Heavenly Lake Tianchi

Off we went to a land 68 miles east of Urumqi city, to a place where nature welcomed us with a chilly breeze. Lake Tianchi, truly heavenly as the name states.

To get here, we took a bus from Urumqi to Fukang worth ¥15. It took about an hour. Once in Fukang, be careful you must as there are alot of people overcharging for rides to Lake Tianchi as they include tours. What you must find is the shuttle bus. You can ask the staff at the bus station. This shuttle bus costs ¥5. What I found highly annoying during this journey is the multiple security checks along the way. I've scanned my bag so many times I fear it might mutate soon.

Once at the entrance of Lake Tianchi, you must pay ¥215 (¥125 for ticket and ¥90 for the bus ride to the lake and back).

We got there at 10.30am and the cold wind just slapped me in the face. However, it started to get warmer as the sun started to rise higher. But anyway, the view was awesome! There was snow and the mountains were covered with it. It wasn't like that yesterday so we were super lucky to have picked today to visit Lake Tianchi. A fun fact: the lake gets its water from the melted snow from the mountains.

We brought bread, raisins, apples and biscuits to eat for lunch as they aren't any shops or restaurants nearby. The whole trail around the lake takes about 3 hours, but we just went halfway and turned back.

We headed back by 4pm the same method we came and we reached by 7pm.

At night we were invited to dinner by a friend of a friend who is a local here. We ate at a hotel restaurant called Herembag. The food was amazing. We were served local Uyghur delicacies. Lots of mutton, noodles, dumplings, even chicken (that's super rare here). We had mint tea with honey to wash it all down. My favourite was the walnut dumpling. There was also mutton stuffed bun, which we could not finish because we were stuffed, so we took it to go.

Overall, I had a great day experiencing nature and eating to my heart's content. I wonder what adventure awaits me in the week to come.Read more