The best-view tomato scrambled eggs I’ve ever had were in Qiongkushitai.

Qiongkushitai was never originally a scenic spot. It was just a small village deep in the mountains, with beautiful scenery. Not many people used to come here, but after it was discovered and spread by word of mouth, it gradually became a stop on an Ili trip.

As more people came, opinions became somewhat divided. Some people felt it wasn’t worth it, and the first complaint was that it was too far.
It really is far. Starting from Tekes County, it’s a three-hour drive one way, and that’s on winding mountain roads. The road snakes through eighteen bends; one careless slip and you could slide down the slope, the kind of thing we saw on the road and that is undoubtedly the most frustrating part of any trip.

If you imagine yourself as Takumi Fujiwara and focus completely on each hairpin turn, you can get quite a bit of driving pleasure out of it. But there’s only one road in and out, so however you drove in, you have to drive back out the same way, and it takes a lot of time round trip.

The second complaint is that it’s expensive. Well, not cheap. In earlier years there were few lodging options in the village, and in peak season rooms were hard to find. Our group of six good friends split up and stayed in three different places (pretty improvised, honestly).

The first guesthouse was a small house on the grasslands high up along the road to Qiongkushitai. It only had a few rooms, but the facilities inside were warm and modern.
I once read an article about what tourists really want: “They’re willing to reflect on the changes of the world in front of ruined walls, but when they return to the hotel, they need Kate Middleton-level quality service.”

At dusk, everything turned golden, and the cattle and sheep were still eating grass in front of the door, heads down, minding their own business.

Layer upon layer of mountains, snow-capped peaks in the distance, clear valleys below, and back in the room there was a bathtub and an Italian coffee machine. This is probably what a modern-day reclusive life looks like.

The second guesthouse was somewhat similar, but it came with a sad story. The owner was a wealthy young woman from Jiangnan who stayed here because of her love for Ili and Qiongkushitai, and she was a pioneer in the local guesthouse scene. Later, on a rainy night, because the guesthouse had no water, she drove out late at night to find water for the guests, and unfortunately had a car accident because the mountain roads were slippery.

That kind of devotion feels all the more precious.

We stayed in the village of Qiongkushitai. It was livelier there, with mostly old Kazakh wooden houses. Although the conditions were a bit rougher, it added a touch more pastoral romance.

The mountains of Ili in June were still bitingly cold, so we hurried under the blankets and went to sleep.

What we saw when we woke up the next day has also become an iconic memory of Qiongkushitai in many other people’s Ili travel notes. The two windows were like a 98-inch 4K ultra-HD television, projecting an astonishing scene right in front of us.

The three places we stayed cost 1,500, 1,000, and 700 yuan respectively. There’s something for every budget, but the starting price is still high. I’ve heard that in recent years several more glamping-style campsites have opened in the village, so the experience is probably even better now.

The third complaint is that Qiongkushitai is boring. This is a place you need to explore. In other words, traveling in Ili is all about exploration.

After breakfast, I pulled my friend along and went out for a walk. Not far outside the village was a primeval forest, and we began our exploration with the feeling of the Fellowship of the Ring entering the woods of Lothlórien.

In the dimly lit forest, a tributary of the rushing Kurday River slipped lightly over the rocks. I believe that if old Tolkien had the chance to come to Qiongkushitai, he would have thought this was the Middle-earth in his mind.

The river here twists and turns especially dramatically, and the trail and riverbed crisscross each other. I heard that if you hike the Wusun Ancient Trail, you have to cross the river more than fifty times along the way, which is no less challenging than Frodo and Aragorn.

A Kazakh daily task: driving the sheep up the mountain to the self-service buffet.

From the riverbank back to the forest path, there were only a few walkers in the vast woods, treading through thick pine needles in the shifting light and shade.

Here, you suddenly realize that the poems and essays you read in school may not have been pure imagination, because everything is so real.

“Following the stream, I forgot how far I had come.”

“Suddenly I came upon a dense forest, with steep banks stretching for miles and no other trees in sight, only fragrant grass and brilliant flowers.”

“The travelers found this very strange and continued onward, wanting to reach the end of the forest.”

“After walking several hundred more steps, everything suddenly opened up.”

The little wooden houses scattered around the village were built by herders using timber from the surrounding mountains and forests. They use mortise-and-tenon construction, cover the roof with tar paper, then spread a thick layer of earth on top so grass can grow on the roof for wind resistance and insulation. This is a uniquely Kazakh craft, and the entire Ili Valley has only this one place left.

There was a signpost that said if you set out from the village and head south for 120 kilometers, crossing two mountain passes, you reach the Wusun Ancient Trail, a top-tier hiking route; head north for a dozen or so kilometers and you’ll arrive at Karajun, then keep going up another 80 kilometers to Qiaxi, and you’ll reach another god-tier route, the Karajun traverse. There are also several lighter one-day or half-day hiking routes.

Last year I went to the small town of El Chaltén on the Patagonian plateau in South America, known as the hiking capital. I think Qiongkushitai’s place in Xinjiang would live up to the hiking-capital title as well.

I just hope that as more tourists come, it can avoid the fate of becoming a paid mega-scenic area, with noisy crowds and commercialization.

By the time we got back to the village, it was already noon. Two of our friends had long since set off with the horse caravan toward Karajun. I went to pick up the other two friends, only to find that they had spent the whole morning lying in the small wooden house in the wilderness in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows—they really didn’t waste a single cent of the room rate.

It’s another way to experience an Ili trip: everything is good, as long as you don’t rush.

My friends were in a hurry to go riding, so they asked the guesthouse manager to arrange some food for me. I hadn’t expected much from the wilderness, but what arrived was a real surprise.

I still remember this plate of tomato scrambled eggs. Rather than remembering the taste, it feels more like I remember the sum total of that afternoon’s sensations. Lying on the grass reading, lying there with someone else, the sunset, the breeze, and me.

Only after stealing a half-day of leisure do you understand the taste of that word “steal.” To steal such an afternoon of breeze and reading from a trip full of rushing around, to steal such a friend trip from ordinary workaday life—how rare that is.

Writing this, I suddenly understand a lesson about travel: try to create as many beautiful moments like this as possible, ones that feel stolen from time, rather than obsessing over getting somewhere. Especially in a place like Ili, where the distances are so long. What matters is the experience in each place, and the people traveling with you.

Next stop, Karajun, where there will be a magnificent sunset and a birthday cake.

Xinjiang Special

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