Best time for Visit
Most of the Silk Road Tour started from Xi’an to Kashgar, surrounded with the desert, known as Gobi desert, and it is terribly hot in summer and extremely cold in winter. So the best seasons to travel the Silk Road are the May, June and October.
What to Pack
More tips to go have great connections with the characteristics of desert.
For the great differences in temperature before day and night, warm clothes, sunscreen, sunglasses and lip creams to keep your body in health and protect your eyes and skin.
Hotels
There is no problem to find the right comfortable and mild luxury hotels in major cities, such as Lanzhou,Dunhuang, Turpan, Urumqi etc. However, if you travel by yourself and encount a small towns, you have to prepare yourself that the hotels will be very local and not meet your Western stand and the staff speaks little English.
Local Culture
You need to respect the local customs and religious belief in advance. For instance, most people on the route believes in Islamism, so eating/talking pork is not allowed, and better follow the guide and advisor’s advice while visiting the temples or Mosques.
Food
The food on the route is really typical, famous for the desert fruits in summer, and some tourists lost in these and ate too much and then got diarrhea. On the other way, on some sections it will be possibly true,there is no coffee in small hotels, and on some regions, the mutton is the main dish during the meals, etc.
Safety
It’s recommended that leave your valuables in the safe box of your hotel, and be careful of your wallets and cameras in crowded public areas like bazaars, bus, train stations, snack streets etx.
Time Zone
The whole country adopts the same Beijng Standard Time(GMT+8), but actually Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is 2 hours later than Beijing time.Therefore, the programs started everyday is usually 2hours later from 09:00 to 20:00 compared with Beijing time.