Another early morning but we skipped breakfast today for obvious reasons! Our flight to Urumqi was at 0850 local time and we were at the airport at 0715. We checked-in no problem, said goodbye to Wahap, got our full bottle of P20 sunscreen confiscated at security as we'd left it in a carry-on bag by mistake and boarded the flight on time. We bumped into Jack and Brian again, the two gentlemen from Karakul Lake and the Kashgar tour and said hello then started chatting as we queued to board the aircraft. They really are well travelled and interesting guys and, despite their now frail looks, are determined to keep travelling until they're physically not able to. Jack is originally from Switzerland, but lives in Puerto Rico, and Brian is from Liverpool.

We were desperately hoping that we didn't end up sitting next to a phlegm coughing local using a sick bag as a replacement pavement; we noticed some gob on the walkway to the aircraft door. Promising! As we entered the aeroplane we said ciao to Jack and Brian and agreed to swap contact details before deplaning at Urumqi.

We sat towards the rear of the aircraft next to a large Uighur man, who did not secure his seat belt because, I suspect he physically couldn't. The flight rolled down the runway, got airborne and no sooner were we in the air, the seatbelt sign still on, then people start moving seats and going to the toilet!The cabin crew seemed oblivious to it all!

Before the trolley service commenced there was an announcement on the PA and we looked up to see all the cabin crew in formation at the front of the aeroplane, standing smartly and smiling at the passengers. They bowed to the passengers, a few more words were said on the PA, then they bowed again!BA staff take note!

To pass the time I decided to take out my iTouch and sensed the man next to me looking over my shoulder to see what I was up to so decided to be open and show him the game I was playing, Angry Birds.I handed him the iTouch and he was almost childlike in his excitement so I let him have a go before finding him an easier game o play.He chuckled as he got to grips with the mechanics of the touch screen and, before he started to enjoy himself too much, handed it back to me, the appreciation clearly evident on his face. He put his hand on his heart in thanks and said thank you in Mandarin. I found another game and let him have a go. He clearly liked this one, Bejewelled but again handed it back after only a few moments. This toing and froing continued until he fell asleep but I soon w0ke him up when the food arrived. Well, he is a portly gentlemen so I figured it was my duty to make sure he continued to expand his waistline!

The meal was okay and I had coconut milk to drink; a first for me on any airline but the dry roll, with no filling, and synthetic wafer biscuits were as tasty as the cardboard eaten by the donkeys at Karakul Lake.

Towards the end of the flight we saw Jack coming up the aisle towards us, he stopped and handed us a piece of paper with his telephone number on it. He sat down besides Maria and we chatted for a good 15 minutes, gave him our blog URL and email address together with a promise that we'll look him up when we get to Central America.

The flight started to get a little bumpy as we descend through the cloud on our approach for landing. The seat belt sign dinged on. The man next to me started to look pensive as the aircraft bounced around in the turbulence and he really looked worried as we hit an air pocket and dropped a few meters. Without his seatbelt fastened he really was on a white knuckle ride, his fingers chiselling out nail marks on his seat arms as he attempted to stay secured in his chair.We landed safely in Urumqi.

Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, is located on the banks of the Urumqi River at the northern foot of the Tianshan Mountains. Urumqi means 'the beautiful pastureland' in Mongolian and is surrounded by mountains on three sides

Our guide, Lucy, greeted us at the airport and took us to lunch. Having learned from the Wahap incident, we told her immediately that Maria does not eat meat so Lucy then went through a list of foodstuffs that were acceptable, including tofu. The food started to arrive, each dish being delivered at the table a few minutes apart, and we began filling our rice bowls with tidbits from each plate. I tried the tofu. It was a bit chewy and bland and not really to my liking and, after munching on a couple of pieces, Maria reached the same conclusion. 'It's quite different from other tofu I've had before' commented Maria. The waitress continued to bring more dishes and the tofu arrived! 'That's the tofu' I exclaimed, somewhat curious now to know what we were eating a mere 10 minutes earlier. 'It's surely not a vegetable' we discussed. 'Maybe it's some sort of mushroom' I quizzed. 'Or seafood of some kind' added Maria. We finished up and when Lucy arrived we were just desperate to know what the rubbery dish neither of us liked was. 'What's this Lucy?' we asked in unison. Lucy went quiet not knowing what to say. She muttered something in English, so strongly masked in Chinese, that she knows there was no way we'd understand what she was saying. 'What was that?' we both enquired.A little louder and clearer this time, we hear her say 'Pig skin', then a pause, 'it's good for women's skin!'

We left for the bazaar tour of Urumqi but it really wasn't up to much and we didn't even go in. 'This is a Uighur area' she explained. 'Chinese don't really come here. Especially after the violence in 2008 when the market was barricaded' she informed us. Instead we got shown around the tourist trap jade, spice and traditional medicine markets and before leaving I dutifully took a shot of the replica of the Minaret Bukhara in Uzbekistan. Well, I needed something for the blog location map didn't I?