Sometimes I ask myself why the hell I choose an area like Xinjiang for my project. Whatever plans you make, you never know if you will be able to carry them out, may it be due to political reasons, or like in most of my cases, because of nature. Everything looked quite nice when I left yesterday morning from Hetian. The sky was blue, the temperatures were great and I arrived at the airport in time for my flight to Urumqi. I had already prepared a book for the time I had to wait for my connecting flight to Kuche, which was about 3 hours. Well, it did not come as I expected. After I wanted to check in my luggage again, I was told that this was not possible yet. I should wait some more time. When I asked about the reasons I was told that there was a sandstorm raging in the Kuche region, nobody knew how long it would take. AGAIN, NO! Well, I sat down, continued reading and hoped...hoped for almost four hours until I got the final message that my flight as well as many others were cancelled. It was not sure if flights would leave the next day, so I decided to stay in Urumqi and book a new flight to Korla for the 1st of May. At least I get the refund for my ticket and the time in Urumqi for a needed haircut and some work which had to be done...Please keep your fingers crossed that everything will work out with my flight tomorrow...


Sandstorm over Xinjiang (Photo by Xinhuanet)