Photos

Situated outside Turpan on the northern edge of the Taklamakan desert, the flaming mountains are called as such due to the fierce coloured red sandstone they are made of, and the fact they are situated in the hottest place within China (in summer).

Whilst this place has extremely hot summers, it also receives brutal winters due to it's proximity to large mountain systems (Tian Shan & others) and also Siberia. Urumqi, which is less than 100km away and the largest city in western China, is famous as being the furthest city from the sea in the world and is more than 2500km away from the nearest coastline in Bangladesh.

This area of China has a rich history, however in many ways it's not really Chinese at all. The people look different, Arabic is the local language, Arabic influenced food prevails, Chinese language is poorly understood (or spoken with a very heavy accent that I can't decipher!), and the architecture and culture are completely different due to it's once important position along the old silk road.
I did ask some local people if they considered themselves to be Chinese, and invariably all said yes, but many said they are first either Ughir/ Kazak, and second Chinese.

I originally took this photo to include the village of Gaochang which is situated above the cliff face in the picture, but I'm a fool and I mucked up the composition and over exposed the left side of the photo, so I couldn't include it without it looking awful. Thankfully though I didn't just discard it, and decided to have a go at cropping it to see if it could be saved. This is the result. Let me know what you think!