The plan for the day was that we would do some tourist stuff until mid afternoon and then return to the hotel, get our bags, go to dinner and then catch another overnight train this time to the town of Yining which is close to the border town of Khorgas. We (being the group) do not really know why the train does not go all the way to Khorgas. The first tourist thing of the day was a visit to the cities Museum.

The museum building itself was very impressive and was clearly the benificiary of a good level of government funding. Inside the exhibits were extensive and detailed to the point of overkill. On reflection I concluded the high level of detail was another indication of a generous level of government funding. Why spend so much money on a museum was the obvious question? At the risk of mis-reading between the lines I felt that the tone of the museum and its exhibits were all about cementing the glorious history of China in the minds of the current generation of Chinese and helping the minorities undertand how lucky they are to be part of this great culture.

So to test the above theory with a sample of one, I asked a local Uyghur man, well educated with a degree in science, how he felt about the Chinese "takeover" (maybe too strong a word). His answer was something like:

when I compare the living standards of Uyghurs in neighbouring countries to our living standards here I conclude that we are better off because of Chinas huge investment in infra-structure.

After the museum we visited a city park located on a prominent hill called Red Hill where there is a statue of an early 20th century Chinese government official named Lin_Zexu(picture 4th from last). He is perhaps best known for precipitating the First Opuim War between China and the west. Surprisingly he thought it was not good for China that the British East India Company was selling opium to Chinese citizens, and hence convinced the Chinese Emperor to ban the trade. In response the British attacked China, forced reparation payments to compensate the BEI Co for loss of opium business, and insisted that Lin Zexu be punished. The punishment was banishment to Urumqi as govenor. That is why the statue is in Urumqi. So I guess this gives the British East India Company and hence the British Government the dubious distinction of being the modern worlds first Drug Cartel.

After all of that we caught an overnight train to Yining, a small town (by Chinese standards) about 1 hours drive east of Khorgas in preparartion for tomorrows border crossing.