5 Fantastic Mountain Scenes in Xinjiang, China

Often, I think I know China well. However, just as often, it occurs to me that I don't really know what I thought I knew. The visions and experiences collected and stored in my mind while I am awake are gone after I have slept. Reasoning and understanding seem to last only for a few hours before becoming illusory: the images and meanings disappear one by one, stolen from me by apparitions and secreted away, never to be returned in their original form. The understandings that I have assiduously acquired are nothing more than banal when bound together to try and shape the oldest continuous civilization on earth. Experience, learning, and proudly possessed knowledge, gained from many sources and from interaction with its people, are taken from everyone who thinks they know China and passed on to others who share them smugly, use them with confidence, reverently broadcast them as Gospel for a few praiseworthy moments. "I know China." Then, time and circumstance mangle them until they are beyond comprehension. These ,too, will be passed on and shared as truth, only to be proved wrong again. The enigma is this: China never changes, but China always changes. Its people beset by burden, affected with melancholy, inured to bewilderment, and suckled on uninterrupted millennia of incalculable hopelessness and sorrow. "There is chaos under heaven and things could not be better", said Mao Zedong. This is the real truth: "China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese" - Charles De Gaulle. China: don't ask, it is what it is... ,,,,,,,,W.D. Box

04/19/2010

5 Fantastic Mountain Scenes in Xinjiang, China

If you were ever under the impression that people only travel to Xinjiang to ride a camel in the desert, think again, my friend. Early last year I profiled the top lakes in Xinjiang, each of which are off the beaten path and provide some of the best opportunities to day-hike.
This next set of natural wonders might be a little more difficult to hike in a day.

You’d never know it from this picture, but K2 – the peak in the distant left – comes in second place for both the “world’s highest” category (after Mt. Everest) and the “world’s deadliest” (which is held by Annapurna). K2, part of the Karakmoram mountain range, is located in the southwest corner of Xinjiang along the borders of Pakistan and China.
Read and view more photos at Xinjiang - Far West China