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Three young men who engaged me in conversation for the entire three hour bus ride from Turpan back to Urumqi. From left, Ayer Shiding (a teacher), Abdul and Mainike. ''What do you think of Osama bin Laden,'' Abdul asked? Answering took more nuance than my Mandarin supports.

A fellow passenger on a municipal bus in Turpan. He engaged Wai Fong, one of our traveling companions, in conversation for the entire ride. Later she confessed that she only understood about half of it.

The Emin Minaret at the Sugong Ta mosque in Turpan. It's nice and slightly surreal, but a tourist spot now. The working mosque is up the hill behind it.

In Turpan, a woman pulls fresh bread from her tandoor-style oven while her husband looks on. Moments later she gave us one of the loaves. Like all fresh-baked bread, it was delicious.

''I have no money, don't take my picture,'' said this Han-looking gentleman pulling his handcart through a traditional, Uighur neighborhood in Turpan. He might not have had money, but he had plenty of dignity and stayed for a friendly chat.

Girls in one of Turpan's traditional neighborhoods play a rope-skipping game under the mulberry trees.

Not a great photograph. I was just interested to see the slogans in Uighur, painted in Arabic script above the Chinese. One part of a large slogan in a covered driveway.

Children drive an electric car in an amphitheater in Turpan. A vendor had a fleet of electric cars being driven around noisily by various small children and parents.

A vendor works the evening crowd in Turpan's night market.

Well, what would a journey to the west be without at least one sunset shot?