Today was in many ways, one big surprise. When I did my research on the route, the desert runs to Hami and tomorrow to Turpan have always been described as one of the most challenging day routes on this trip, a long and endless desert run through heat and dry desert plateaus. I was advised to carry at least four liter water with me and start at 5 to reach the Hami 9 hours later on a grueling route. The other two of the group who ate one or two days ahead also messaged that it become quite hot at the end and that there is a stretch with 330 km of no petrol station. Obviously I filled up the tank, hoping I will get the usual 550 km out of it, which should bring me over the distance. Now it looks like, there are several options to drive to Hami from Dunhuang, and as we can use the highways again with motorcycles (or at least nobody cares about big bikes on the highway) I checked with the very reliable Amap (Chinese Gmap, only better than Gmap). And picked the fastest route. Amap predicted a bit over 5 hours, after others mentioned 7 to 9 hours. So I double checked and checked with OSM, which, for the same route also predicted a similar time. So I set the alarm clock to 5:30, skipped breakfast and was on the road at 7:00 heading towards Hami, with the camel bag of 1 1/2 liters of electrolyte, prepared for a hot and dry, long dessert run.
First observation was, it was nicely fresh and on the highway, with the light gear it was almost too fresh, second, at 7 o’clock, there was hardly any traffic in town and when I reached the highway, I was alone. This was a brand new super flat, super straight highway through 130 km of little more than sand and stones. For the next one and a quarter hour I saw not a single other vehicle in front or behind me, and maybe four cars in the other direction. You have to imagine, you get on that highway, put the Cruise control a bit over 100 km/h and the next 130 km you go only straight with four wide bends between and no other car around. It’s quite interesting, how you start looking for things to entertain your brain and eyes when there is nothing else then nothingness around you and all you do is keeping the motorcycle upright and trying hard not to accidentally fall off the bike as nothing else is to do. The next thing was, that we started on 1,300 elevation, and I expected a slow but steady decline to lower altitudes, when I slowly climbed up to over 2,000 km again and with it, the temperature fell to 20° C.
Finally, the fork to the G30 came closer and I expected dense truck traffic, similar to the days earlier, and many people have warned me about it. Well, there was certainly more truck traffic than the last 100 km, but not as bad as I expected. But what I didn’t expect were the crosswinds which came with that highway. I had crosswinds before, but today was a completely different league. Maybe one of the reasons why not so many trucks went on that highway. I had to slow down to 80 km/h to keep the bike in control, especially, when I came out of the slip streams of the trucks, and the wind comes from the side and I had to lean the bike some degree against the wind (Guido, if you are reading this, I had to think about your sailing video, it was the same feeling like going full with the wind from 2 o’clock). Getting into and out of the slipstream of the trucks was really something and I often stayed behind the truck and kept rolling, slow but steady. Slowly the sky got cloudy and I was wondering what that could mean in the Goa desert. Beside that, there was not a single petrol Station on the S26 and on the G30, there was not one open or functioning petrol station. It was not really a concern for me, as I had enough petrol, but I needed a toilet. Remember, I was advised to drink four liter water with electrolytes, which got in the body, but never evaporated and wanted to get out again as quickly as possible. I stopped at a big service station with a big foot court, but again, no petrol station, however, as I had no breakfast, I decided to take an early lunch. Direct after was the big security checkpoint which demarcates the crossing from Gansu Province to Xinjiang, which is under special security controls. Can only say, the control was fast and professional and efficient, even when as a foreigner I had to park the bike and had to bring my passport to the main building to scan my passport and take a photo of me.
And off I went again only to see darker clouds. And then the rain started 50 km before Hami with even stronger wind and neck stretching gushes. I didn’t bother to stop to take the rain jacket out, as it was not too cold and that stretch was one big construction detour with no emergency lane to stop. So I kept rolling and reached Hami shortly before 1 pm, as the Amap had predicted.
So instead of a long, hot and dry dessert run, it was a long, fresh and wet kind of sailing trip.
Nice hotel, good rooms and Hami is a really nice city, with a water park next to the hotel, and a big modern mall I went to in search of dinner and ended up at McDonald’s and World cup burger Menu with ice cream. Definitely not what I would have imagined I would have for dinner today.
Here is a brief overview of the history of this nice, green and we’ll developed town:
Hami (哈密, Uyghur: قۇمۇل / Kumul) is a fascinating Silk Road gateway city in eastern Xinjiang.
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Hami (哈密 / Kumul)
Ancient History
Hami is one of the oldest continuously inhabited oases on the Silk Road, sitting at the strategic choke point where the route from China proper enters the Tarim Basin. For over two millennia, it was the eastern gate of Xinjiang — the first oasis travellers hit after crossing the Gobi Desert from Gansu.
– Han Dynasty (~100 BC): After Zhang Qian’s expeditions, the Han established military colonies here to secure the corridor against the Xiongnu. Control flipped between Chinese dynasties and nomadic powers for centuries.
– Uyghur Khaganate / Gaochang (9th–13th c.): Hami was part of the Buddhist Uyghur Kingdom of Qocho (Gaochang) — a sophisticated, multi-ethnic Silk Road state.
– Mongol Era: Marco Polo passed through around 1274, describing it as a fertile region of “idolaters” (Buddhists) with plentiful fruit.
– Qing Dynasty (1696): The Kangxi Emperor decisively brought Hami into Qing control. The local Hui (Uyghur) kings were allowed to rule semi-autonomously in exchange for loyalty — the Hui Wang Mu (Mausoleum of the Hui Kings) still stands today, a striking blend of Uyghur, Han, and Islamic architectural styles.
Recent History
– Hami became a prefecture-level city in 2016, absorbing the surrounding region.
– It’s now a major energy hub — massive coal reserves, wind farms, and solar arrays take advantage of the brutal desert climate. It’s a key node on China’s west-east energy transmission grid.
– The Lanzhou–Xinjiang High-Speed Railway (opened 2014) now stops here, cutting travel time to Ürümqi to ~3 hours and connecting Hami into modern China’s infrastructure backbone.
Curiosities
– The Hami Melon (哈密瓜): The city’s claim to fame. Legend says the Kangxi Emperor was so delighted by these impossibly sweet melons that he named them after the oasis. For centuries they were shipped as imperial tribute. Today, 哈密瓜 is the generic Chinese word for all muskmelons — a bit like “Champagne” for sparkling wine.
– Barkol Lake (巴里坤湖): An eerie, high-altitude salt lake in the nearby Tianshan foothills, surrounded by Kazakh herder communities and grasslands that feel more like Mongolia than the desert below.
– Ghost City of Wubao (五堡魔鬼城): Just outside town: a vast yardang landscape — wind-carved rock formations that howl in the desert wind, earning the “devil’s city” nickname. A surreal, alien terrain.
– Gatekeeper of Xinjiang: Hami’s famous winds (the Bailifeng — “Hundred-Li Wind Zone”) are so fierce they’ve literally blown trains off their tracks. The modern railway has wind barriers and wind-speed detectors that force trains to slow down or stop.
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Hami is the kind of place you pass through on the way to somewhere else — but it’s soaked in history, and the contrast between ancient oasis culture, Qing-era architecture, and massive modern energy infrastructure makes it quietly remarkable. On your Silk Road loop, it’ll be your handshake with Xinjiang after Dunhuang.
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