Kanas Lake Tour

Journey so far: .. Taiwan > Hong Kong > Beijing > Harbin > Yanji > Songjianghe >Changbai Mountain > Dandong > Dalian > Dandong > Chengde > Beijing > Datong > Hohhot > Huitengxile > Hohhot > Taiyuan > Zhengzhou > Xi'an > Lanzhou > Zhangye > Jiaugyuan > Jingtieshan > Jiaugyuan > Dunhuang > Urumuqi > Kanas Lake ....

Well from Dunhuang we took the night bus, uncomfortable as I'm too tall for the beds and forced to squash my legs and toes into cramp inducing positions, to Urumqi. Urumqi is a big, busy city, just like all the other cities, but this one has more Muslims and Arabic writing on signs.

The big, busy city


Nothing we want to see here, so a decision to go up north, close to the border with Russia and see the Kanas Lake, reputably beautiful and untouched. Untouched nature doesn't exist in China, considering the amount of people who want to see it, especially if it's on a tours itinerary!

We do the maths, independent travel to the Lake is too expensive. So it's the tour option, and thanks to an administrative error we get a Y100 discount. We first got quoted Y780 (52 pounds) per person from an outside operator, then our hostel quoted Y690 (46 pounds) and we finally got an unexpected Y640 (42 pounds)! Score! The conversion looks small, but we normally spend Y200 - Y250 a day. The tour was 4 days and 3 nights, covering well over 2500 km.

We drove from Urumqi, very early in the morning, to Buerjin town, just outside the lake. Nothing interesting there, stayed the night and got up early again. Went to the lake all day, took pictures, wandered, hiked, marvelled and felt wonderful.

This is the 'Sleeping Dragon' island which leads into the Lake.


The sun was out, clear blue sky but we needed our new '3-layer K2Summit jacket' in the icy wind!

The lake from above, we walked to the top of a mountain to take in the view


Spent the night just outside the lake, at the "mountain villa". Woke up early again to watch the sunrise. Unlike the previous day we got bad weather, so no show. Left for Hermu. A small village in the middle of nowhere. Not bad, but preferred the lake. Autumn did mean the trees leaves were a combination of deep orange, browns and gold with some green.

Hemu , stream with wood village


The trees looked very special



At 4:00pm we left Hemu for the long, tiring drive back to Buerjin. Once there we slept our last night very early in the morning left for Urumqi. Now we are back. We tried to sleep last night, but were woken up very early by some Chinese people, going to the lake.

Map showing Kanas Lake



P.S. I've had this blog waiting for a week because the great, or not so great, China firewall denied access to the blog.

MC