Tursun Gul, a local Uighur woman on a crutch, shouts at Chinese armored personnel carriers and soldiers wearing riot gear as a crowd of angry locals confront security forces on a street in the city of Urumqi on July 7, 2009. Click on the image to access more pictures. Warning, some photos are shocking.

I found a testimony on a blog on Le Monde.fr, a French newspaper. Here is an excerpt.

I was in Urumqi on July 5th. The demonstration started at 5 pm. It had been announced on the web the day before. That was mainly students who were asking for justice after what had happened on June 26th at Shaogan. Rebiya Kadeer has nothing to do with that. Around 5 pm we started to gather on the People’s square, in front of the prefecture, with black t-shirts to show our message. I was with my girlfriend. We were around 200, 300 people, mostly students. Then some more came to support us. Ultimately we were more than 3000. Among us were even some Uyghurs officials working for the government.

Please follow the story here.

Keep him on the leash!

Today’s adventure: Go and see some Buddha!
And it went all right. I met 3 Chinese students who were also going to visit the stuff, and I kind of got stucked with them all day long. The girl in the group came to me asking if I wanted to walk together to the grottoes, so I said ok,  so nice I am. And then the photo sessions started, they all wanted pictures with me, especially her. So every 5 min we were stopping to take pictures. Very tiring. But it was ok until we reached a platform with lots of Chinese girls… One asked the one accompanying me if she could have a picture with me, and suddenly a crowd was around me and I was flashed at least 500 times (I may slightly exaggerate).

But then came lunch time and I was relieved that we found a abandoned table away from the crowds, and even more relieved when she insisted to share their picnic with me (they even had a fried duck!).

So I finally was able to turn off my constant vigilance against Chinese weirdness; to the point when she offered me the head of the damn duck, with its beak wide open and its eyes staring at me.
And she insisted, as apparently it was 很好吃 (very good).

So I had to eat the damn thing. Lessons to learn: “always stay vigilant by all means”.

Apart from that the Buddha and his cousin Bodhisattva were quite truly impressive. It was all carved (or it started) around 550 AD! And the biggest one (25 meters high) stands in the middle of a cliff which is already high enough to give me an impressive vertigo. These Buddhist monks had it! Also it is said to have been funded by rich merchants on the Silk Road who had a permanent residency in Tianshui. Cool eh?

I also got a present from the girl: a Buddha bronze medal with my name engraved on it. It was still a nice day after all.

And now I am exhausted because I had to get up early again this morning, so tomorrow I shall finally relax.

And tomorrow I’ll go to Zhangye, continuing my Silk Road experience…

To sum up: it all started with Ryanair that I love so much. It’s interesting how the flight attendants seem to be raking up the passengers, trying to extract as much money as possible in the allocated time of the short flight from Nimes to London. They must have passed at least 100 times, each time with something new to offer: sandwich, drinks, duty free crap, and even donations for charity in the end. Charity for Ryanair? Ah…

But I survived these back killer seats quite well. Arriving London I was welcomed by the famous British rain. So I ran to catch the bus to Heathrow, trying to avoid the drops of water (I failed). The bus ride was longer than the flight itself, but at least I got to the Air China check in counter.

But then I hear that I cannot enter without a flight out of China! So they made me buy a refundable ticket from Beijing to Hong Kong, which I will cancel as soon as possible. As I was doing all of this I was starting to realize that I would soon be in China for the second time, with a little apprehension. Anyways, the flight was horrible. I was stuck between 2 big Chinese guys, which made me feel like I had a big panda on each side. So I was stick between 2 giant pandas for 10h. One started to sleep on the little tablet in front of me, so almost on my lap. The other panda was so big that he was spilling everywhere on me. So that was an interesting flight.

But then, then, when we finally arrive in Beijing, as I was walking by the “anti-pig-flu” infrared thermometers the machine start beeping like if I was a terrorist. So the quarantine people start redirecting me toward a tent in the middle of the airport where they could further check my temperature… Of course I am slightly hot as the terminal is like a furnace and I haven’t slept for 24 hours almost! Luckily enough the second check was apparently satisfying so they had to let me go, quite unwillingly.

And then I was in Beijing! It’s hot like hell, just the way I like it! I will soon write more on Beijing…

p.s: this post in French here

The Taklamakan Desert (or 塔克拉玛干沙漠) is situated in the far west of China and I recently saw a documentary some 3000 years old forgotten mummies! I hope there is a way for me to get to visit some of the half buried cities from ancient civilizations, and maybe the mummies themselves! The mummies should not be too hard to find (as they usually don’t move so much) but the buried cities in the middle of the desert will be something else.

Indeed I doubt that there are shuttle buses crossing the desert every hour, and their is probably no accomodation either (since the cities are actually buried!). Anyhow I am currently trying to find other travellers’ blog to see if it has been done.
But not so much results until now…