China Day 16

First day that weather impacted on or China excursion, but it wasn't that bad really. First thing this morning was a visit to the Xinjiang Regional Museum which contained some extraordinary exhibits.  The museum is huge - four stories high but we only visited a small fraction which focussed on discoveries made in nearby cemeteries dating back 3000 years. Because of the extremely hot and dry climate here,many bodies buried I the cemeteries accidentally preserved toan amazing extent. It was a bit weird, but the bodies on display were in incredible condition but were 3 - 4 thousand years old - hair, skin, etc still I tact and the clothes in which they were buried still I remarkable condition including feathered hats worn by the women. 

We then headed towards the afternoon attraction, the Heavenly Lake, which is 1980 metres above sea level in the mountains and stopped for lunch at another Uighur family restaurant where a Urt was on display with all the beautiful internal wall carpets and furnishings. Beautiful. As we headed towards the mountains the weather closed in and by the time we got on the shuttle bus to head up the mountain road the fog was getting quite thick. As we approached the top snow appeared on the side of the road and as we got out of the bus the visibility was about zero. Also freezing cold so our time at the Heavenly Lake was very short and we could soon nothing of the spectacular (apparently) views.

Heading Back into town we were again stopped by police at the toll gate for paper checking etc.

Off to the airport in the morning to fly to Kashgar!