Yining-Ürümqi
Paris-Beijing Tour 2006 / Day 20
High Mountains and Newly Built Motorways
Start in the “Orchard City“ of Yining
20th Day’s Drive over 688 kilometres to Ürümqi
Weather: Foggy, 9.5 Degrees Celsius
Ürümqi – Overcast by the “Heavenly Mountain“ (Tian Shan) with its majestic, snow-capped peaks, the route led the drivers over sharply curving roads through the Xinjiang Province into the Djungarian Basin. The midway stop at Lake Ebinur offered elevating views before giving way to a long stretch of motorway that attested to the skills of Chinese road builders. The reception held in the early evening at the newly built Mercedes-Benz representation in Ürümqi, which included a welcome show of fireworks, was reminiscent of a state visit.
Somewhat tired by the long drive of the previous day, the brief night’s rest, and the 2-hour time shift, the marathon drivers of the fourth group went into their second day’s drive with a laissez faire attitude. China’s Wild West offers so many new impressions that everyone could discover their own sightseeing attractions on the roadside by using the sunny weather for photo stops and taking repeated short breaks. The fruitful soil of the Uyghur autonomous region of Xinjiang is home to fruit trees and dark grapes used for making wine. China, the land of contrasts: Directly next to the vast fields, workers burned clay bricks with locally extracted brown coal.
At the richly adorned farmer’s markets the mostly non-Asian E-Class Experience drivers gaped like creatures from another planet. “Long-nosed“ Europeans are an extreme rarity in these parts and one market woman remarked flatteringly “you are handsome men.“ Dirk Freihube in Car No. 4, future machine building engineer, was in China not too long ago as a graduate student, from October to March 2006, and managed to translate a few words. The member of Germany’s Automobile Club (Allgemeine Deutsche Automobil Clubs (ADAC), which is the largest in Europe, won his place in the open competition advertised in the club magazine “motorwelt“ and had not really hoped to see the Middle Kingdom again. His co-pilot Alexander Marshall von Bieberstein, free-lance architect who runs his own practice, could hardly get enough of the landscape and the exotic sites. The avid amateur photographer snapped his shots with not one but two cameras: “At home I thought that these long daily drives would be monotonous, but can now see that just the opposite is true. I had not expected this kind of varied landscape. “
The economic upswing in the Middle Kingdom is felt all around through the dynamic building activity, in which many women do heavy work side by side with the men. Everyone who is able bodied is needed: the economy is booming from the rich store of oil, gas and mineral resources. The especially large reserves of crude oil (around 21 billion tons) and natural gas (around 10,300 billion cubic metres), as well as coal, gold and salt undergird the strong growth in this faraway region of China. Moreover, Xinjiang supports electricity production with wind and solar energy: A third of all wind energy produced in China comes from this area. The solar panels are mostly mounted way up on the mountain peaks, where the sun energy can be captured without any losses.
After the romantic drive in the shadow of the Tian-Shan mountain range over the up to 2186 metre high mountain pass, which now and again degenerated into a path of broken stones, the group was rewarded by the breathtaking panoramic view of Lake Ebinur. In the foreground were gentle meadows, in the middle the crystal clear water and on the horizon the snow-capped rocky mountain peaks. However, the new age is leaving an imprint here as well: The traditional yurts already have a set of aluminium poles, and the tent canvass is no longer made of felt but rather of plastic.
The road detours in China proved to be rather rustic: When a road is renovated or large rocks block passage, traffic simply runs over a kind of a dirt track on the ground surrounding the blockage. This calls for robust wheel suspensions.
Once the mountains had been passed, the weather got worse. Luckily, this was the beginning of the long stretch on the new, well constructed motorway, which nevertheless has its Chinese peculiarities and requires careful driving: Frequently, the route leads directly through the towns. Instead of exits there are open crossings, where the centre planks have been removed. And, since the motorway in this region is the only road connection, people often ran on and across the motorway. Even ghost drivers in the guise of bicycle riders or transport mopeds were frequently seen in the passing lane. Crawling trucks, hopelessly overloaded with coal presented yet another challenge.
On the motorway Dirk Freihube got to know and appreciate the advantages of the DISTRONIC in his Mercedes-Benz E 320 CDI: “that is so comfortable. You simply set the speed and the car breaks for slower vehicles and accelerates back to its original speed afterwards. This makes the trip very relaxing.“ Alexander Marshall von Bieberstein even tested the distronic device on the local mopeds. The system recognized their small silhouettes with reliability. And, since the growing fog hampered the visibility, the DISTRONIC feature not only ensured a high level of comfort level but safety as well.
The subsequent reception in Ürümqi was strongly reminiscent of a state visit: The newly inaugurated Mercedes-Benz representation was filled with dignitaries and a procession of curious onlookers, who had gathered together in order to greet the far away travellers. Everyone had to immortalize themselves on a tiled wall with their signatures. And even the hostesses were of star format.
With its population of two million, Ürümqi is the centre of economic development in Xinjiang and one of the most important transport nodes along the Great Silk Road. Today, the city that is the furthest away from any coast in the world is a boom town par excellence in Western China. Thanks to its enormous raw material resources it is posting above average growth of 17 per cent per year, an increase that is unusually high even for Chinese standards.
This applies particularly for motor traffic, which has almost fully replaced the customary bicycle of the past. An especially practical feature: many traffic lights have a luminescent seconds metre visible from afar, which counts down the seconds remaining in the green or red phase. For administrative purposes Ürümqi is to be merged with the neighbouring provincial city of Changji to form the new metropolitan city of U-Chang – a process that is expected to extend over the next ten years. Experts project a total of five to eight million inhabitants for the new city until the year 2020.