Urumqi Things to Do

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Hong Shan Park is located on and around the highest hill in Urumqi, the Red Mountain. The red Pagoda on the top of the 150m high hill is from 1788. In the park are some pagodas, squares and ponds. There is also a nice and quiet Buddhist Temple, that is about 100 years old. From Hongshan you have a great view of modern Urumqi and the Tianshan Mountains, which surround the city.

If you are starting your trip of Silkroad or Western China in Urumqi, then the Regional Museum ( Qu Bowuguan) is an absolute must! It houses a detailed exhibition of minority people, their dresses, living circumstances and art, living in Xinjiang Province. Here you see how to distinguish Uygurs from Mongolians, which musical instruments they use and which local hats they wear.

There is also an exhibition of mummies, found in the dry sand of Taklamakan Desert. Some of the mummies are more than 2000 years old. Some of them show Indo-European features.

The museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

This is probably the biggest attraction for visitors to Urumqi. On the ground floor are exhibits about the many differerent peoples of Xinjiang Province (Uighurs, Kazakhs, Manchus, Kirghiz, Russians etc.) including typical costumes, musical instruments and other artefacts, as well as a yurt.

Upstairs can be found the centuries-old mummies from the Taklamaklan desert, with their European features, including the 'Loulan Beauty'. One woman is said to date from 1800 BC, yet the finely woven textile she is wearing looks as if it could have been made just a few years ago. Another was buried with a small mask containing real human teeth. Visitors who have been to the tombs at Astana will recognise the reconstruction of the tomb with the bird paintings.

Unfortunately photography is not permitted inside the museum, and they did not have any postcards of the mummies on sale. They do sell a good range of books about them, but I didn't have room in my luggage, sadly.

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There is a good view of the city from the Red Hill Park. For an even better view, you can go up inside the bit pagoda (but take care, as the stairs are steep).

You can also see a smaller pagoda which is said to imprison a dragon. If the dragon breaks free from beneath this pagoda and that on the opposite hill, it is said that the city would be destroyed by floods.

There are various fairground-type rides in this park. The public toilets are best avoided, unless desperate, though.

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There is a big oriental bazaar, where you can buy clothes, fabrics, silk, hats, knifes. Many local people come here to find their prefered dress and hats. But the bazaar also offers a huge variety of souvenirs.

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People's Park is a very nice and green Chinese Garden. Here you can find everything you expect: a pond, gates, pagodas, people doing their Taiji exercises, old men singing Chinese operas. It is a quiet place, very enjoyable in the early morning.

The pavillon is said to have been the home of the Chinese poet Ji Xiaolan (JiYun 1724 - 1805), who had been banned to Urumqi in 18th century.

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Peoples Square is like in almost all Chinese city the center, where events take place and many important business centers and shops are located. In Urumqi the Bank of China has their main branch here.

When I was in Urumqi a big promotion event advertising some soft drinks was taking place with sportive games, music and a market.

China has a very, very bad habit of closing museums for rebuilding or refurbishment, and not telling anyone. Even the hotel were unaware that the museum was closed.
It is intensely frustrating to waste an hour getting to somewhere only to find it closed: it is fairly typical of modern-day China, that no-one actually cares about the tourists and visitors. A similar thing happened the same week in Lanzhou.

The old Xinjiang Museum has been demolished tomake way for this modern building. The old one was seemingly an attractive green building, the new one ...well you can judge for yourselves.

As ever in China it is impossible to tell what artefacts are actually in the museum, because the quality of information available to visitors is, quite frankly, abysmal. If your named the Top Ten archaeological artefacts in China AND the place where they were found, I still wouldn't have a clue where to go and see them. The witless, clueless mentality of the keepers of China's antiquities are a disgrace.

So...rant over. The Xinjiang Museum.
It may be open. It may not be. Your hotel in Urumqi won't know. Probably the tourism people won't either. I don't know what is inside it, whether it is worth going or not. So....potentially one of the most interesting places in Urumqi or even Xinjiang is a total mystery. That's tourism in 21st Century China. It's probably easier getting information in Burkino Faso or Burundi.