Day 43 Saturday September 12th 389 km (13313 km total)
Today we cross over some desert mountains - whoopee! - plus you can read about the toll booth shuffle, see a desert ski jump & a happy tanker!
The day starts out much as before, but with an enticing glimpse of mountains ahead of us.
After a while we arrive at a toll booth.
Remember motorcycles are not allowed in the toll roads and there are traffic police at every booth, usually with a police station - this is the white building in the right in the photo.
The routine is for us to wait at the side of the road for the guide to catch up in his car, he goes forward to see how the land lies and then indicates via hand signals what we should do. This varies from, come & join the negoatiation, show passports, sneak past the barriers when a lorry is going through, ride along a little walkway they sometimes have at the right hand side or todays, which I will call the 'toll booth shuffle' and is a little bazarre!
The guide indicated that we should go forward and turn right into the police compound ...
Oh dear, we thought, its going to be a long one ....
However, once inside, a smiling policeman waved us along where he opened the exit gate that re-entered the toll road afterl the toll booth! Hence we were not on camera and therefore not his problem presumably.
As I said bizarre, but who are we to complain!
And then it was back onto the road, mountains on the left & desert on the right ......
Until the road turned into the mountains - this is more like it, better close up scenery.
... abandoned settlements ....
.... but then desert both sides
... Then it was back up into the mountains
... We were at about 1600m by this point, riding along the top of a high desert plateau with other-worldly shaped rocks (sandstone I think)
After a while the rocks became dark brown & black in colour, it felt a bit like riding through Hades - or maybe that was just because I was listeneing to 'Mars' from 'The Planet's Suite' on my ipod at the time.
As the road descended, the rocks became golden again, the temperature increased significantly and the route was peppered with ski jumps ..... Actually these were escape lanes for out of control lorries, but dont they look tempting?!
Descending further and the lanscape took on an even more desert like appearance and I then came across a happy tanker! ..... Maybe he had just been on one of the ski jumps!
Back on the planes ... Flat, hot & bleak
Changing to greenery as we approached Turpan, civilisation & a sleeping passenger!
Lots of vines everywehere - this is a grape growing region, due to the long hot desert summers and good irrigation system.
We stopped for the night at a rather run down grand old hotel.
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