depression, 154 m below sea level, is Aydingkol Lake, the second lowest lake in the world (after the Dead Sea). It is dangerous to walk on the surface of crystallized salt, as you can see on the photo. I lost one shoe at -154.5 m.

 

 


    Lake of Heaven
Tianchi is a deep-blue lake in the Tianshan mountains and looks like a piece of Switzerland in western China. The lake is 115 km east of Xinjiang's province capital Urumqi at an elevation of 1980 m.
 

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