Silk Road cities and Beijing with Interlake China

Interlake China (Box 33652, Seattle, WA 98133; 206/368-9074, www.interlakechinatours.com) arranged a 10-day tour of three Silk Road cities and Beijing for my husband, Ed, and me. The land and internal air price was $2,578 each for our Oct. 13-22, 2007, trip.

We visited Urumqi, Turpan and Dunhuang before ending the tour in Beijing. Turpan was our favorite place. As we drove there from Urumqi, we had great views of snow-covered mountains along the way.

Turpan is a fairly small oasis city made up of mostly Uygurs. It is famous for its vineyards, grapes and wine. Water is provided by the Karez Irrigation Tunnels, which are one of the three wonders of ancient Chinese construction (the other two are the Great Wall and the Grand Canal). A thousand miles of underground tunnels bring water via gravity from the snows of the Bogdashan Mountains.

We visited the nearby ruins of Gaochang and took a donkey cart ride around the large area. There is not much there, but the scope of the site and the ruins still standing are quite impressive.

The site of the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves, the Flaming Mountains, is pretty, but the caves themselves are not terribly interesting, as so many of the sculptures and wall frescoes have been destroyed or they were taken away by 20th-century archaeologists.

We had lunch at the home of an Uygur family. It was fun to watch the grandmother make noodles by hand as the baby slept in a cradle nearby, the mother chopped vegetables and the grandfather cooked kebabs. We were offered several kinds of raisins, currants and some dried melon. Ed said they were the sweetest raisins he had ever tasted.

NELL Q. McCOMBS

Ventura, CA