Turpan from Urumqi: 2-Day Trip

Ruins tend to mean walls built upward. Jiaohe went downward. The city stands on a loess terrace between two rivers, and its streets, offices and Buddhist temples were cut down from the ground surface instead of built up. UNESCO listed it in 2014 among the Silk Roads sites, and its surviving earthen architecture ranks among the best preserved of its type.

Turpan Museum holds mummies, documents and clay figurines from the Astana tombs. Many tomb documents consist of discarded official paper pasted together, and that kept a large amount of Tang administrative records from Xizhou by accident.

Emin Minaret closes the route: a cone-shaped brick minaret built in 1777 and 44 metres tall. The three stops lie 152 to 162 km from Urumqi in a straight line, so the route takes two days. The Urumqi city guide covers the starting city.

Arranging these 3 stops yourself keeps the budget lower. It also means booking each one and the transfers between them. Compare a private tour with independent travel, or ask PreeChina to plan it.

This route is a starting point: 2 days and 3 stops. PreeChina plans it as a private, tailor-made trip and changes the stops, the days and the pace to your group.

This route is in Xinjiang. The province page lists its city guides, themes, museums and other routes.