Cherchen / Qiemo - Ancient Mummies and Modern ComfortsCherchen / Qiemo - Ancient Mummies and Modern ComfortsUyghur: Cherchen چەرچەن
Chinese: Qiemo 且末
Population of Cherchen / Qiemo County: 60,000 (2002)
Phone code: 0996
Cherchen / Qiemo is a river oasis town along the southeastern rim of the 
Taklamakan Desert in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China. It is the largest town east of Hotan in southern Xinjiang.
This area has a truly ancient human history, based on the 3,500-year-old cemetery along the ancient Jade Road that traded with the earliest Chinese dynasties and the similarly-dated Bronze Age rock carvings south of town along another ancient trade route to what is now Tibet and a 
forgotten back door to central China.
More than a thousand years later, the area was ruled as the kingdom of Calmadana during the earliest heyday of the Silk Road. Its fortunes have since ebbed and flowed, mainly with the popularity of the southern trade route: sometimes abandoned, as when Buddhist monk Xuan Zang passed through in the year 644, and other timesbustling, as when Marco Polo came by in 1273.
Cherchen / Qiemo has a surprisingly large modern center, with wide paved streets, traffic lights, modern hotels, modern restaurants, a hospital, a large central square, a commercial airport, a supermarket, a computer store, Internet cafes, and several large apartment blocks.
Visitors can also explore pleasant rural, Uyghur residential neighborhoods, including a large district just across the street from center of town. There are rural pasturelands, with flocks of sheep, and agricultural fields to wander about a bit farther from the center. The Uyghur bazaar is small but interesting, and the traveler can pick up a game of pool at one of a dozen tables at the bazaar entrance.
The main tourist sights in town include:
There are several sights farther afield, four in the cool, high mountains that rim the 
Taklamakan Desert to the south and a fifth deep inside that desert.
Cherchen / Qiemo does not see many foreign visitors, though it has a lot to offer. More than 60,000 Chinese travelers visited in 2005, but only 448 foreign visitors.
This scarcity of foreign tourists may be due to the minimal tourist information previously available in English. These sparse blurbs mostly describe out-of-date information about poor roads and minimal transportation. Even recently-updated China guidebooks still, unfortunately, reprint the same tired, archaic lamentations.
Many local residents in Xinjiang, sadly even some travel agents, are also not familiar with recent changes in Cherchen / Qiemo or in transportation there either, since it is not today a well-known destination.
The author hopes this guide will assist fellow travelers to have a more current idea of what is available.
Northern Xinjiang was only opened to foreign visitors during the 1980s, but much of southern Xinjiang was still closed, except with special permission, into the 1990s. Prior to 1996, the roads to Cherchen / Qiemo were indeed in poor shape. Fewer buses took much longer to reach it, with frequent delays, the journey was less comfortable, and the accommodations, once one arrived, were limited.
Today, however, there are several daily long-distance buses east and west, including a daily bus to and from Hotan. The roads -- now well-paved asphalt highways -- are in good shape, both west to Niya / Minfeng and Hotan and east to Charklik / Ruoqiang and, from there, north to Korla. One can also fly here. See more about bus and air travel under Getting There and Away.
Cherchen / Qiemo County spent 8 million RMB (about US$1 million) in 2005 alone on tourist infrastructure such as roads and 2.5 million RMB in 2005 on tourism sights, and tourism spending continues apace so access and support will continue to improve.
Though easy to reach, with modern facilities, and with much to see, Cherchen / Qiemo is still not an easy destination for foreigners:
Few people in town speak English. One of the managers of the Muztag Hotel speaks English well, but no one at the Cherchen / Qiemo County Travel Bureau does. Both a Mandarin Chinese phrasebook and one with Uyghur, such as Lonely Planet's Central Asia Phrasebook, will be helpful to visitors. Uyghurs make up the vast majority of the population but most do not speak Chinese well and, in any case, would be honored if you try to communicate in their native language.
there are translators in town that could assist you to work with a local non-English-speaking tour guide.) 
oasis in the desert, water supply and energy seem to be rationed. So you may have some hours without running water, and hot running water may be scheduled for only certain hours each day. This is the case in most towns in the south outside of Kashgar and Hotan. Ask at check-in about the water supply schedule.Even with these limitations, however, Cherchen / Qiemo is a rewarding destination, with history and mystery to spare, along with surprisingly modern comforts.
The town is frequently known both by its local name of Cherchen and its Chinese name of Qiemo. Both names stretch into antiquity and both are official names, given the laws respecting Uyghur language and tradition of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. This author has chosen to use both names throughout the text.
Click here for more information on Names and Spelling if you want to know more about the various names by which Cherchen / Qiemo has been known from ancient times. In this text, if there are both a local name and a Chinese name for a site or location, the author will first present both names and then either use both names, if both are in frequent usage in English, or the one that is most frequently used in English.
This section also has Chinese characters for many terms relevant to Cherchen / Qiemo.
Large versions, up to 600 pixels high or wide, of the author's photographs at this site can be seen by clicking on the thumbnails. Even larger versions of the author's photographs, up to 2000 pixels high or wide, can be found at the author's Flickr site.
Several of the images and all the quoted text on this page are the copyright of people other than the author. To the extent that copyright, ownership or source is known to the author, it has been noted. If not owned by the author of this page, but ownership is not known, "Source: Unknown" is listed. All other material is copyright © centralasiatraveler.com. The copyright, noted at the end of this page, applies to the author's photographs and text but does not extend to these images and text belonging to others.
Cherchen / Qiemo is located in the oasis of the Cherchen River, on the southeastern rim of the Taklamakan Desert, at the feet of the Kunlun Mountains at the point where their eastern offshoot, the Altun / Arjin Mountains, begins. The town's coordinates are 38°8'4"N, 85°31'49"E, at 1,2
52 meters elevation.
Cherchen / Qiemo is 315 km east of Niya / Minfeng, 605 km east of Hotan, and 351 km west of Charklik/Ruoqiang along Highway 315, the highway that roughly retraces the southern Silk Road. Since the Taklamakan Desert has been steadily advancing southwest for thousands of years, the actual ancient Silk Road is buried in the sand, likely some tens of kilometers north of town.
There is a spur road off Highway 315 west of Cherchen / Qiemo heading 188 km northwest to the Tazhong Oilfields, meeting the Tarim Highway. If you take this shortcut to go to Korla instead of going via Niya / Minfeng, you save 357 kilometers. However, the author was told, only private cars and taxis take this route; all public buses go via Niya / Minfeng since they serve the communities along Highway 315.
The town of Cherchen / Qiemo is the county seat of Cherchen / Qiemo County. Across the Taklamakan Desert, via the spur and the Tarim Highway, it is 708 km south of Korla. Korla (Kuerle 库尔勒 Kù' ěr lè) the capital of Bayangol / Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture, of which Cherchen / Qiemo County is a part. Its Chinese name is 巴音郭楞蒙古自治州 ba yin guo leng meng gu zi zhi zhou . This mouthful is sometimes abbreviated 巴州 Bazhou, though usually only in Chinese.
This prefecture is the largest in area of any prefecture in all of China. Cherchen / Qiemo County is the second largest county in all of China in size, second only to its neighbor to the east, Charklik / Ruoqiang County. Bayingolin Prefecture borders Gansu Province to the east, other Xinjiang prefectures to the north and west, and Qinghai Province and the Tibet / Xizang Autonomous Region to the south.
There are large blue and white signs above all four sides of most main intersections - in Uyghur, Chinese, and English. They are organized in an unusual way.
The street sign to the right, for example, is on eastbound Sichou at Aita.
The center of town has six main streets. The main intersection is at Aita and Sichou, as can be seen in this street map of the center. A higher-resolution of this map is available in PDF format.
The main north-south street is Aita 埃榙, with Xingfu 幸福 parallel to the west and Tuanjie 团结路 to the east. Tuanjie changes name to Ying Bin 迎宾 for the block north of Qianjin going to the airport.
These are crossed by three east-west streets, from north to south: Qianjin 前进, Sichou 丝绸, and Wenhua 文化.
On the street signs, most of the street names include designations of north, south, east, and west, and all of the street names end with the Chinese character 路 Lu for street. The cardinal directions are: 西 Xi (west, xī), 东 Dong (east, dōng), 南 Nan (south, nán), and 北Bei (north, běi). So, for example, Aita, north of Sichou, is called Aita Bei Lu (Aita North Street).
From the east, from Charklik / Ruoqiang, Highway 315 turns and enters town heading south as Aita Lu as far as the bus station. From the bus station, Highway 315 follows a street heading northwest out of town, then turns west toward Niya / Minfeng.
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The two main weather is
sues for visitors in Cherchen / Qiemo are heat and sandstorms. The heat is worst in summer and the sandstorms are most frequent in spring, so the best time to visit is in fall. But the good hotels have rooms with air conditioning, and most sandstorms are not crippling to commerce, transit or tourism. Still, it is a good idea to plan an extra day into your schedule along this area, in case of weather delays.
Being located on the edge of a major desert, Cherchen / Qiemo is quite hot during the summer, though it is a very dry heat. Even in summer, however, it is cooler in the mountains nearby to the south.
July: average temperature 24ºC, average high 32º, an average of 21 days over 32ºC, and 39% average relative humidity.
Winters are cold, fiercely cold at night. But since there is essentially no rain or snow, and infrequent sandstorms, and all tourist and transport resources operate year-round, as long as you dress warmly, visiting the towns around the Taklamakan Desert in the winter is fine.
In fact, archaeological expeditions in Xinjiang, such as those of Sven Hedin (left) have always been carried out in late autumn or winter, because of no summer heat, fewer sandstorms, and because the camels can bring in water in the form of ice. (Winter's not the time, though, to visit the sights nearby in the Kunlun Mountains, nor the mountains of far northern Xinjiang, nor Tashkurgan along the Karakorum Highway.)
Above notes 'essentially no snow' because there are infrequent, minor snow falls. "Qiemo, a county located at the southeast part of Taklimakan desert, witnessed the first snow of the season on February 21. The snow cleared the sandstorm [that had] lasted in the county since February 15 and refreshed the air. According to Chief of the local Meteorological Bureau Shi Guoqiang, this is the heaviest snow in Qiemo in the last 10 years." Image & text source: Ren Yuyong, 2006-02-22
December: average temperature -5ºC, average low -11ºC, an average of 31 days under 0ºC, and 56% average relative humidity.
The average precipitation in Cherchen / Qiemo is near zero in every month of the year. There's usually a brief, light rain a few times each year. In 2005, in April, a freak storm brought a dusting of snow with a windstorm. In the nearby Kunlun Mountains to the south, however, there is significant rainfall.
Check here for more historic weather averages: Weather Base Qwik Cast for Cherchen / Qiemo. (Click on "ºC" in the upper right for Celsius.)
Check here for current weather forecasts: the Weather Underground for Cherchen / Qiemo
Most towns around the Taklamakan Desert are plagued by sandstorms and windstorms. But Cherchen / Qiemo is better known for them, possibly because the prevailing winds in the Taklamakan Desert are from the northeast. An early edition (1988) of Bonavia's "Silk Road" says Cherchen / Qiemo has 'dust weather' for about 40% of the days in a year. "Quemo comprises one street only – and no wonder, since for 145 days a year it is blasted by sands blown by Force 5 winds [19-24 mph or 31-39 kph]." No other sources the author has found have any further details on sandstorm frequency.
Most sandstorms are minor, and mainly affect the traveler by having hazy yellow skies instead of blue for much of the spring and summer and getting grit in inconvenient places. Some sandstorms or windstorms are somewhat more powerful and inconvenience the traveler by making it uncomfortable to walk around or obscuring the view, and being a hazard to camera lenses. But folks here are used to these, so tourist sights and indoor restaurants remain open.
A few sandstorms a year will shut down transportation for up to a few days, keeping most folks indoors and cancelling buses, so it is a good idea to include an extra day or two in one's travel plans in the area. Since Xinjiang is so large, most of these sandstorms cover only a small part of the region, so a fierce sandstorm in Urumqi might hold your bus in Cherchen / Qiemo even if your skies are blue and you can sightsee in town.
Sandstorms are also known by their Uyghur name of buran (boo-ran') or their Chinese name of Shachenbao (沙尘暴). A particularly fierce sandstorm, in Uyghur, will be called a kara-buran. Literally, this is black sandstorm but kara also has the meaning of death or deadly.
The Taklamakan Desert is not alone in China in being known its sandstorms. Though mainly a gebi (gravel-rock) desert, the much larger Gobi Desert is also known for its sandstorms. Together, these deserts, along with climate change and China's rapid deforestation, have led to an increase in the frequency and ferocity of sandstorms, which even reach Beijing. More about sandstorms throughout China at the Chinese-language http://www.duststorm.com.cn. Here you can see Google's translation into English of duststorm.com.cn. It includes an annual yearbook of "dust weather," though its 'Hot News' column seems sadly out of date.
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Click image for low-res JPG.
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To the left is a street map of central Cherchen / Qiemo developed by the author. A larger-resolution version of this map is also available in PDF format. The street map shows the main streets as well as several hotels, restaurants, the bazaar, the hospital, an Internet cafe, the hospital, a supermarket and other sights in town.
To the right is a satellite image of the center of Cherchen / Qiemo which matches this street map.
All of the satellite images here are drawn from Wikimapia which are based on Google Earth images.
To the left is a satellite image of the city of Cherchen / Qiemo. The site of the Zaghunluq Ancient Mummy Tomb is indicated in the middle left, just west of the oasis.
To the right is a satellite image of the Cherchen / Qiemo river oasis. The town is located at the lower left, just west of the blue of the river entering the oasis.
To the left is a satellite image of the county (or district) of Cherchen / Qiemo, with the county border shown in purple.
To the right is a satellite image of the southeastern rim of the Taklamakan Desert, showing the main towns.
To the left is an outline map of the Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture, showing its county-level city of Korla and its eight counties with their county seats. At the top of this web page is a small relief map image relief of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, with the location of Cherchen / Qiemo indicated.
To the right is a map of central Cherchen / Qiemo County from a road-construction project proposal, to be funded by the Asian Development Bank. It shows two improved roads that are planned into the remote hill villages.
These next two maps are older maps, so some newer roads may not be shown, especially in the Kunlun Mountains. To the left is a map, mainly in Chinese with some English, showing central Cherchen / Qiemo County. To the right is the full county map, again in Chinese with some English place names.
The Cherchen / Qiemo County Travel Bureau publishes a map, in Chinese and in English, of the center of town on one side and the county on the other. This map is available for Y2 at the Muztag Hotel. The map has photos and brief descriptions of sights in town and the area.
To the left is a scan of this Travel Bureau printed map of the center of town. Sichou Lu was translated on this printed map as Silk Road and Xingfu Lu was translated Happiness Street. These are, of course, correct translations but not as useful as Pinyin names for using with taxi drivers, for example, so on the front of the map, the author made these small additions.
To the right is a scan of the obverse side, showing the county. This map indicates the location of several tourist sights in the region, including the Molcha River petroglyphs near Serikule Village.
To the left is a map of Xinjiang, a road map with distances shown in kilometers, mainly in Chinese with some place names in English.
To the right is another map of Xinjiang, also a road map with distances in kilometers, also in Chinese, with some place names in English added by the author. (Both of these maps were found at Vbgood Maps.)
The second one has more place names listed, but this makes it also more difficult to read. Both of these are older maps, so they may not show newer roads, such as the new cross-desert highway between Hotan and Aksu (which opened in October 2007 and which follows the Hotan River), or the extension of the railway to Kashgar, which was completed in 1999.The author has added the spur road from Tazhong to Highway 315 near Cherchen / Qiemo to these maps.
The links from the images give low-resolution versions of these maps at this site. To avoid too much bandwidth usage here, the larger format version of these maps is available at the author's Flickr site: left Xinjiang map (1535 x 1273) and right Xinjiang map (2078 x 1370).
A large format (2196 x 1547) map of Xinjiang in English is available at Xinjiang Map at Maps of China. The author offers the reader three caveats about that English map. First, to download the map, which is actually in six file segments, one must right-click on each of the segments and then use a graphics program to paste them together. Second, this map erroneously shows the Tarim Highway reaching Highway 315 at Andirlingar, rather than near Niya / Minfeng, an error of 110 km to the east. Third, this map does not show distances.
To assist the reader with using the above Chinese maps, if you are traveling outside the main tourist cities, the author has adapted a List of Nearly 1000 Place Names in Xinjiang, with names in English, Chinese characters and Pinyin. The original source for these lists is Wikipedia regarding Administrative Divisions in Xinjiang. The author has adapted this list and offers it in sorted versions.
These lists include all the main administrative divisions in Xinjiang -- prefectures, counties and cities -- as well as several larger towns and townships within each county. The same data is provided sorted in three ways. NOTE: THESE ARE LARGE TABLES AND MAY TAKE A WHILE TO LOAD.
This section offers brief information useful to travelers about resources such as banks, Internet access, post, police, medical and travel services.
No good news for foreigners.
The Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) is the only bank in town, located on the north side of Sichou between Aita and Xingfu, east of Pakdiyar Restaurant. It had no ATM in fall 2006, but even if it gets an ATM, most ABC ATMs in China don't accept foreign cards. The bank does not change any foreign currency, nor do any hotels I spoke with, and it does not process cash advances on foreign credit cards. Nor does any place in Charklik / Ruoqiang, Niya / Minfeng, or Keriya / Yutian, so stock up on yuan before you head here from Golmud / Ge'ermu, Dunhuang, Korla, or Hotan.
Yang Guang Wang Ba 阳光网吧
There is a wang ba (Internet cafe) on a side street off Ying Bin, five doors in on the left. The side street is across the street from and slightly south of the Muztag Hotel. Computer usage costs Y2 per hour and the cafe has about 20 PCs. The town is large enough that there are likely other wang ba.
Cherchen / Qiemo County Travel Bureau. 0996-7628574.
This may be more of a travel development organization than a travel agency, but they can probably point you in the right direction. They don’t speak English, however. Ask for the English-speaking staff person at the Muztag Hotel to assist you. The bureau publishes a printed map in Chinese and English of the town and the county, available for Y2 at the Muztag Hotel and likely elsewhere. You can see this map here on a smaller scale at Cherchen / Qiemo County Travel Bureau Map. Their map lists several sights and available tours in the area, but it doesn't say who operates the tours.
0996-7929001 No English spoken.
The director of the local Cultural Relics Office, Turdi Kerim, is also the Chief Curator of the Toghraklek Manor Museum. The address of the Cultural Relics Bureau is unknown to the author, but you can likely find Mr. Kerim or his whereabouts at the Toghraklek Manor Museum. You may be able to pay here for the permit to visit the Lalulik Ruins, posted here as Y50, since other visitors have indicated the price at the site may vary.
Post OfficeChina Post is at the corner of Aita and Sichou. As in most Chinese cities, the China Post also has some lodging. The author did not check whether the Cherchen / Qiemo China Post can accept foreign parcels, but believes it is unlikely.
PSBPublic Security Bureau (Local Police) The PSB station is on Wenhua between Aita and Tuanjie. It doesn't have an Aliens Entry and Exit Administration office, so you can't get your visa extended here. Your nearest options are Korla and Hotan. The PSB Station is shown here, the narrow building with the blue sign and windows.
The Cherchen / Qiemo Hospital is on Aita at Sichou, and is the only hospital between Hotan and Korla. The author does not know if anyone speaks English at the hospital.
These posted hotel prices are from late 2006.
A note on water: Water and energy are precious in this area. Water may not be available 24 hours a day, even in the best hotels, at certain times of year, and hot running water will probably be limited to a few hours a day. Ask at check-in about water availability. However, as in the rest of China, a thermos of boiling hot water, if not brought to your room when you arrive, should be available, with unlimited refills, simply by asking the staff.
A note on air conditioning: Not all rooms have air conditioning, but most hotels in town have some rooms with air conditioning, which are usually a bit more expensive. Be sure to ask before you check in.
A note on negotiation: As with most hotels in China, room rates are usually negotiable. This is especially true in the off-season of late fall and early spring when they could be talked down by half, and less true during the heavy travel times of the first week in May and the first week in October.
迎宾 0996-7620898. At corner of Aita and Sichou kitty corner from China Post. It is called a "business hotel" on the map from the QiemoCounty Travel Bureau. Posted prices: "Standard double 80, Triple with bath 90, Single with bath 100." (No dorm rooms listed.)
There is a Jiao Tong (交通 transportation / traffic hotel) in the same shiny new steel building as the bus station. Other travelers have reported that a single is about Y50-80, with dorms for Y20 per person.
The map from the County Travel Bureau notes there is a ‘hotel’ at the China Post, as is true in most Chinese towns. A fellow traveler reported staying here in a four-bed dorm room for Y40 per night, with clean shared toilets and showers in the hall.
Mid-range
Muztag Hotelmu zi ta ge bin guan 木孜塔格
On Ying Bin Lu (the northern extension of Tuanjie Lu) - no street number, a block north of Qianjin, just before the entrance to the airport.
The Muztag Hotel has been the nicest place in town for some years. It has been upgraded with the addition of a new building.For the budget traveler, there are less expensive rooms in the old wing.
There’s a flashy new place down the street that just opened in fall 2006 - see below. However, the Muztag Hotel has the additional benefits of a large grounds and an on-site restaurant. This is the government hotel, and one staff memberspeaks English well.
For Y120, one gets a nice, clean, large room in the older building across a nice garden from the main building, with two double beds, TV without remote, phone, and bathroom with shower (hot water 8pm-11pm).
For Y200, one gets a nice, clean, small room in the newer main building, with two twin beds, large TV with remote, phone,bathroom with shower, and air conditioning - the latter of which certainly more important in summer than in mid-November when the author visited.
Posted prices: "Deluxe suite Y300, single room Y200, standard two room Y170."
The hotel’s restaurant is located in a third building also facing the garden. The extensive menu, in Chinese only, is mostly Chinese food, but with no pork products out of respect for the Uyghur staff. See below under EATING.
A note on spelling: The romanization of the Uyghur name is Muztagh, meaning Ice Mountain, referring to the nearly 7,000 m Ulugh Muztagh peak in the mountains south of town. The author uses the roman spelling used in the English
signage at the hotel -- Muztag -- a middle step between the Uyghur Muztagh and the Pinyin Muzitage.
昆玉 0996-7627666, corner of Sichou and Tuanjie.
B
rand new in late 2006 and fancy, with a two-story lobby graced by a wide circular staircase.
Suites, along the semi-circular front, have enormous pie-slice-shaped bathrooms and huge flat-screentelevisions, although they (and the rest of Cherchen / Qiemo) only receive about 12 channels, not including the English-language CCTV9.
Posted prices: 'Deluxe suite Y388, standard room Y198, single Y188, common room Y120.'
No restaurant. No English spoken.
All rooms seem to have air conditioning, but inquire at check-in.
Pakdiyar Uyghur RestaurantUyghur: Pakdiyar Chinese: Pa ti ya 帕提垭
0996-7629580
Cuisine or main dishes: Uyghur
Price range (average): Many at Y10-20 and many at Y35-50, so good for a meal or a feast.
This very nice Uyghur restaurant is on the north side of Sichou between Aita and Xingfu. Pakdiyar is only open for lunch and dinner, closing 15:30-19:30. Extensive menu of Uyghur dishes (and probably someChinese dishes) written in Chinese. There may also be a menu written in Uyghur.
The restaurant has a large, open central area suited for performances and dancing. If Uyghur cultural shows are on offer in Cherchen / Qiemo, this is a likely venue, as well as weddings and other events.
There are also many smaller Uyghur restaurants in town, especially near the bazaar. The author noticed one just south of the main entrance to the Bazaar on Aita.
Muztag Restaurant At the Muztag Hotel. Cuisine or main dish type: Chinese, with some Uyghur and Mongolian dishes. No pork is served, out of respect for Muslim practice. Chinese-only menu.
Average price range: Y20-35
Lao Hui Min Da Pan Ji Ban Mian Guan - Hui restaurant 老回民大盘鸡拌面馆
This basic but friendly Hui noodle house is next to the PSB on Wenhua. Chinese-only menu, posted outside. Use your Mandarin phrasebook restaurant section to ask, "What do you recommend?" It's all good. Cuisine or main dish types: Hui (Chinese Muslim) style. Mainly dishes made with hand-pulled noodles. Price range: Y4-7. This restaurant is shown on the right, with the red sign.
You can easily self-cater from the Uyghur bazaar. There are also many small groceries, but the following is the largest supermarket in town.
On the corner of Tuanjie and Wenhua, next to the Kunlun Square, Bai Shin Zha is a medium-size supermarket, on the ground floor of a high-rise building with a geodesic dome on top, across from Kunlun Square. Scanning registers.
There are many jade stores in town, mainly concentrated on Qianjin between Aita and Tuanjie. Offerings range from the smallest pebble to enormous intricate carvings.
You will also find independent sellers with stalls or tables near Qianjin Market.
Jade prices have been rising dramatically in recent years, so be prepared for sticker shock. High-quality creamy white 'mutton-fat' jade is selling for much more than gold. Also, some unscrupulous entrepreneurs have been known to inflate prices even more for tourists, and even misrepresent jade quality, or even doctor up lesser-quality stones. So, at today's prices, be cautious with any large purchase unless you are quite familiar with jade.
The southeast region of the Tarim Basin has been trading jade to central China for many thousands of years, based on chemical analysis of ancient royal central plains China funeral offerings. Chinese myths abound regarding the distant Kunlun Mountains from which jade came. After the founding of the Kingdom of Khotan, this jade from the 
Kunlun Mountains was also recorded as coming from Hotan, and is thus called Hotan jade. But 'Hotan jade' came from all along the Kunlun Mountains, including the Cherchen River and the Yarkand River west of Hotan.
The lobby of the Muztag Hotel boasts one of the largest pieces of jade ever found, about 1,500 kilos. Four much larger jade boulders have been found in the last five years in the region since that one was put on display. These include a 10-ton piece of white jade and the 60-ton 'gray jade king,' the latter of which is still on the mountain.
In ancient times, most jade was recovered from the rivers, but in the last several hundred years, it has also been mined in the mountains. See Jade Tour below for a two-day excursion into the Kunlun Mountains to a working jade mine and more information about local jade. Today, the mines in Cherchen / Qiemo County produce two-thirds of the entire jade production of Xinjiang.
In late August or early September of each year, the town holds the Qiemo Hetian Jade Cultural Festival.
See section below under SIGHTS on the Uyghur Bazaar.
See section below under SIGHTS on the Qianjin Market.
Cherchen / Qiemo is a small town and you can walk everywhere in the center. Alternatively, you can get around on the flat carts of a motorcycle taxi or in the covered seat of a tricycle taxi for Y2-3 to most places in the center. There are also regular car taxis, for Y5 in and near the center.
You can take a regular taxi to the Zaghunluq Ancient Mummy Tomb and the Toghraklek Manor Museum, but you'll want to arrange in advance for a fare that includes the driver waiting for you.
You would need a 4WD vehicle to get to the Lalulik ruins. The Muztag Hotel staff can arrange for a car and driver for you.
Tel: 0996 - 7622541
The Qiemo airport (IQM) is at the north end of Ying Bin Lu, a block north of Qianjin, just over a kilometer from the center.
There are at least two flights a week to Korla which continue on to Urumqi. The flights are on Mondays and Thursdays.
The China Southern Airlines plane, a 72-seat French twin-turboprop ATR-72, does a daily round trip.
10:00 Lv Urumqi
10:55 Ar Korla
11:35 Lv Korla
12:40 Ar Cherchen / Qiemo
13:20 Lv Cherchen / Qiemo
14:25 Ar Korla
15:05 Lv Korla
16:00 Ar Urumqi
The ticket cost is Y430 (60% discount) for advance purchase and Y600 closer to the departure date. The list price, in early 2008, was Y1080 plus Y70 tax and fees. (From Cherchen / Qiemo to Korla, the list price, in early 2008, is Y560 plus Y70 tax and fees, and this price is also subject to discounts of 60% to Y220.)
In Cherchen / Qiemo, the folks at the Muztag Hotel can probably help you contact someone from whom to buy your tickets, and the airport is right next door to the hotel.
You could also buy the tickets in advance and have the tickets delivered to you in many of China's larger cities, including Urumqi. One good on-line source is www.elong.net and another is www.ctrip.com. (Look in the upper right to choose English.)
These flights may be cancelled due to bad weather (which may actually mean bad weather, with frequent wind and sandstorms in Cherchen / Qiemo and Korla, or could mean a lack of passengers).
Most sources in English persist in repeating outdated information about getting to Cherchen / Qiemo. Even most folks in Xinjiang are not familiar with the recent updates in transportation options. This is perhaps not too surprising since as recently as the 1960s it took thirty days across the desert to travel from Korla to Cherchen / Qiemo.
A road track was installed around the rim of the Taklamakan. Starting in the 1980s, pavement was gradually added from Kashgar, reaching Cherchen / Qiemo in 1996, shortly after the 1995 inauguration of the Tarim Highway from Niya / Minfeng in the south to Bugur / Luntai in the north.
The basic pavement has been significantly upgraded since then. Today, the 1,475 km section of Highway 315 which runs across the southern rim of the Taklamakan, is a good highway, completely paved from Kashgar to Charklik / Ruoqiang, with two full lanes. T
here are desert-taming techniques such as reed plantings, as needed, alongside the desert roadway. Highway 218, from Charklik / Ruoqiang north to Korla (then onward northwest to Kazakhstan) is similarly smooth and paved. Any car or bus can drive the route and make good time. Road accidents or significant sandstorms, of course, can cause delays.
The shiny stainless-steel bus station is just south of the town center, on Aita, a long block south of Wenhua. When buses arrive, you can take a motorcycle taxi with a flat cargo pad, a bicycle taxi, or a car taxi the few long blocks north to the center.
All times are given in Beijing time, which is required for all official functions in China. But most unofficial life here operates on local time, also called Xinjiang time. Be sure, when arranging any scheduled event, which time your counterpart is using.
To the left is an image of the Cherchen / Qiemo bus schedule for major destinations, to which the author has added English row and title headings. This schedule is from November 2006. However, since the area is growing quickly, the frequency of buses is not likely to decrease. But it would be advisable to get your departure ticket when you arrive, both to verify the schedule and because the infrequent buses tend to run full.
To the right is an image of the Qiemo bus fare table, to which the author has added English row and title headings.
There is a daily luxury mid-sized seat bus westbound to Hotan at 10:00 am, which stops in Niya/ Minfeng at 13:00 (53Y, 314 km), Keriya / Yutian at 18:00 (70Y, 429 km), and Hotan at 21:00 (97Y, 605 km). Going the other direction, there is also a daily luxury mid-sized seat bus that leaves not from the main Hotan Bus Station but from the East Bus Station (dong che zhan), which is a local bus ride from the main Bus Station -- take the #10 bus to the end of the line. The author does not (yet) have the official departure time, but it surely leaves in the morning, probably about 09:00 or 10:00 Beijing time, and it should arrive in Cherchen / Qiemo about 11 hours later.
There is also a common sleeper bus westbound to Keriya / Yutian, 429 km, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays at 20:00 (19:00 in winter) for Y49 upper / Y53.5 lower. If you'd prefer to travel at night to Hotan, you can take the Keriya / Yutian bus and easily catch one of the many buses passing through Keriya / Yutian to Hotan (176 km) in the morning.
For Niya / Minfeng, 314 km, you can take either the Hotan bus or the Keriya / Yutian bus, described above. (There may also be other buses. For example, the author took a common sleeper that left about 14:00 on a Saturday in November 2006. Ask the bus station staff if there are other buses. Then please let us know.) Depending on the type of bus, the fare to Niya / Minfeng is Y36-51 and the trip should take 5-6 hours.
Previously, before the spur to Tazhong was built, one could also take one of the several daily buses headed to Korla and get off in Niya / Minfeng. However, these buses now take the spur road directly from Cherchen / Qiemo to Tazhong, bypassing Niya / Minfeng.
One bus goes daily eastbound to Charklik / Ruoqiang at 10:00 am (Y58, 5 hours, 351 km). In the reverse direction, one bus goes daily from Charklik / Ruoqiang to Cherchen / Qiemo at 10:00.From Charklik / Ruoqiang, one can take one of four daily buses to Korla, 490 km north, and from there you can catch buses or trains throughout China.
Alternatively, from Charklik / Ruoqiang, you could head southeast. See the Charklik / Ruoqiang page for information on traveling to destinations southeast from Charklik / Ruoqiang, including Dunhuang (with the famous Mogao Caves), Xining, and Golmud, where you can catch a train for Lhasa.
There are four buses each day going from Cherchen / Qiemo to Korla. The fare schedule poster in the bus station indicates the distance is 708 km, which means that the Korla buses go via the spur road to Tazhong, meeting up with the Tarim Highway there.
The buses which depart at 09:00 (10:00 in winter) and 13:00 (14:00 in winter) are luxury, air-conditioned seat buses for Y81. Those departing at 18:00 and 20:00 (19:00 in winter) are basic sleeper buses for Y76 upper / Y83 lower. The author didn’t get the travel time; however, the distance from Cherchen / Qiemo to Korla via the spur road is 708 km, so the travel time is likely in the neighborhood of 10-14 hours.
The later sleeper bus to Korla continues on to Urumqi, 1200 km, for Y145 upper / Y155 lower. The route map in the bus station, however, seems to indicate that perhaps the Urumqi-bound bus may travel on the eastward route via Charklik / Ruoqiang; this route would be only 130 km further overall to Urumqi. Check with the station staff if this routing would present a problem for you -- for example, if you are headed for Tazhong -- and please let the author know what you find out.
If you just want to make a short circuit into the center of the desert, Tazhong is Chinese for Ta(klamakan) Center. You can take a Korla bus from Cherchen / Qiemo as far as Tazhong, 188 km northwest, probably about 2 hours drive. In Tazhong, you can wander in and spend the night in the dunes, or in a basic accomodation in this rough and ready miner's town. You might be able to arrange for a tour of the oil fields -- estimated to have a greater oil reserve than the United States. From Tazhong, you can flag down one of the more than dozen daily luxury air-conditioned buses that cross the desert back south to Niya / Minfeng, Keriya / Yutian, or Hotan.
The price schedule in the bus station also gives prices for Shudang, 150 km east, and Waaxari / Waxishia, 180 km east, which are large entirely-Uyghur villages on the way to Charklik / Ruoqiang.
The tourist highlights of Cherchen / Qiemo are the Zaghunluq Ancient Mummy Tomb and the Toghraklek Manor Museum. These are listed below after the sights nearer to the center.
UYGHUR BAZAARThe traditional Uyghur bazaar extends through the block from Aita to Tuanjie, just north of Wenhua. The main covered corridor has mostly clothing and household goods, while the meat and produce is mainly found in several corridors branching south from the main corridor. Several cooked food stands and bread stalls are found near the entrances.
Visitors can pick up a game of pool, at the west entry, where Uyghur men play at about a dozen pool tables under a canopy.
QIANJIN MARKETThe most dramatic architectural sight in central Cherchen / Qiemo is the newly-built Qianjin Market. Its entryway at Aita and Qianjin has large brick walls with decorative turrets, resembling a mosque gateway, and it seems quite recently built. It consists of two block-long buildings, each with two levels of small shops facing the pedestrian walkway. The architecture is pleasant, with decorative brickwork and wrought iron filigree, but it seems in the style of a mosque rather than a market.
The shops have mostly modern clothing and home decor items, and mostly Han Chinese staff, with products mostly not of interest to Western tourists. In temporary stands along the walkway, Uyghur women sell produce.
This is not the Uyghur bazaar which, as noted above, runs from Aita to Tuanjie, just north of Wenhua, though on the Qiemo County Travel Bureau map it is called, in Chinese characters, the Qiemo Da (big) Ba Za (bazaar) and, in English, "Qiemo Uygur Market." On street signs, it is called qianjin shi chang - Qianjin Market.
It is not clear why the County Travel Bureau map calls it a Uyghur Market. 
The author speculates that the city intended many of the bazaar tenants to move here, but didn't realize that the rent would be exorbitant for them. Or maybe it was intended as an upscale shopping area but the map calls it a Uyghur Market simply because it was designed in Uyghur architectural style, although using a style usually reserved for a mosque to embellish a shopping mall may be unusual.
It seems popular with Chinese tourists, but western travelers will most likely want to walk through to reach the Uyghur neighborhood (below).
UYGHUR NEIGHBORHOOD AND RURAL ENVIRONSYou can find a pleasant Uyghur neighborhood in Cherchen / Qiemo by walking through the pedestrian Qianjin Market, turning right on Xingfu, and then left down one of the dirt lanes. You’ll wander along tree-lined roads, grape trellises, mud brick homes, cornfields, and many beautifully painted Uyghur courtyard doors. 
Donkey carts wander by delivering vegetables or animal feed.
Less than 500 foreign travelers come to Cherchen / Qiemo, so the local residents are far from jaded by tourists. You may get invited into a home, so bring some postcards from home - or even of Beijing - as hostess gifts for the warm hospitality you will be shown.
Northward in the neighborhood, across from the north end of the large apartment complex, is a mosque, as you can see on the street map. This may be the main mosque of Cherchen / Qiemo. (If you get a photo of it, the author would appreciate the opportunity to include it on this page.)
In addition, you could perhaps wander a bit farther into the agricultural or pastoral areas of the oasis. Perhaps you could include in your destinations to your taxi driver, along with Zaghunluq and Toghraklek, a stop at a pasture area of the oasis -- a welcome change from the vast desert, especially if your schedule doesn't give you time to head into the mountains south of town. The Chinese for 'sheep pastureland' is 绵羊牧区地 mián yáng mù qū dì.
KUNLUN SQUARETaking up four large city blocks, the large Chinese Kunlun Square is at the corner of Tuanjie and Wenhua. It was built only a few years ago. It has large lawns, many trees and interesting large metal sculptures including a five-meter pyramidal frame. Except for the aerial view to the left, the pictures were taken in November, when it's probably less green than usual.
The Cherchen / Qiemo County Travel Bureau map says that five of the items in the square are listed in the Guinness Book of World Records. From rough translations from Chinese-language web sites, it seems that these five world records may instead be at various places around Cherchen / Qiemo County, with only one of them in Kunlun Square.
One, for example, is at Zaghunluq with the "world's largest family joint burial tomb of mummies." There may be larger group 
tombs whose representatives simply haven't petitioned for the honor, but it's certainly the only one open to the public.
An English-speaking manager at the Muztag Hotel knows what some of these other record-holders are.
On Xingfu between Qianjin and Sichou is the monument to revolutionary heroes. It consists of a small plaza and a white columnar monument.
CULTURAL ENTERTAINMENTThe author has no information on Uyghur music or dancing opportunities in Cherchen / Qiemo. The best possibility, however, the author posits, would be to inquire at Pakdiyar Restaurant, Muztag Hotel or the Cherchen / Qiemo County Travel Bureau.
In late August, for the past four years, Cherchen / Qiemo has held a Jade Cultural Festival, and the town is likely to continue to do so. Cherchen / Qiemo County produces 70% of Xinjiang's jade production, and with the price of jade rising rapidly and jade running out in the rivers near Hotan, jade is likely to continue to be hot around here.
Tuoholake 托乎拉克 Zhuangyuan (Manor) 庄园 Bowuguan 博物馆 (museum)
09:30-13:30, 16:30-19:30. 20Y. No photos. Less than five kilometers west of town center.
On the west side of town is a three-part museum. The historic manor house itselfis on display, and inside the house are two distinct exhibits -- one of very ancient finds and one more recent -- located in a well-restored traditional home.
Any car taxi can take you here, but you'll need to agree in advance with the driver on a fare for him to wait for you here while you see Toghraklek and, most likely since you're already in the area, also take you to the Zaghunluq Ancient Mummy Tomb before taking you back to the town center. If you don't feel like negotiating, the staff at the Muztag Hotel can make arrangements, but you'll pay more.
Here is a good article on Toghraklek Manor, which it calls Toghraklek Villa:
Toghraklek Villa: An Oasis Among China's Museums. Its restoration and conversion into a museum began in 1998 and opened only a few years later.
No photos are allowed to be taken inside Toghraklek. The interior photos here are from a Chinese government book on archaeological sites in Xinjiang.
The building is a ten-room, aristocratic courtyard manor house, built in 1911 in the Kashgar architectural style. This style has strong similarities to the traditional Tajik home, though the former is adapted to the desert and the latter to the high mountains.
Both the home and the neighborhood around it are called Toghraklek Manor. There is no furniture in the home. Each room is labeled in Uyghur, Chinese, and English as to its function: audience hall, ablutions room, storage, etc.
The following description is taken from the above-linked article in Australia's "China Heritage Newsletter":
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Niches in wall |
"Qiemo is also home to a little visited, but delightful, museum, located in what was once one of the homes of Niyaz Beg, the first xianzhang or county leader of Qiemo, reserved for his third wife. The house, called Toghraklek Villa (Chn.: Tuohulake zhuangyuan), was built around 1911, and is a beautifully preserved and restored example of Kashgar-style aristocratic architecture.
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Niches in wall |
Niyaz Beg was a powerful local leader, but he was executed by the [Kuomintang] warlord of Xinjiang, Sheng Shicai, in 1936. The house remained the property of Niyaz Beg's family until 1958 when it was requisitioned to become the headquarters of the local commune's production brigade. Later it housed a school and the offices of the local Communist Party. This probably contributed to the excellent state of preservation of the house today."
Apart from the tomb-artifacts room and the ethnographic-display room, the rooms of the house are largely empty except for a few dishes or vases. The carved, wooden, raised skylight in the ablutions room is called a dereze.
Most rooms have decorative niches, called oyuq, built into the walls. Such niches are iconic of Islamic architecture. You can see the theme of walls filled with niches repeated here (left) from a wall of the throne room in Khiva, Uzbekistan, 3,000 km to the east and from the wall in this room (right), with stone niches, in the Taj Mahal at Agra, India 2,700 km to the south.
Tomb ArtifactsOne large room at Toghraklek has a museum display of about 150 grave goods found in the many Zaghunluq tombs. For more information about the history of the tombs, see the next section about Zaghunluq.
Most of the best items, unfortunately for the visitor here, have been taken to the Xinjiang Regional Museum in Urumqi, and some additional items can be seen in the Hotan Museum and the Korla Museum. However, you can still see an interesting breadth of items.
The musical instrument, the carved wooden box, and the animal textile shown here are displayed in the Toghraklek Manor Museum. The two-stringed musical instruments found here, called konghou in Chinese, are the oldest ever found in modern China's borders, and are among the main evidence that this type of instrument entered China from 
the west.
The author also includes images of items that are similar to what you will see in the museum and come from the Zaghunluq cemetery, but may not be the exact items you will see since the author was not allowed to take photos in the museum. These particular bronze knife, pot and spindles were excavated from Zaghunluq but are on display in the Xinjiang Museum in Urumqi; other bronze knives and spindles are on display at Toghraklek. The comb, from Vash-Shahri (near Waxxari / Washixia 180 km east), is of a similar age and style as the combs displayed at Toghraklek.
Other items in the Zaghunluq artifacts display include woolen striped fabrics, felt shoes, wood and bone combs, carved wood, carved jade, bead and shell jewelry, pottery, and several bronze items including seals, coins, a mirror and a knife.
At Toghraklek, all display items are individually labeled in Uyghur, Chinese, and English. But the lack of dates or other facts on the labels makes them sadly less interesting, especially since the graves at Zaghunluq range over a two-thousand year period, from 3,500 to 1,500 years ago.
The sign in the display room (text further below) in the tomb artifacts room mainly mentions the connection 2,000 years ago between a local kingdom and the Han dynasty Chinese empire, and claims constant intimate contact with central plains China, which isn't quite historically accurate. But more frustrating is that it tells nothing about the people who were buried here nor their lifestyle, culture, religion or language. Do your research before you go -- especially if you want to use Wikipedia, which is generally blocked in China.
Taking photos was not allowed. The spinning wheel photo (from the Ethnography exhibit), as well as the images of the fabric, kongou, bronze knife, carved wood items, spindles, pot, ancient food, hat and the interiors of the museum, are from A Grand View of Xinjiang's Cultural Relics and Historic Sites published by the Xinjiang government's cultural heritage department.
The collection in the second exhibit room, which spills out into the courtyard, consists of about 120 Uyghur household and farm items from the last century. 
If you are interested in the daily life of the recent rural Uyghur people, this section will please you. The items here are also identified in Chinese, Uyghur, and English labels.
Items on display include pots, platters, and other kitchen items, a spinning wheel (shown here) and other textile technology, a cradle and child-care tools, and other household implements and a wide variety of farm tools.
Taking photos was not allowed, so the author presents similar items from the Ethnography Exhibit of the Hotan Anthropology Museum in Hotan. These include farm implements, carpet making tools, 
jade working tools and infant cradle catheters.
With regard to the latter, in all Central Asian cultures, even today, infants are wrapped into their cradles when not being held. The cradle and mattress has a hole in the bottom, and wooden catheters (different for boys and girls) are placed when 
the baby is swaddled so that urine exits into a bowl underneath and baby stays dry.
The name Toghraklek derives from toghrak, the Uyghur word for the desert poplar, the most common tree in the desert regions of north-west China and all of Central Asia. The author doesn't know the meaning of the "-lek" suffix in Uyghur.
This tree is also called the diversiform-leaved poplar (poplulus diversifolia) or euphrates poplar (populus euphratica). Other common names 
for this tree include firat poplar, tograk poplar, downy poplar, tartar poplar, or turanta poplar.
The Chinese name for the toghrak poplar is 胡杨 (hú yáng). Yang means poplar and hu is a common designation in China for anything that comes from the northwest. For example, the carrot, which entered China through 
Xinjiang, is called a 'hu' turnip. More frequently seen lining the roads of Xinjiang is its cousin, the straight poplar or Chinese white poplar - populus tomentosa.
On the notice at the Toghraklek Manor Museum, the Chinese name is written 托乎拉克 with the roman given as Tuhulak. Toghraklek has also been transliterated from the Chinese in various ways, ranging from Tuogelakeleike to Tuolak or Tuhkak (as on the County Travel Bureau map).
Apart from the multi-lingual labels for each display item and identifying the function of each room of the house, the only information for visitors at the museum is three identical signs -- in Uyghur, Chinese, and English -- hanging on the tomb artifacts room.
"QieMo is in the southern part of Baringlen Mongolia autonomic shire of Xingjiang, in the southeastern rim of Tarim Basin. With the Kunlun montains at its south and the Taclamacan Desert at its north. QieMo has remote history and nature resource. It has an area of 140,000 square kilometers.
At one time, QieMo was an oasis country at the southern part of "Silk Road," which was one of"
the Thirty-six countries of the Western Region." According to archaeological discoveries, there were people several thousand years ago. In 59 BC, QieMo belonged to Han Dynasty. it has kept intimate contact with central government. In 1914, QieMo was founded.
QieMo had brought up glorious ancient civilizations for thousands of years. Lots of remains here, such as Molech rock carving, tomb field at zagunluk..., show the combination and cultures.
Today people here are working hard to get QieMo richer and more beautiful."
扎滚鲁克古墓群景点 Zagunluk Ancient Group Tomb Scenic Spot
Zagunluke Gumuqun Jingdian (zāgǔnlǔkè gǔmùqún jǐngdiǎn)
Tel. 0996-792-9001, 30Y. No photos.
09:30-13:30, 16:30-19:30, probably every day. Not staffed -- Go to Toghraklek Manor, just a few kilometers away, to get the docent, who has the key, and bring her/him to the Zaghunluq Tomb building.
The main tourist attraction in Cherchen / Qiemo is the mummy tomb found in the adjoining village of Zaghunluq. In Chinese guides, it is called 扎滚鲁克古墓群景点, Zagunluke Ancient Group Tomb Scenic Spot.
On the vast, empty salt plateau, a tiny pink building stands alone. It was built over one of the hundreds of tombs at this site, excavated only a decade ago but dating back thousands of years. In this 2,600 year old tomb, you can see, a few meters down through the plexiglass cover, fourteen naturally mummified bodies, in their bright clothes with their variety of funerary offerings in excellent condition, looking as if they had been placed quite recently.
You can also observe, close up, two 2,400 year old mummies in display cases, a husband and wife that had been buried together in a separate tomb nearby. In the room photo to the right, you can see the display cases and below to the left and right you can see images of the two mummies. Although they are in remarkable condition for their age, they are not the best quality mummies from this site; those have been taken for display at the Xinjiang Regional Museum in Urumqi, Xinjiang.
The Zaghunluq site is less than five kilometers southwest of the city center, passing through rural Cherchen / Qiemo with its poplar-lined lanes, and just 500 m west of the edge of the oasis. You can take a regular taxi, but your driver must pick up the docent with the key at the Toghraklek Manor Museum (above) before going to the site.
You might want to arrange with your driver in advance for a price that includes him waiting for you as you see the Toghraklek Manor museum, because the museum includes a good selection of artifacts from the excavated graves, and then take you and the docent to Zaghunluq.
The author has written a description and history of the Zaghunluq Cemetery, which is in a separate page due to its length.
Of the following sections in that document, the Location and Transport and The Fascination sections are also included here on the main page.
Zaghunluq Section Contents |
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For many travelers, interest is piqued by:
