LIFE> Around China
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A poplar destination
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-11-11 10:26 The two festivals attracted nearly 100 photographers from all over the country, including China Daily photographer Lu Zhongqiu. They traveled to Urumqi, Kuerle, Yuli, Luntai, Kuqa and Xayar, and recorded the region's spectacular natural scenery and ethnic cultures. In Yuli county, they visited a village of Luobu people at the edge of the Taklamakan Desert, the second largest desert in the world, and got a glimpse of their traditional lifestyle, which relied on the desert, poplar trees and Tarim River. In Luntai county, they witnessed a group wedding ceremony in a forest of poplar trees. Luntai has the country's largest nature reserve for diversifolious popular trees, with an area of 70 sq km. According to Chi Chongqing, head of Xinjiang's tourism administration, more than 90 percent of the diversifolious popular trees in the world are distributed along the Tarim River in Xinjiang. "Although tourism in Xinjiang was hurt by the Urumqi riot, it will soon be restored and prosper just like the poplar trees living in the desert," he says. |