Road trip to Xinjiang

Seeing-is-believing beauty

Starting mid-June, we took a three-week family road trip in Xinjiang. This is our first trip back to Northwest China since 2018 when we spent a few weeks on wheels in Gansu and Qinghai, two large provinces adjacent to Xinjiang and Tibet.

In the past 8 years, the infrastructure in China’s “Wild West” has gone through an incredible transformation. Express roads, suspension bridges, gas stations, EV charging ports, hotels, bed and breakfast, restaurants, and even high-speed rail, are everywhere.

Xinjiang is big. It covers 1.66 million square kilometres and borders 8 countries from Russia, Kazakhstan, to Pakistan. It represents 1/6 China’s land mass and only 16 countries are bigger than Xinjiang.

Xinjiang is bigger than Iran, which is roughly 1.64 million square kilometers. It is also bigger than Germany, France and Spain combined.

Xinjiang is sparsely populated, with 26 million residents – only a couple million more than Taiwan which is less than 36,000 square kilometres in size.

3 million people live in Urumqi, the capital city. Urumqi was first set up during Qing Dynasty and meant “beautiful pasture” in Mongolian.

Xinjiang is ethnically diverse, with Han, Uyghur, Hui, Kazakh, Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Manchu, Mongolian, Russian, Daur, and Tatar communities. Uyghur and Han each represents roughly 40% of the population.

Tianshan Mountain (“Heavenly Mountains” in Chinese) cuts the province in half from west to east.

Northern Xinjiang features snow-peaked mountains, dense forests, large lakes, and endless grasslands. It is populated mostly by Han, Kazakhs, Hui, and Mongolian.

Much of the industry and agriculture is concentrated in the north.

Southern Xinjiang features the world’s second largest moving desert – the Taklimakan Desert, the Kunlun Mountains, Tarim Basin, and the Pamir Plateau.

It is heavily populated by Uyghurs and has some of the oldest cities along the ancient Silk Road such as Kashgar, Khotan, Kucha, Yarkant, and Karasahr. They are over 2,000 years old and still fully populated.

Famous ruins in Southern Xinjiang include Loulan, Niya, Charchan, Pishan, and Gumo.

Northern Xinjiang is best known for its natural beauty and abundant resources. Southern Xinjiang is famous for its history and harsh landscape.

Xinjiang became part of China since 60 BC during the Han Dynasty, when Emperor Han Xuan Di (汉宣帝) set up the Western Regions Protectorate. At the time, most of Europe was under Roman rule.

During the Tang Dynasty (618 – 907 CE), Xinjiang’s territory was expanded to include part of modern-day Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan through the Anxi Protectorate and Beiting Protectorate.

The Qing Dynasty established the position of “General of Ili” to govern Xinjiang.

Tsarist Russia encroached upon the territory in the 19^th century and annexed large swarths of areas including the Issyk Kul, the world’s second largest saline lake in present-day Kyrgyzstan.

Xinjiang has been the fastest growing province in China during the past decade, average 7 to 8% annual GDP growth.

It is the central node of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) where China is building its land connections with Central Asian countries through a network of rail, road, and power infrastructure.

An example is the $5 billion 542-kilometer China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan rail project, scheduled for completion in 6 years by 2030.

Xinjiang is the home of China’s energy industries – for both hydrocarbon and renewable energy, given its vast reserve of oil, gas, coal as well as sunlight and wind.

Solar farms and wind turbines dot the land in endless stretches, next to ultra-high voltage (UHV) transmission lines.

Xinjiang is traditionally China’s largest fossil fuel reservoir, housing roughly 30% of the country’s oil, 34% of natural gas, and 40% of coal reserves.

Renewable capacity exceeds 160 million kilowatts. These sources account for more than 60% of the region’s total power generation capacity.

Due to its energy abundance, Xinjiang is becoming a popular location to build AI data centers in the past few years.

Xinjiang is also China’s food and fruit basket. It produces 20% world’s cotton and 25% its tomatoes.

In the last decade, Xinjiang has become one of the most sought-after domestic tourist destinations, attracting some 323 million visitors in 2025 alone with its vast open space and breathtaking natural beauty.

Given the enormous size of Xinjiang, four separate road trip routes are recommended to motorists:

- North Xinjiang route: Urumqi to Altay, Keketohai, and Kanas Lake

- South Xinjiang route: Urumqi to Khotan, Kucha, Yarkand, and Kashgar

- Ili route (West route): Urumqi to Sayram Lake, Huocheng, Yi-ning, Nalati, and Bayanbulak

- East Xinjiang route: from Urumqi to Turpan, Hami, and Xinxin Valley

East route takes between 10 days and 3 weeks to hit the key attractions.

We took the Ili Route (see maps below) from Urumqi to the west towards the border with Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

My older daughter was on a 2-week horse riding and hiking tour in Issyk Kul lake area in Kyrgyzstan while we drove the Ili route. We got to compare notes on the travel experiences between the adjacent regions.

The Ili Route is in fact the shortest of the four routes. Still we clocked over 5,000 kilometers on the road, with a few detours, and covered a land area almost 350,000 square kilometers, bigger than Malaysia or Vietnam.

For the trip, I rented a Great Wall Tank 400, a V-6 engine four-wheel drive SUV, roughly the size of a Ford Bronco. It has a rugged, body-on-frame off-road design.

In the end, the off-roader was an overkill since we were on paved concrete or asphalt top the entire time. Even when we drove into the desolated mountain passes and forest areas.

The only time a rugged SUV was truly necessary was when we sat through a sudden sandstorm near the An Ji Hai Canyon (安集海大峡谷) on the first day of the road trip.

It was a wonderful journey.

The scenery along the Ili Route is breathtaking and completely different from China’s eastern coast where we live.

There are endless snow peaks, ancient glaciers, grasslands with wild flowers, cobalt blue lakes, pristine forests, and white yurts where local Kazakhs and Mongols live.

Driving between Bayanbulak Grassland and Sayram Lake, the scenery reminds me of the Swiss Alps, except on a much grander scale.

The continuous grasslands, snowy mountains, lakes, and forests from Bayanbulak through Nalati, Kalajun, Tangbula, Kunes, Zhaosu to Sayram cover over 50,000 square kilometers, bigger than Switzerland itself.

We also rode on horses for a couple of days with local guides of Kazakh ethnicity, staying in Kazakh-owned BnBs.

Local foods are a highlight, particularly grilled mutton and beef generously sprinkled with pepper, cumin, and caraway.

We also tried the famed white salmon at the Sayram Lake. Local yogurt and other fresh dairy products are delicious.

I was struck by the convenience and abundance of choices for food, accommodation, and transport throughout the trip, even in sparsely populated areas.

In every town stop, we could sleep till 10am and have breakfast delivered to the room at 10:30 by a delivery robot. Urban life in Xinjiang is not much different from Shanghai, in this aspect.

During the trip, I read about the heat wave in Europe where there was a rush to install air conditioners.

It was also hot in Xinjiang with daylight temperatures reaching 35 degrees Celsius but air conditioners are everywhere, even in outdoor camping areas where we stayed in a “space-capsule” style housing (see below).

The capsule features built-in smart home tech, panoramic windows, and wet/dry bathrooms with voice-controlled temperature and lighting management.

It also has a retractable skylight shutter that allows you to enjoy the stars from your bed.

While June to August is high season for Xinjiang, everything is remarkably affordable.

Our two-bedroom space capsule by the waterside at Sayram Lake cost $220 dollars a night. That was the most we paid on the trip.

The bed and breakfast places as well as Holiday Inn type hotels cost between $50 to $70 dollars with free same-day cancelation and complimentary breakfasts.

Free self-help laundry services are available in all the placed we stayed.

Incredibly, accommodation at low season is 40 to 60% cheaper.

A sit-down meal costs $7 to $10 dollars per person with drinks. A half-pound naan, a clay oven baked flatbread, cost less than $1. Turpan grapes, the best in China, cost $2.5 per kilo. Gasoline is $1 per litre. Diesel is 85 cents per litre.

On my last driving day from Sayram Lake to Urumqi, the total toll for the 580-kilometer 4-lane express way is RMB205 ($29).

The rental cost of my Great Wall Tank 400 Hi4-T hybrid, with a range of 850 to 900km full battery and full tank, is RMB220 ($32) per day, inclusive of insurance.

Prices of things in Xinjiang, like the rest of the country, are easily affordable. Retail prices for home electronics have stayed the same for at least a decade; car prices have actually dropped by 20 to 30%.

Reading about the heat wave in Europe, I got a sticker shock when I learned a regular split-unit air conditioner cost between 1,200 and 2,000 Euros fully installed in France.

A similar unit in China cost RMB2,000 (258 Euros), inclusive of delivery and installation.

On our last day in Urumqi, I killed a couple of hours in a shopping mall since it was too hot outside. I spent the time browsing at EVs on display.

Yes, EVs are sold next to Huawei and Xiaomi phones and Nike sportswear in malls across China.

The price-value of Chinese EVs is incredible. I checked out a couple models – the Zeekr 8X and 9X (photos below).

(official stock photo – Zeekr 9X)

Zeekr is the premium SUV brand in the Geely Group, a private auto-maker based in Zhejiang that owns brands including Volvo, Lotus, Aston Martin, Polestar, Smart (with Mercedes), Lynk, and Proton (in Malaysia).

The Zeekr 8X is a full-size high-performance plug-in hybrid SUV. It has a 900V high-voltage system and two horsepower configurations – the dual-motor AWD that generates 895 horsepower (660 kW) or the tri-motor version that generates 1,380 to 1,400 horsepower (1,030 kW).

Zero to 100 acceleration for the triple-motor version is 2.96 seconds.

In comparison, the top-line Maserati Quattroporte Trofeo/GTS with a Ferrari-V8 twin-turbo engine has a max power output of 580 horsepower. Zero to 100 takes 4.5 seconds.

Thanks to the 900V architecture, it supports 500kW DC charging, enabling a 10% to 80% charge in about 9 minutes.

The Zeekr 8X has larger size than BMW X5 (5,100mm by 1,998mm by 1,780mm with 3,069mm wheelbase), and more luxurious interior.

Its smart tech is beyond what European cars can offer, featuring a dual Qualcomm Snapdragon 8295 computing platform, a 16-inch main dual-screen setup, and a 17-inch ceiling-mounted rear passenger screen.

The car has a Level-3 assisted driving system paired with a roof-mounted LiDAR sensor suite.

For all the power and tech, the Zeekr 8X retails at RMB329,800 ($47,000) for the base version. Its topline model retails at RMB473,800 ($68,000).

The dealer in Urumqi offers free EV home charging station and installation as a promotion.

The Zeekr 9X Hyper is another level of luxury, directly positioned to compete with Rolls Royce Cullinan for size and comfort.

It offers full customization of interior and exterior with high-end Nappa leather and natural Nordic wood. The car is over 5.2 meters long and has a 3,169 mm wheelbase.

It has a full range of 1,200 km and electronically governed top speed of 240 km/hr.

In addition to a dual 16-inch 3.5K OLED main touchscreens on the dashboard, Zeekr 9X is paired with an massive 47-inch AR head-up display (HUD).

It is equipped with a high-fidelity 32-speaker Naim sound system—a premium audio brand typically exclusive to Bentley.

Zeekr 9X retails between RMB465,900 ($68,800) and RMB599,900 ($88,430).

The incredibly competitive price-value performance of the Zeekr SUVs is the key to understand the much-publicized Chinese “retail weakness” narrative in Western media.

Unlike the West, manufactured goods are getting cheaper rather than more expensive in China due to production efficiency, competition, and innovation.

Chinese businesses cannot “harvest” their customers through fat margins since they don’t have oligopolistic pricing power like in the West.

Brands like Zeekr need to compete fiercely with peers such as Li Auto, BYD Yangwang, AITO, and Nio. There are half a dozen more similarly positioned brands I haven’t listed.

Simply, money goes much farther in China. No Chinese consumer complains the auto makers or electronics makers or AI developers don’t have high enough margins or astronomical valuations.

For the Chinese consumer, the more surplus accrues to him/her, the better.

While total retail consumption remains flat and housing costs nose-dive (another divergent trend from the West), spending on travel, education, and health has seen steady growth.

In 2025, domestic tourism spending grew by 17% yoy with 15% increase in number of trips to 5.6 billion. Outbound international travel went up by 40% to 146 million, making China the world’s largest outbound travel market.

Thanks to the visa-free policy, China’s inbound travel (foreigner coming to China) went up by 61% to reach 132 million.

More and more foreign tourists are visiting to experience the 8-D vertical cityscape of Chongqing and industrial/tech tourism at Xiaomi’s EV factory or drone deliveries in Shenzhen.

I cannot write a travelogue to Xinjiang without touching on the dishonest and malicious Western accusations about “Uyghur prosecution” or “forced labor”.

Since the second half of 2010s, the West has levied unfounded accusations that the Chinese government is prosecuting the Muslim Uyghur population for religious reasons and put them in labor camps.

It is a woefully nefarious and immoral claim. There are over 25 million Muslims living in China, about 11 million Hui Muslims and Uyghur Muslims each. There is another 3 million Kazakh, Uzbek, Tajik, Tatar, Salar, Kyrgyz Muslims.

No other Muslim groups have experienced any “prosecution” for their religious beliefs. Not even Western media or human rights groups have raised such issues.

In fact, Muslim ethnic minorities enjoy benefits and preferential policies unavailable to Han Chinese, including housing and educational subsidies, child support, and cattle/farm subsidies.

The same is true with other ethnic minorities in the country such as the Tibetans, Thais, Mongolians, etc.

Our Kazakh hosts proudly talked about how government support has helped send their kids to study and work in eastern China.

In South Xinjiang, there was indeed an “independence” movement encouraged by the West in the form of the so-called “East Turkistan Movement”.

While the West has armed and trained thousands of radical Uyghur militants in Al Qaeda and ISIS camps, there is little ground support for these separatists from the broader Uyghur community.

I wrote about the subject in an earlier Substack essay. https://huabinoliver.substack.com/p/the-uss-long-game-in-xinjiang

The world has become increasingly aware that every accusation made by the West against its designated “adversaries” is a confession of its own criminal conspiracy. Few have any trust in such “narratives”.

In the past decade, Xinjiang has stabilized and the agents of chaos have been roundly defeated.

Today’s Xinjiang enjoys the highest standard of living in Central Asia and is the most technologically advanced Muslim region globally.

It is a safe and wonderful place to visit. Seeing is believing. Make a trip and find out.

I have uploaded some photos from my camera and drone from the trip. Hopefully they show a glimpse of Xinjiang’s beauty.