Wouldnt say it was a pleasant train ride due to the long hour ride and for not getting enough rest. However the journey was rewarding enough to have seen rainbow in the desert above the train during dinner time, it was 2 of them to be exact, buddhist believe its a good sight.

we've been shifting cubicles to cubicles for trying to change to a better seats, those with sleeping lot. wasnt a pleasant experience to have dragged our beggage from cubicle 1 to cubicle 16.

we finally reached Urumuqi, a very crowded place, filled with different style of Arabic + Chinese typography, u'll get to see some russian style buidling as well. It was hot n humid that day.

we were looking for driver to bring to our next stop which is Ku Er Le (further down south of Urumuqi), as a transit to go to Kashgar. and we found a humble and honest looking, middle-aged stocky uygur man, telling us he has contact to driver who travel to that part of Xin Jiang. without wasting time, we trusted him and hopped in a small van which can barely fit 5 of us (not to mention the baggage we had..) with 2 uygur drivers, we headed down south. approx 600-700km ride.

Day 5 [09 08] Urumuqi (乌鲁木齐)