May 29 Leaving Bayanbulak to Baluntai to Hejing

Finally got what we want, and it is time to move on. Bayanbulak is a beautiful place, actually a little sad when we finally have to move on. But surely, the expectation to look for new scenery ahead of us soon overcame the sadness, besides, we got up early this morning, it is time to eat! Taken this image just in front of the small restaurant we stopped to eat our breakfast, weather is getting better and warmer. Using my compact Sigma DP-1, processed the raw file using Adobe Lightroom 2.1, one of my favorite editing software, and the platform I use whenever Capture One Pro did not support, for example the Sigma DP-1 and the DP-2.
And this image, also with the Sigma DP-1, took seconds before we move on the long and straight Xinjiang highway, toward Baluntai 巴侖台.This one, Neo on the driving seat, as always, moving toward to what seemed to be an endless highway. I could not resist, took a nap.And then this is the most important tip I will give to all - "Before you delete and format your compact flash or SD card, check and check again, and before you hit the enter key, check again." I can now advise anyone how important it is to double check and triple check, because I did not. And I lost some great image here, not only the beautiful landscapes, but also the feast Neo prepare for us, a whole roast sheep! For what it worth, Neo is treating us a meal of a lifetime. As fast as Chinese development is, not everyone benefit the same. Neo makes his living giving travel guide, often on the driving seat of his Landcrusier, hours and hours drive, stop whenever we want to take a picture, on or off-road. And this meal, cost him a good portion of the money he could make from this trip, too good to take, but Neo insist. I felt particular sorry because I lost the image of this wonderful meal, the video of the roasting process. We all eat, drink, and eat more, drink more.
Finally, we will have a good hotel to stay tonight, and after the wonderful meal, we are moving to Hejing 和靜, Neo's home town. We stay at a nice hotel, and before entering into the hotel, we saw a small desert storm, we quickly ran into the hotel, and needless to say, I lost the image of the desert storm, it was gone along with the "empty trash" command on my mac, stupid me. Good news is the hotel does have cable for high speed internet, bad news is even though I am able to download the image rescue software to try to retrieve the lost images, some came back, many did not.
No more image to entertain for this day and I will be careful for next, this is the location map of Hejing and its relation with other Xinjiang cities. Map Here.