Aletai

Aletai (阿勒泰; Ālètài; also known as Altay) is a city in Xinjiang Province of China. Go 100 km or so in any direction except south and you hit a border: Mongolia to the east, Russia to the north, Kazakhstan to the west.

By plane
The Aletai City airport (AAT) is 17 km from the town center and can be reached by taxi. The only destinations you can fly to are Urumqi, Xi'an, and Lanzhou. The airport only operates 5 months in each year and closes during winter.

By train
Overnight trains arrive from Urumqi via Kuytun and Beitun. Allow 9 to 10 hours. Pickup a bus from the Aletai station to town ¥5.

By bus
The bus station is at Tuanjie Road.
 * Burqin &mdash; takes about 1.5–2 hours, a bus every hour, costs ¥21
 * Urumqi &mdash; takes about 12 hours, sleeper ¥160-170
 * Yining &mdash; takes about 2 days

By bus
Aletai buses cost ¥1 per person between any two stops within the town. Just put ¥1 in the container.


 * 101 &mdash; from the bus station will to the city center, People's Square (人民广场) and near the PSB
 * 1 &mdash; from the bus station to city center

Regional buses from Aletai
The following services were available from the bus station on Tuanjie Road (200m north of Yinshui Rd corner) as 5-Oct-2019. ''May change seasonally. Alternative spellings possible''

Do
Difficult to find anything to do here, it takes 1 hour to walk through the town, though doing some shopping is not a bad idea.

Buy
All kinds of crystals.

Eat
Lamb shishkebab, in local dialect is called Kebab, and in Chinese is called Yangrouchuer. Beshbarmak, the traditional dish of the Kazakhs is a mixture of boiled lamb, potatoes, carrots and noodles usually eaten with the hands.

Drink

 * Original Kazakh yoghurt, in Kazakh is called airan. In Chinese it is Suannai.

Go next

 * Hanas National Nature Reserve &mdash; approximately four hours away by bus