Backdate: Xinjiang Jun 2026 Day 9

20/6 sat: Got up at 7.30am, had breakfast 45 minutes later and left for那拉提.at 9.15am. Tried this peach popsicle at one of the rest stop but it was way too sweet. *And here's my cute "bagkeeper" keke~* 

It was quite a drive and we arrived at this烤羊restaurant at 1.45pm to eat土火锅for lunch. It's filled with lamb meat. FIL also ordered some side dishes like 牛小排、油麦菜and生菜, and the veggies were quite tasty for me. The土火锅itself costed RMB 388 and took a while to cook because even the waiter didn't know how long it would take for it to boil alamak... It was nice but nothing wow. Again, we cannot finish it because the portion's huge. Lunch was RMB 588 in total.

Left at 3.30pm to take the shuttle bus up那拉提空中草原and we could tell the weather wasn't very good through the weather forecast. However, Fran and I still decided to ride the horses and Potato followed us (RMB 80 per pax). PY left for a cafe and FIL chose not to ride too.

It was 4.45pm and the riding station was packed. There were like 400 to 500 horses and they were all geldings. I just don't like the fact it's so touristy and "systematic". We wore the helmets and vests, Fran hopped onto one horse first and other customers just kept cutting Potato and my queue. It was supposedly two riders to one instructor, so Fran left first. I hopped onto one horse in front, with a 16YO guide sitting behind me holding on to the reins while Potato's horses was tied to ours and followed behind.

I knew I was riding into a storm looking at the overcast skies and lightning in front of us. Was just talking to the young boy behind me and damn his mum is like 40YO lol. He quitted school at 15YO and started to ride here, where they provide him with accommodation and salary etc. He pointed out to me that his family stays over "a hill" nearby lol. Was quite worried when I saw it started to rain and asked if we should turn back but he said it's okay to go to the halfway point to take photos.

All in all, the one-hour ride turned into 30 minutes only due to bad weather and while on the way back, it even started to rain hailstorm! One pretty interesting scene we saw back were that he pointed out the mares and foals running nearby, and we even had to slow down for a pack of sheep crossing in front of us... quite cool. Overall, it was the worse riding experience I've had so far really, not just the weather but the path taken too.

At one point as I was about to get down from the horse, it suddenly threw a bit of tantrum and yanked a bit but luckily nothing happened. I hopped down on the platform and PotaTOHs just ran for shelter because the rain just got heavier. *Could not even do our photoshoot haiz~* 

Nothing much to see in such weather so after getting the raincoats, we decided to take the bus down and leave the place at 6+pm. Omg there were so many tourists so we had to wait a while for the buses.

At 7.50pm, we reached the same restaurant we ate lunch at for dinner because阿力木had already helped us make a reservation for烤羊腿 (RMB 564). Apparently, they used charcoal to grill over 3+ hours, hence an advance reservation was required. It was quite nice (but we really had too much lamb today), and the汤饭 (RMB 68), that resembled mee hoon kuey, was good too. Of course, we had to order卡瓦斯 (RMB 25) to go along with our meal hehe~  RMB 650 in all. As we had the room to ourselves, the waiter and waitresses also danced to a traditional维吾尔族舞蹈for us and the waiter's quite good-looking haha! 阿力木also joined in towards the end~

At 9.30pm, we drove to our stay nearby, 肖恩的牧场. I guess we really came on the wrong day because the whole of那拉提had no water because of the heavy rain. We could not shower nor flush toilet because of that. I only used wet wipes to clean myself. It rained almost non-stop the whole day so we were also sian. Slept only at 1am.