Blogs from Kashgar, Xinjiang, China, Asia - page 6

Kashgar, the city that used to be central Asia's nexus on the southern silk road, now borders Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan. While Urumqi is the official provincial capital , Kashgar is the Uighur's unofficial capital in Xin Jiang. Kashgar's population is 94% Uighur, with the rest made up by Han (4%) and other ethnicity. Tajiks are Shi'ite, while Kyrgies and Uighurs are Sunni. The latter two have some inter-marriage, but overall it's a very separated community. Similar to Tibet, the entire region here is high altitude, averaging 3200m, with highest inhabited zone at 4200m. Our itinerary was packed, visiting each of the following sites per day: Tashkurugan-Karakul Lake-Taklamakan desert-Kashgar old city/market-Shipton's arch. I've been taking random notes and thoughts throughout the trip, so the rest of the blog might seem piece mealed. Communication with the outsid ... read more

10am, Kashgar wakes up…Vibrant, colorful, multicultural, Kashgar well deserved its reputation of “gate to Central Asia”. The name of the city had somehow always brought up a sense of adventure, mysterious journey where nomads & traders stop in this oasis before heading to the Taklamakan desert in the east or down west toward Pakistan and Afghanistan. Nowadays, Kashgar still plays its role as an oasis along the Silk Road and is a live testimony of past and present glory. Grabbing the now usual freshly baked nan on the way to the old town, I was quickly to lose sense of direction walking inside narrow alleyways and discovering at every step a bit more of the ancient Kashgar. Women covered in long brown veils or simply wearing a colorful head scarf would be leaving their hundred years ... read more

On September 10th, we left the idyll that was Arslanbob for Osh, 2000km to the south, and the 2nd largest city in Kyrgyzstan. We travelled with an Irishman and a Scots man( there must be a story there..). Sharing a taxi that took us through the Fergana valley, a very wide, flat area of fertile, productive land. It was very hot, hazy and humid, and we were relived to reach Osh after 4 hours in a car that sounded as if it were in its death throes. Whilst planning the journey, our impression had been of an exotic city steeped in antiquity - "Osh is older than Rome" -and boasts the biggest bazaar in Kyrgyzstan. In fatc, it looks like all the other cities we've been to, and so were not overjoyed at the prospect of ... read more

Lesson 1 Scaring Asian children sounds like a lot more fun than it's worth. Every freaking time I'm playing with children on this continent and I slyly work out trying to scare them - playfully, mind you - something goes wrong. On two separate occasions in Thailand and Laos, I tried to scare some children with whom I'd already been sharing gringo-play-time ("gringo" works in any language, btw). Both times they cried. 90% of those times, I looked like an idiot. The other half, I looked like an asshole. Let's not forget that one of those bawling yard-apes so HAPPENED to be the cutest little scene-chewing princess at the whole god-damn tiny-village traditional Lao wedding dinner. What's bloginese for Buzzkill? We had a really awesome plan to ride our bikes down the Karakoram highway, basically from ... read more

We arrived in Kashgar late Saturday afternoon. We were dusty and simply focussed on getting clean again! The following day we went out to the Kashgar Sunday Markets. Kashgar has been a main trading city since the early days of the Silk Route. We are not far from the Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan boarders (Russia to the North) so it has always been a focus for trade. The Sunday Market has been operating since those days. Like any animal market - it is a real social event for the farmers that come into town. Donkey, Cows, Goats and Sheep (as well as Watermelons) were all being traded. We wandered around for a couple of hours, just fascinated by the people watching. Later a couple of decided to jump on to of the truck to get the overall ... read more