Blogs from Kashgar, Xinjiang, China, Asia
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After most of Saturday being devoted to packing (minus one phone) ATM, Checking out, arriving at the Airport nice and early, long lunch, 1 ½ hour flight, arrived in Kashgar 4pm Beijing time. Here's confusion, some like to use the international/local time and others Beijing time the difference being 2 hours. The 2pm flight, 12pm, was $180.00 the next flight, 4pm, 2pm was $300.00 check with the locals or on line as a cheap flight was about $118.00 . The same trip by bus, 20 hrs and although there are fairly regular stops some would need a catheter, or 25hrs by train and listening to a random Aussie a fairly painful trip. However in the interests of a bit of gruelling travel my bus and train time is nigh as is severely down grading the accommodation ... read more
Kashgar was not the China I was expecting when I arrived there about a week ago. I was expecting the slick Urumqi that I had left nearly a month before. A multi-ethnic, have a beer at the delicious night market, clean, livable place. Kashgar, even by Chinese standards, is something completely different. While it still has the busy night markets with delicious food (although boiled goat heads are a questionable choice), there is certainly no beer to be found in this Muslim outpost in the far west of the country. I cannot call it clean either. Again, sitting on the western edge of China also means you sit on the western edge of the Taklamakan Desert. When the wind blows, so does the dust, dirt, and sand from the east. So what DO you see in ... read more
Sary Tash, The Irkeshtam Pass, and Destination: China!
Published: August 24th 2012Asia » China » Xinjiang » KashgarAlright! I will preface by saying I have officially safely arrived in China! Very exciting! Now the story: I arrived in Sary Tash two nights ago at approximately 11pm local time. My driver was able to find me a guesthouse with little problem for 200KGS for the night (another very good deal!) So far my 4200KGS 36 hour bus ride has cost 3800KGS and taken less than 5 hours. The guesthouse was VERY comfortable and the lady running the show was very friendly. It was not so much a guesthouse as just somebody's house with a spare bedroom. After a quick inspection of the room I saw a box that looked very familiar: a shoe box wrapped in Christmas paper in such a way that one could easily open the box without tearing the wrapping paper. ... read more
22 Wheels and a Dozen Dusty, Plastic Roses
Published: June 13th 2012Asia » China » Xinjiang » Kashgar » Taklamakan Desert"There once was an old farmer with one son and one horse. The horse ran away and the man was unlucky. When the horse returned it had found a mate, now the man had two horses and was very lucky. His son tried to ride the horse and fell off, breaking his leg. Now the man felt unlucky again but soon the nation went to war and all of the young men were called to fight. Luckily, because of his recently broken leg, the farmer's son was excused and he was again lucky" A swiss man told us this story at Chinese customs the other day as we were receiving a bit of unexpected news. The Irkeshtam pass bridges the border from Kyrgyzstan into China's wild west in a gap where the Tien Shan technically meets ... read more
SILK ROAD TRIP 2010 URUMQI, KASHGAR AND WESTERN BORDER AREA URUMQI Arrived at Urumqi in middle of night in terminal that was like enclosed bus shelter without seats, so sleeping there not option. only paid about 20% more than expected in hotel with clean sterile white walls ,so next morning with help of the same taxi driver, moved to a youth hostel style hotel with writing all over walls. There were no other westerners here, very westernised young Chinese traveller-backpackers from all over China. This is the first time I had seen so many Chinese travellers outside the tour group setup. It was very encouraging to see. URUMQI This is the most inland city in the world, (It’s a long way to the beach) URUMQI, the capital of Xinjiang, is a typical ethnic Han Chines city, ... read more
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SILK ROAD TRIP 2010 TULUFAN-East Xinjiang. Another highlight of the silk Road is the old area of Tulufan, which is the third lowest depression in the world and below sea level. It has very little snow or rain, but plenty of underground rivers from the snow mountains a long way away for growing lots of food. Grapes and melons from the Mediterranean area especially grow well here. The area is also very Islamic and cosmopolitan also, with many of the older woman dressing like Italian movie stars out of the 1950s with lots of, scarfs, eye makeup and sequins. There was a lot to see in this area, so spent a few days here; deserted ancient ruins, coloured stony desserts, villages, orchards, markets, tombs, Mosques, Buddhist stupas all in the one area. The pictures show the ... read more
When I arrived in Kashgar first, before I went up the Old Silk Road, I had a good look aorund the fabulous Youth Hostel. I saw on the notice board a request from a Uyghur young woman saying something like, “I would like to take you on a free tour of my home town of Kashgar. I will improve my English while I tell you about Uyghur culture and customs.” I had noted her number and called her that evening. When there was no answer I sent her a text message. As luck would have it, when I had 2 ½ more days in Kashgar Sofia rang and arranged to meet me! Sofia is Uyghur, 30 years of age and does not look Chinese. Her features reflect the deep central Asian roots of the Uyghur people. ... read more
Before I began this trip I had bought my flight tickets from Moscow to Urumqi and from Xinjiang Province back to Beijing, so it was handy to have that sorted. My next step was to fly to Kashgar. The day after my trip to Turpan I got to Urumqi airport early and had time to look around. In fact I was far too laid back and ended up missing my noon flight to Kashgar – gr-r-r. It wasn’t a tragedy though because the next one was in two hours. It took all of that two hours to reschedule my flight, get my luggage back and check it in again. Each of these steps were very difficult because none of the airport staff spoke English. It was obvious that they were Han Chinese and this supported what ... read more
Long Drives and Desert Camping
Published: February 21st 2012Asia » China » Xinjiang » Kashgar » Taklamakan DesertAfter a last shower for four days, we set off towards our first stop through the Taklamaken desert. Bush camping for me, is what the overlanding experience is all about, it's a very communal, basic and sociable way to travel. Once we find a good spot to set up camp, everyone attends to their previously assigned tasks to unpack everything you need to cook, wash up and camp comfortably. You're also assigned a partner for cookgroup duty, which rotates daily, when you need to buy food, and cook lunch, dinner and breakfast for everybody. After things are vaguely set up, most people drag a tent off to a spot they like and set up for the night, we'd sit in t-shirts until food is ready, then eat and pile on sweaters after another beautiful sunset, playing ... read more
We had a great time in Kashgar. It was our first experience with a Chinese city and was a welcome change from Central Asia. We’ve immediately taken a liking to the food. Our local guide is from Chengdu and he introduced us to some tasty Sichuan dishes. The street food is also quite good. So far we’ve tried meat buns, kebabs, and spicy cold noodles. It’s always a bit of an adventure trying to order food in a restaurant as you never quite know what you’re going to get. Luckily we found a restaurant with pictures on the menu and English translation (sort of). We’re doing our best to learn some Mandarin. We can say three words: hello, thank you, and toilet. It’s a start anyways. We plan to spend about 3 to 4 months in ... read more
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