Maralbexi — better known as Bachu (巴楚) — sits on the Kashgar-Aksu corridor and holds one of the south’s loveliest winter surprises: the Red Bay (红海湾) poplar lake. I expected a summer-only attraction and found a frozen, silver version that I liked more, because the crowd was gone and the shape of the place showed through the way it cannot when the tour buses are parked bumper to bumper.
Red Bay, frozen
The poplar lake is a constructed but genuinely pretty expanse where the trees grow right to the water. In winter the surface locks into ice and the reflections double the bare trunks, so the forest appears twice and the silence doubles with it. I walked the rim for an hour and saw two other people. The Kashgar winter travel guide lists Bachu as a day trip, and it is exactly that — close enough to be easy, far enough to feel like an escape from the city’s noise, and cheap enough to do on a whim rather than a plan.
Dolan culture
Bachu is a centre of Dolan (刀郎) culture, the southern musical and dance tradition with a sound that does not sound like the rest of Xinjiang. I caught a small performance in a county hall and, not speaking the words, understood the rhythm perfectly. It is a reminder, alongside the Kashgar-side skiing notes, that this region gives you culture and slopes in the same breath if you let it, and that the slopes are only half the reason to come south, the half you can buy a ticket for.
The food is the point
Two things Bachu does that I would cross a desert for: lake fish grilled over coals, and the local mushroom (巴楚菇) stir-fried with peppers. Neither is fancy; both are better than they have any right to be, and the mushroom in particular has a texture I have not found elsewhere in the region. For a fuller historical loop, our Yarkand winter Silk Road detour and the Silk Road combined trip plan show how to string these counties into a real journey rather than a list of photo stops, which is what most people reduce this corridor to.
The frozen reflection
I should describe the lake more carefully, because a frozen lake with trees undersells a strange effect. The ice was not clear but a milky grey, and under it the dark water moved slowly enough that the poplar trunks reflected as soft doubles rather than sharp ones, so the whole basin looked like a painting that had been breathed on. I walked to the centre on the safe shore ice and sat until my feet went numb, not because I was tough but because I forgot. The two other people I mentioned had long since gone, and the silence on ice is its own variety — a hollow, ringing quiet that the snow fields do not have. Bachu’s Red Bay in winter is the kind of place that makes the entry fee feel like a joke in your favour.
The Dolan song
The Dolan performance I caught was not staged for me; I stumbled into it. A county hall, a dozen people, a hand-drum and a reed flute and a singer whose voice had the grain of someone who had spent the day outside, and a dance that looked less like choreography than like a story told with the whole body. I understood none of the words and all of the feeling, which is the only kind of translation that matters at that volume. Bachu wears its culture openly in a way the bigger towns have learned to package, and the unpackaged version is the one worth the detour.
The fish and the mushroom
The food deserves its own paragraph because it earned one. The lake fish, grilled over coals with nothing but salt and a squeeze of something sour, was the cleanest-tasting fish I ate in the south, and the Bachu mushroom, stir-fried with green pepper and a little pork, had a texture between a mushroom and a vegetable that I have not found anywhere else and have looked for since. Neither is complicated; both are local in the truest sense, grown or caught within sight of where you eat them. A winter trip that skips the food skips the half of the culture that fits in your mouth.
A practical day
For the planner, here is the Bachu day. Arrive from Kashgar or Aksu by late morning and go straight to Red Bay before the wind picks up, walking the rim and sitting on the ice while it is still. Eat the lake fish at one of the small places near the site — they open by eleven and close when the last visitor leaves — and then, if the timing is right, catch a Dolan performance in the county hall, which is not on a fixed schedule in winter and is worth asking about at your hotel. Back to Kashgar by dusk, or stay the night and do the ruins around Kuqa the next day instead. The loop is short, the costs are low, and the silence is the product.
What it costs
Red Bay entry was modest, under 40 RMB in winter, the grilled fish and mushroom dinner for two about 80 RMB, and a room in the county 160 to 200 RMB. Fuel from the corridor and back was under 90 RMB. Against a day at a resort the comparison is not even close — Bachu gives you a frozen lake, a song, and a fish for less than a single lift ticket costs elsewhere, and the lift ticket does not come with the song. Spend the savings on the mushroom; you will think about it later.
Why Bachu stays with you
I have tried to name what makes Bachu (巴楚) stick in memory when a dozen other counties have blurred, and I think it is the combination of water and song. A frozen lake is not rare in Xinjiang, but a frozen lake with a Dolan performance in the county hall behind it is a particular winter, and particular winters are the ones you keep. I left Bachu lighter than I arrived, which is the opposite of how travel usually goes, and I have sent two friends there since on the strength of that evening alone. The county will not trend, will not be written up, and will not change for the better review; it will simply be there, cold and musical, whenever the corridor brings you past.
The fish is the point
I should not over-romanticise, so here is the plain version: the grilled lake fish at Red Bay is the best meal I ate on the southern corridor, and the mushroom dish alongside it is the second. Both come from the lake and the land immediately around it, which means they taste like the place in a way that a hotel buffet never will. I have planned whole days around worse motives than a good fish, and Bachu justifies the indulgence because the lake is the only reason the county exists at all. Eat by the ice, then walk the rim again; the second look is always better than the first.
When to go
January is the frozen-lake month; December can still be soft and February starts to thaw the surface into something less photogenic. I went in January and the ice held, the light was low and kind, and I left with more pictures than I needed and fewer expectations than I arrived with, which is the right ratio for a place like this.
Honest practicalities
- The lake site has an entry fee even in winter; it is modest and worth it, because the maintenance keeps the paths safe when everything else is ice and the alternative is a slow, cold fall.
- Wind off the open plain is the cold’s sharp edge — a real hat, not a beanie, because the wind finds the gap every time and the gap is always at the back of your head.
- Rooms are plentiful and cheap because the summer crowd is gone, so you can pick one with heating that actually works rather than the one with the best lobby and the worst radiator.
Bachu will not make a ski magazine cover. It will give you a frozen lake, a fish, and a song you cannot name but keep humming. After weeks of chasing the perfect run, I will take that trade every time, because the run ends at four and the song does not, and the song is the thing you carry home in a way the run never was.