Tekes is a county town in the upper Ili valley, in the north-west of Xinjiang, and it is unusual for two reasons. The first is its plan: the streets were laid out radially from a central octagon, following the eight trigrams of the Yijing, so that the whole town reads as a diagram on a map and it is genuinely easy to lose your bearings in. The second is what surrounds it - some of the richest grazing in the Tianshan, including the Kalajun grassland, which forms part of the UNESCO-listed Xinjiang Tianshan World Heritage property.
The grassland
Kalajun is high pasture on the northern flank of the range, reached from Tekes by road and then by a combination of vehicle and walking or riding. It is a landscape of rolling green slopes, snow peaks, deep gorges and scattered spruce, with yurt camps used by Kazakh herders through the summer grazing season from roughly June to September. There are marked viewpoints and boardwalks in the developed parts and much wilder terrain beyond, and the contrast in light across the day - mist, sun, cloud shadow - is what people come for.
Staying in a yurt
Yurt stays are arranged either through the grassland operators or through the herder families themselves, and what you get ranges from a bed in a working family yurt with a shared meal to a semi-commercial camp with bedding, electricity and a kitchen. The traditional meal is mutton, noodles, milk tea, yoghurt and bread, and the family's animals are usually close by. Horse riding, either led or unaccompanied, is available everywhere on the grassland and is the normal way to move between the camps.
Practical notes
Tekes and Kalajun are reached from Yining by road, a drive of several hours, and the grassland is high enough that nights are cold even in midsummer - take a warm layer and a hat. The season runs from about May to early October, with June and July the greenest; outside that window the roads may be closed by snow. Food and accommodation in the camps are basic, so bring a torch, water and any medication you need, and be prepared for no reliable mobile signal in the upper valleys. Alcohol is best avoided at altitude and in the camps, where it is not part of the local custom.
