We took 2 hours bus ride from Urumqi to Tianchi Lake (Heavenly Lake). We decided to stay there one night at one of the Kazaks yurts. The entry fee is quite expensive and the place is very touristy, which was a bit disappointing after visiting the isolated Karakul Lake. Despite all that, Tianchi Lake is peaceful and the views are great. It’s probably best to walk around in one of the trails for a while until you can find a quiet place on a slope away from the crowd and just sit and soak-in the wonderful relaxing scenery. In the afternoon, after all the tourists are gone, it’s much nicer and full of charm.
Tianchi Lake
you can find a quiet place on a slope away from the crowd
relaxing scenery
possible as a daytrip from Urumqi
Sleeping in the Kazaks yurt was also a fun experience. Our female host offered us some tea (she barely spoke Chinese and English so it was hard to communicate). We started to drink the tea and immediately we felt that the tea was really weird.
It was so salty as if she put 5 spoons of salt inside!
After making some funny faces and pointing at the sugar in her small kitchen, she realized that we want sugar in our tea and we all laughed.
Our rating for Tianchi Lake is 8 out of 10.
Sleeping in the Kazaks yurt
our Kazak host gave us salty tea! it was really weird(=
We woke up and had a great time breathing the fresh air and enjoying the landscape. We really wanted to ride on horses around the lake but there were no horses there. At noon we went back to Urumqi and had another great dinner at ‘May Flower’.
