Jiayuguan was filled with Silk Road history, new friends and a few too many beers! Named after Jiayu Pass, the first frontier fortress at the west end of the Ming dynasty Great Wall. Situated at the narrowest part of the Hexi Corridor (a narrow stretch of traversable desert between mountain ranges) which acted as a natural funnel for merchants and enemies.
Our first evening in Jiayuguan was an emotional roller coaster. We arrived at our hostel late in the afternoon feeling pretty exhausted from a long travel day. We hadn’t seen much of the city, but we had driven through some weird industrial areas on the way to the hostel, and the vibes were a bit off.
After resting in our room for a while we forced ourselves to go and explore, and found some electric scooters to rent. We hadn’t managed to get them working up until this point, but this night we were successful and we rode our little yellow scooters into town to a night market. At the market we had our first Uygur food experience, and it was a proper feast. We had huge plates of meat skewers, bowls of roasted peanuts, delicious cucumber salad, and lots of beer. It must be a rare occurrence for foreigners to come to a local market, and we were treated like celebrities. We had strange dishes brought for us, beers given to us, and a lot of Baiju (a strong local spirit). It was a fun night, and a great reminder that when we feel weird about a new place, the best thing to do is to go out and explore.
When we arrived back at our hostel I got into a deep conversation about geopolitics and history with an Australian guy called Tim. It was nice to talk to someone else with a similar culture and sense of humor in such a remote part of the world.
The next day we had a jam-packed day of sightseeing with our new friend Tim and our friend Felix from Zhangye. We ended the day back at the market for a repeat of the night before, this time with our friends joining us. Jiayuguan was a great mix of history, friends, delicious food and some fun nights.