You haven't been really low until you've been to China's northwestern Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Here millions of years ago, geological fidgetings-about farmed a 69,000odd sq km basin at the foot of the Tien Shan mountain range. In the middle of the so-called Turpan Depression is Aydingkol Lake the deepest point of which lies 154.5 metres below sea level. That makes it second lowest place on the face of the earth, after the Dead Sea in Jordan



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This part of Xinjing province is a place of contrasts: deserts, mountains, extreme temperatures, low annual rainfall (16mm), high annual evaporation rate (3000 mm) and gusty winds. It is inhabited by the largest minority community in Xinjing- the Uighurs, whose Turkic ethnic and linguistic roots and the fact that they have been Muslim for a thousand years, distinguishes them from the Han and Hui Chinese.

The town of Turpan (or Turfan, or Tulufan), once a vital node on the Silk Road, suffers the hottest summers in China. When the 7th century monk Xuan Zang approached the 100 km arm of mountains northeast of Turpan, the ruddy sandstone inflamed by the sun put him in mind of a wall of fire. The Flaming Mountains get their name from his mythical epic novel, Journey to the West. They are indeed, terribly hot and dry; they say that no bird will fly within 500 km of them. And yet, they serve as a huge natural dam for the basin's water reservoir. Reservoir? For 2,000 years the people of Turpan have been able to harvest and conserve their abundant mountain meltwaters thanks to an interlinked system of wells, underground canals, trenches and ground reservoirs totaling 3,000 km in length. Most of this ?karez? irrigation system-begun as far back as the Han dynasty (200 BC) and recorded in the Shi Ji history as ?wells canal?-was built in the Qing era (17th century). The karez is still maintained traditionally; a man is lowered into the tunnel and clears the mud from it with buckets, which are retrieved on pulleys drawn by a horse. Karezes are immune to scorching heat and fierce wind, ensuring a plentiful and stable water supply. (This technology is also used in Afghanistan, where it made the news recently as one of the great defensive advantages of the Taliban.) The Wudaolin Karez, complete with a museum and pictorial displays, is open to visitors. The people of Turpan have also forested the desert frontiers in the last few decades, almost doubling their cultivable acreage.

Hence the astonishing fact that despite its merciless climate, Turpan is China's oldest and largest producer of grapes, wines, fruit and long-staple cotton. West of the Flaming Mountains and east of the city lies grape Valley a cool, green, humid tract 8km long and half a kilometer wide, which grows the ?mare's teat? grape and the famous white seedless grape, among 100 other varieties; and the sweet Hami melon as well as other fruit. In the summer the trellised walks of Grape Valley are draped with bunches of grapes beneath which the Uighurs relaxes and holds folk dances. There's lots to see in and around Turpan the Id-Kah mosque, the 44m high Em-Im minaret, built of sun-dried bricks in 1777 the 300 CE-era murals at the protected Thousand Buddha Caves in Bezeklik (Bezeklik means ?place where there are paintings?) 48 km northeast of Turpan; the great ruined cities of Jiaohe and Gaochang; and the Atsana graves which contain the burial remains of 3rd and 9th century royalty. The dry climate is marvelous for preserving all this history-even the stuffing of the boiled dumplings unearthed at the graves was fresh. So don't be alarmed if you're invited to bury yourself upto the waist in the scorching sands by a friendly doctor: it's supposedly an excellent therapy for sciatica and lumbago

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