Traveling day eighteen - in which we see bazaars, bodies and Buicks

We had some time this morning to explore Urumqi.  We decided to go to the international Bazaar to check it out, and caught a taxi there.  Sitting in the front seat of taxis in China increases your faith.....
The bazaar was strangely deserted, and we realised it was the tourist bazaar.  There were stalls with hats, knives, horse whips, Turkish costumes, scarfs, dried fruit and gourds.  But very few customers.  Which gave the stall holders many opportunities to ply their wares and hassle us.  There was a very strong Turkish influence - I didn't realise the strong links along the Silk Road route.  We wandered around for a bit and took some photos, then headed onto the museum.  On the way out in the taxi we saw a much more interesting local bazaar out of the window, but it whizzed by.

Horse whips.  With real goat hooves and horse hooves on.  Difficult to get through customs I imagine.

The Urumqi Museum was excellent.  Stuff is so OLD in China - we saw artifacts from 2000 BC - the mind boggles.  I loved seeing the fragments of cloth from 100 BC, and imagining people wearing them as they travelled down the Silk Road.  They also had a wonderful exhibition on all the different people groups in the Urumqi area, their background, dress, language and customs.  Fascinating.  We went upstairs to the mummies - there were three mummies that were dated from 1800 BC.  Just lying there in the museum.  Spooky.  Fascinating.  Slightly reminiscent of anatomy class.  We obeyed the signs that said no photos.  Many locals didn't.

Old instrument with real knucklebones.

After our flight to Xian tonight we were driven to out hotel.  The driver said he could do it in 14 minutes.  I said 'ok go'.  He proceeded to drive terrifyingly down the expressway at 140 km, high beaming cars that were too slow.  Fortunately the Buick he was driving could cope with the speed smoothly.  Deanne said I should think before challenging a driver to make a time limit.  She is probably right - there is a time and a place for humour.

One of MANY airport transfers.

Speaking of humour, our plane was an hour late to take off, so Granny and I wrote captions on the pictures in the in-flight magazine that was all in Chinese.  We thought we were hilarious.  Hopefully an English speaker finds the magazine and has a laugh.

Tomorrow we will go and see the Terracotta Warriors.  I plan to buy a little statue of one and bring it home.

Onwards.