Dilemma! Dilemma! Dilemma!… Where should i go now huh??
Salma’s future is revealed!!! lol…
I was lazy in Urumqi. Stayed here longer than i planned. I hang out with other foreigners in my hostel… including 2 german cyclists who cycled here from germany! They have a blog too and u can check it out, http://www.aufudavon.de/ Well its written in germans, but try to use google translator to convert it to English. It worked on my lappie. They cycled around the same distance and time as me too. The funny part was, they cycled some 4000km of distance, and been to so many countries. Me… i cycled some 4000km of distance too.. but i cover not even 1/2 of China! :p Now i realized how big China is, if i cycle in europe, i would have cover so many countries by now… But 1 thing i realized, even tho i only cycled quarter of China, i experienced so many cultures already. I experienced the Han chinese, then slowly it changes to the tibetans, then to the Hui’s, then the Uighur and also the Kazakhs. Not to mention the landscape, from the very high altitute snow mountains to the second lowest place on earth in the desert, they have it all :) It is so interesting and i strongly recommend Western China if u guys are into outdoors, nature lovers, have a strong interest on experiencing these unique cultures… and… dont mind the toilet. :) Ive been to the worst toilet my whole life.. also here in western china. What an experience… huh??? :))
chilling with salma and asli
Hannah the german girl
I feel so good to meet all these backpackers around the world. U know im jobless now and i quit everything in kl to do this, but here i feel so good. We hangout together and all of us in the group are jobless. Yeap… jobless guys and girls from different nations hanging out together. Some germans, irish, turkish, israeli, dutch… all over the globe. When asked, all of us gave the same answer, we all hate the routine life… U know whats fun to watch? i wish to see 2 backpackers, 1 from israel and 1 from iran… sitting together in a same table enjoying coffee. must be fun to watch them talk huh? ehehehe.
I hangout mostly with 2 Turkish girls who stayed in a same room of mine. We went to a people’s park very near our hostel. We met a local Uighur girl, Vinira, and she showed us around town. Ive learned that the Uighur people here are actually Turkish people! They speak almost the same language, ermm.. probably like Malay and Indonesian? The Uighurs can understand them when they speak Turkish, and when we were walking around the park, some Uighur community here were listening to Turkish songs and dancing! These 2 Turkish girls, Salma and Asli, joined them! They told me its so similar to Turkish traditional dance and were so impressed, because after traveling more than 5000km from their homesoil, they met a community who speaks almost the same language as theirs, dance like them, dress like them and also eat the same food as them! They even refer Xinjiang as Turkistan! Oh and i dont know why, is it because im homesick?.. but some of these Uighur girls look a lot like us Malays…
Diary Of A Traveller 
Screw the Brengs !! Steady la Killer !! Be safe Bro !!
Will you ride along the lake in Kazakhstan? Anyway good luck in ur central asia’s journey..
hehe thx guys.. im thinking its a better choice for me to take the northern route. Its more interesting.. will pass by more kazakh village. more mountainous… more wolves!!! ouch! hehe…
azmil – ill definitely ride along the lake. Its called Balkash Lake. Also the infamous Issykul Lake in Kyrgyzstan! Kazakhstan is very expensive i heard… gonna be camping most of the time i guess, without shower! :p
i can only dream of what you are doing now…hehehe…your blog really is an eye-opener, bro! keep it up, just to inform you that many northern mtb riders are following your blog, we are so proud of you, a “brownie” alone up there, mingling with those foreigners exchanging stories, and also the best part is cycling … tinggi gunung2 tu bro….respek la !!!!!
thank you… for your very motivating words, aminudin. ahh… northern riders! maybe 1 day when im back home, we could ride together! Maybe our lovely gunung jerai? :)
and thank you so much for following my blog, my mighty brown brothers…
Bro although I haven’t been commenting doesn’t mean I haven’t been reading. I tend to read your posts as sumber ilham for motivation. Am a very proud brownie dude. Good to see some shades and trees in the pics and not to mention the people (by that i mean chicks) haha makruh puasa
Salam Zahariz. Lepas baca your blog, my sabah adventure dah tak great anymore. Anyway, I dah post you site here
http://adiharriman.com
and here
http://malaysiacycling.blogspot.com/
Will be more visitors from the north.
w’salam adi!
ahh.. terima kasih kerana post my blog somewhere. Pelik.. saya tak dpt bukak ur website (adiharriman.com) and malaysiacycling blog. Byk sgt la website kene banned dkat china. hopefully dapat bukak once in kazakhstan. really wanna check it out.. especially ur website!
ah dont worry… mana boleh compare adventure. Lain adventure, lain experience yang kita dapat :)… and lain kepuasannya. hopefully 1 day kita boleh terserempak di jalanan… dengan basikal masing2 :)
salam dari utara china,
-zahariz-
Askm….
Saya rasa orang Uyghur ni berasal dari Utara Mongolia. Jadi klau nk kata mereka travel 5000km from their home soil, rasanya tak tepat. Sebab mengikut sejarah, walaupun bahasa mereka hampir sama dengan bahasa Turki, tetapi mereka bukan berasal dari Turki, tetapi dari Mongolia.
Untuk pengetahuan saudara, nama “Urumqi” bukan dari bahasa Cina atau Uyghur, tetapi bahasa Mongolia.
Sekadar memberikan fakta yang saya tahu…. Terima kasih ^_^
wsalam tuan,
hehe ya betul, sya sedar cerita pasal ni masa sya kat kyrgyzstan dulu, diorang cerita yang semua orang2 ni, memang asal dari mongolia. so bahasa turki ni actually datang dari uighur, which is kalau trace balik.. memang dr mongolia, not the other way round. and to trace lagi jauh… most of these ppl datangnya dari irkutsk, siberia
thanks sbb trace lg info :D
Lagi satu, saudara ada tak pergi ke kawasan Xinjiang yang lain? contohnya, Hotan, Shihezi, Kashgar, Aksu, Karamay atau Altay? Banyak gak yang saya senaraikan :D