Blogs from Kashgar, Xinjiang, China, Asia - page 5

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

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

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

We’ve been spoiled with some beautiful mountain drives on this trip. Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better after the Touragat pass from Kyrgyzstan to China, we hired a minibus and local driver to take us up the Karakoram Highway. This is the traditional Silk Road highway that connects Kashgar in China to Pakistan. Gorgeous snow mountains through passes at over 4000 metres elevation, how boring. One of the highlights was when we stopped at Karakol lake with Mushitage Shan (mountain summit at 7546 metres) and its huge glacier overlooking the lake. We spent the night in the town of Tashkurgan (only 60km from the Pakistan border) and went back to Kashgar the next day. There is supposed to be a speed limit through the pass (presumably to prevent accidents on the winding roads) ... read more

These days you don't have to be an adventurer like Marco Polo to travel China's Silk Road. It is a chain of cities and towns linked by road, rail and sometimes air services. But it is still and adventure to travel it. I spent two weeks on just one of its many routes, from Xi'an in the east, to Kashgar in the west. The plan was simple: from Hong Kong take a bus to Shenzhen, fly to Xi'an, take a train to Tianshui, Lanzhou, Zhangye, Jiayuguan, and Turpan, take a bus to Urumqi, and then fly to Kashgar, and after Kashgar fly to Beijing to play with the Hong Kong Dragons in the Aussie Rules China Cup. Like all good adventures, it was a journey away from the familiar. Western food and English language basically ended ... read more