The Heavenly Lake in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region

After traveling all day (flew from Qingdao to Shanghai and Shanghai to Urumqi) we arrived in Xinjiang on October 2nd. The next morning we took the tour bus for a 2 hour ride into the high mountains outside the city to The Heavenly Lake. It was a beautiful ride. We saw a few domestic herds of camels along the highway. Much of the landscape until we went into the mountainous area is like Utah or Idaho. The lake is very lovely and is considered sacred by the people. There is a Taoist temple on one side of the lake and several small temples on the mountains, also. We went for a 20 minute boat ride out from the shore so we could see  a little further. I'm not sure if you can see on one of the photos, but there are snow covered peaks at one end of the lake.

Near the bus was a small market where we saw lamb hanging and also nang bread being made. We bought some of the flat bread with sesame seeds on top and loved it! it is a Uygur bread similar to Indian nan bread. Everyone in our group kept asking for this bread! We were able to buy it throughout the Western area. 

The Xingiang province is made up of about 70% Uygur minority people (their language and appearance is Turkish rather than Chinese). Uygur is spelled several different ways and pronounced sort of Weghur. There are about 20% Han (Chinese) and the last 10% are various other minorities. This is the area that had some rioting in July, but it was safe now. Many of the minorities, especially the Uygurs, are Muslim so we saw a number of mosques in the city. Urumqi (pronounced in Mondgolian as Urumshi or Uygur as Wulumuchi) is made up of a higher percentage of Chinese than the rest of the area. it is a modern with lots of high buildings.