At about 9am Ah Ting our young Kazath's guide led us to a fairly new taxi to start off our trip to Tian Chi. Along with him was a young travel guide Ms Huang. With the new highway in place, journey to this natural haven situated 110km east of Ürümqi was only 2 hours compared to 4 hours in the past. The journey was a pleasant one, with cozy ride and graceful snowy peaks of the Tian Shan marked incredible setting along highway.

Kazath is the main population leading a semi-nomadic herding existence in hills surrounding Tian Chi and Tian Shan. Their traditional livelihood is from sheep by selling lambs, which is a hard, unpredictable business. According to Ah Ting, each household average had around 100 to 200 sheep.

However with recent years of increasing revenues from tourism, more and more Kazath families have shifted into tourism related business. They provide food and accommodation, renting horses for trekking and selling souvenirs. The obvious successful story was Ah Ting's elder sister and brother-in-law. They were one of the successful Kazath travel agency that made it big in Urumqi.

On the way to Tin Chi, about 50 km from Urumqi was a small town named Fukang, which also provides infrequent bus to Tin chi. This was another alternative for tourists who missed the daily direct bus from Urumqi's Remin Park to Tin Chi.

Before entering the Tian Chi lake reserves, there was a small coal mine village under the foothill which dominant by Han Chinese. It was known that, areas surrounding Tian Shan were rich in coal.

Ah Ting stopped over his brother house to get his Kazath's string instrument, which similar to guitar. This was part of our musical entertainment for the night.

While waiting for him I was thrilled to see a herd of Mountain goats wondering around and drinking water from the small brook in front of the house.

Without any delay, Jwee Seng quickly snapped a few good shot of this nice combination of blue stream, white fury goats and grassy slope as backdrop. Of course, I won't be letting my pretty face out from this good shot.

The road heading to Tian Chi was nicely tar and not very winding. We arrived at the Tian Chi's Park entrance about noon. Ah Ting went down to buy us the entrance tickets, which cost 60 yuan per person. From the park entrance, we noticed that there were cable cars to Tian Chi Lake. However, due to safety reason this service was terminated.

From the park's entrance, we had to travel another 4km to get to the lake, Tian Chi. We stopped at a bus park, which surrounded by some shops and souvenir stands. However, most all the shops and restaurants were closed as it was still off-peak season.

After unloading our backpacks, we followed Ah Ting to his family yurk, which located away from the bus park at a hill slopes. We noticed only a handful of Kazakh yurts were scatted around the slopes. However, Ah Ting told us that during peak season, the whole hill would be jam-packed with yurks and tourists.

The interiors of the yurt were dazzling colourful and nicely kept. Inside the yurt, there was a stove with chimney, which has dual functions as cooking stove and fireplace to warm the yurt at night. The yurt was layered with colourful rugs; we found lots of mattresses and blankets on the rugs. We were told that during peak season, this yurt could cater to serve more than 10 person but now only to four of us.

After settling in for a while and taken our simple noodle lunch, eagerly we wondered off around the lakeside. There was only a handful of day trip tourists came using chartered bus. To many it was still a cold season for staying overnight at Tin Chi.

At the cool, refreshing height of 2000m, we were really taken away by the scene of the breathtaking view of ice-covered Tin Chi and its serene surrounding with dense pine forests. However, the edge of the lake was starting to melt showing mirror reflection of the snowy backdrop of mighty sparkling-white peak of Tian Shan against the bright blue sky. Looking closely at the frozen lake, we noticed a few clear cycle lines in the middle of the lake. We were told that China's Olympic skate teams train here every winter.

The overall picturesque scenery nicely matched the meaning of Tin Chi, which means Haven Lake. To some, Tin Chi resembles small Switzerland in Asia. We were told that in summer, the lake would be in its beautiful ultra-pure aquamarine colour. Too bad we were not in the right time to see it.

Not letting this remarkable scene fade away from our memory over years, Jwee Seng took out his camera and tripod trying his best to film every angle of the scenes.

Later, we explored on our own to the eastside of the lake. By following a small path up the hills then down, we discovered a viewing point for a half-melting stream and waterfall. There were patches of snow along the paths. To us who were used to tropical weather; it was thrilling fun running around and throwing snowballs to each other's.

To our surprise, even though most of the places were still covered with thin layer of snow, the weather was not bitterly cold. In fact, it was very refreshing and pleasant at around 18 degree in daytime and around 1-2 degree at night. We were told, in summer tourists would need to travel for 12 hours horse trekking up to Tin Shan region to experience the snow.

In the afternoon, Ah Ting and Ms Huang led us to trek along the lake up to snowy pine forest. Some of the paths were still covered with thick layers of snow, trudging through snow was as difficult as walking on the desert. The lakeside was scatted with large rocks; it seemed that there were some works going on to build a decent walking path for tourists. It was a lovely walk if not for my soaring foot thumb.

On the way back, we came across a westerner couple camped outside a small wooden hut. Ah Ting told us that, it was Rashid's (One of Tin Chi fluent English speaking tour operator) campsite. The campsite was still vacant and would only operate in the summer. We were impressed by the couple's courage of staying in open field at freezing cold weather.

At night, we were served with local Kazath's mixed rice with vegetables. After the dinner, Ah Ting together with his sister, uncle and friends entertained us with their cultural song; it was a great dinner.

After the dinner, we went outside to enjoy Tian Chi night scene. We were struck by the most amazing skyful of bright stars you could imagine. The sky was covered with countless stars; however we could only recognise the famous Northern Cross.

With our own sleeping bag together with their soft mattresses, I dozed off straight away and slept like a baby.

21th April

We started off early the next morning to enjoy our last day in Tin Chi. We strolled around the lake and Ah Ting led us to a dry pool. He claimed that the pool would be filled up in summer. We followed him climbed down to the pool.

We discovered an interesting sight, where the melted water from snow flowed from upper stream vanish halfway underground. As the water sipped underground, the stream seemed to grow bigger showing signs of the pools getting fill up by the melting snow water.

Ah Ting directed us to a small hill at the opposite side of the pool. I decided to remain at the slope. Jwee Seng, Ms Huang and AH Ting went on to hike the small hill. While waiting for them, I rested myself on the soft lush slope appreciating the alpine scenery, white snowy mountain and flying eagles. Looking at this gorgeous panorama, I had a strong urge wanted to paint them down if only I were a good artist.

After a short hike, we went back to our yurt for lunch. While waiting for our meal being served Ah Ting's uncle let us rode on their horse. This was my second time riding a horse. The first time was at our honey moon trip to Mt Bromo in Java Indonesia back in 1997.

However, that was only a small pony but this was a real mountain horse. At first, the horse refused to move when I rode on it. Seeing that Ah Ting hopped on and rode together with me. Once he got on the horse, the horse began to run by itself. Finally, with some tips from Ah Ting, I managed to ride by myself. The horse galloped for a short distance running around the yurt. Subsequently, Jwee Seng took over and did his ride too. Seeing Ah Ting showing off his riding skill, we believed the saying that most of Kazath people are good horse riders.

After having so much fun with horse, Ah Ting's sister lent us her Kazath's costumes for photo session. Within second, I was transformed into a pretty Kazathan princess in their colourful costumes and Jwee Seng was a charming Kazathan prince. It was truly an unforgettable feeling wearing such beautiful costumes posing in front of magnificent snow peaks.

Again it was time to say good bye; we ended our Tin Chi trip about noon. It was undoubtedly a paradise trip after all!

Chapter Fifteen- Urumqi Again

We were transferred back to Urumqi by taxi. On our way back, our taxi struck by flat tyres and fortunately our skilful taxi driver managed to get it move within minutes. It was late afternoon, by the time we reached HongShan hotel. Ah Ting invited us back to his sister house for dinner at the same night.

We visited Ah Ting's sister Noer and her husband Halika the owner of the Travel agency at their 2 rooms' apartment in Urumqi downtown area. We were surprised to see so many family members turned up for dinner too. It was Kazath normal ritual in having all family members to eat together. Noer served us with their daily meal rice with mixed vegetables. The rice was similar to Malay's Nasi Tomato. The rice was served in a big plate and we were asked to eat with hands. The way of eating was similar to our Malay friends using right hand, which I figured was originated from Muslim custom.

Through the conversation with them in Mandarin, we reckoned their disappointment with Chinese government in discriminating minority business opportunities and others legal rights. When asked about returning to Kazathan, their native home country.

Kazathan has recently claimed independent from Russia and has made nation call to ask overseas Kazath's descendants back to serve the country. However, being descendants born in Xinjiang, Xinjiang remained their motherland. For this reason, despite the mistreatment, they still chosen to stay and fight for their rights with other Uigur and Han Chinese to gain wider recognition in China.

In view of the limited attractions in Urumqi, we decided to shorten our stays and rescheduled our flight back to Beijing from 25/04 to 23/04. We changed our air tickets at Xinjiang airline office located just a few blocks away from Hongshan Hotel.

On the same morning, we headed to Xinjiang Regional Museum hoping to see the impressive Uigur blonde-brown hair, allegedly 3800 years old mommies - Loulan Beauty. However much to our disappointment, the museum was closed. We were told that the museum only opens daily during peak season.

We spent our last afternoon hanging around Urumqi, visiting famous Erdaoqiao Market the main Uigur bazaar of the city. The market was crowded with Uigur, selling cheap clothes, shoes, knives, etc. We were only fascinated by its local food such as Kebabs, Uigur bread - Nan, cold noodle, melons and dried raisin. We tasted their hand made ice cream; it was very creamy and rich in milk.

At night, we managed to find an Internet café next to Bogda Hotel, named Xinjiang Galaxy "169", which open 24 hours. The café was nicely decorated and equipped with 18 fairly new computers. The connection was fairly fast and the fare was reasonably priced at 8 yuan/hour as compared to 10-yuan/half -hour in Beijing. We spent hours there sending e-mails back to our family members and friends.

23rd April Sunday

We checked out Hongshan hotel to catch airport bus for our 10.30am flight back to Beijing. Urumqi International Airport is about 15km from the city; access is either by taxi or by the airport bus. Unfortunately, due to off-season, there was no regular airport bus consequently we were forced to share a taxi with another two local passengers to the airport.

We arrived at Beijing International airport about 2.30pm after more than 3 hours flight from Urumqi. With the amended schedule, we decided to end our China trip earlier by 2 days. We went straight to Singapore airline office, which located at second floor to reschedule our flight from 27^th April to 25^th April.

To save hassle in finding new accommodation, we returned to Jin Hua for our second stay in Beijing. However, since it was nearly the end of our trip, we pampered ourselves by staying double room instead of dormitory.

Our last day in China, since we had covered most of the main attractions of Beijing, we selected Lama temple 'Yonghe Gong", a colourful temple as our last destination. At night, we did our last minute shopping at Qinmen buying souvenirs for family and friends but nothing for ourselves.

Being the last night in town, Jwee Seng decided to make some social calls. He contacted his colleague David Lau, Malaysia Shell ex-Financial Director who had transferred to Beijing. He was very happy to hear from us and even asked his driver to fetch us to his office. He was still working hard when we arrived at his office at 8.30pm.

Later of the night, David brought us to Beijing most happening night hang out -San Li Tun. San Li Tun Lu is a street full of bars with underground rock bands, packed with local trendy youngsters. The pubs were lightened up with colourful neon lights, clustered around the street offering draught beer at expensive Western prices.

Knowing China average GDP, I was a bit puzzled on how these Chinese youngsters met the expense of such pricey entertainment hangout. David explained that many of these kids were from higher income group where families were working for private International based companies.

25th April Tuesday

It was time to say "Bon Voyage". After making a few attempts in finding people in sharing taxi to Beijing International Airport but to no avail. In the end, we had to take expensive taxi ride on our own at ¥110 per taxi. We took off at 08.20am Beijing time and touched down at Changi airport at 2.35pm local time. We waited for another 6 long hours in Changi Airport to catch earliest available shuttle plane back to KL. At last only at 8.55pm we made it back to KLIA.

After 21 days on the road, I really missed my home! Just couldn't wait to sleep on my own bed. However, this feeling would not sustain for long, when my itchy legs felt like moving again.