Advertisement
Published: January 5th 2008
Edit Blog Post
A lazy day in Kashgar
From my wanderings and my trip to the international bus station yesterday I found that 'Xinjiang Time' is alive and well here, albeit not entirely officially it still exists. The deal behind Xinjiang time is that China has only one time-zone, Beijing time, despite being so large. However being in the far west and so far away from Beijing things operate on a different clock over here, a clock that is two hours behind Beijing, the Xinjiang clock. So today, I slept in until 10 Beijing time but it was really 8am in Xinjiang time so it was ok.
My first port of call today was the international bus station, after yesterday's fiasco of waiting around for nothing I was determined to get a ticket or a damn god explanation of why I couldn't get one and when I could get one. So I hopped on a bus and got to the station and then remembered that the bus station operated on Xinjiang time and wouldn't be selling tickets for another half an hour! Wandering the streets near the bus station wasting a bit of time before heading back and being jumped on by bus
drivers eager to get bums on seats but when I told them I was heading to Osh most left me alone. One driver however took it up himself to tell me something in detail which of course I didn't understand a word of, but it was nice of him to try. Anyway, I made my way to the ticket office and was pleasantly surprised to find that the ticket lady selling the international tickets could speak a bit of English. So, with a minimum of fuss I bought a ticket to Osh for the 8th of January! I am heading to Kyrgyzstan!
Pleased with my efforts, and now slightly drained of cash, I decided to head into the centre of town and find an atm. This was a chance for me to explore the Chinese side of Kashgar, the big important buildings, the trendy clothes shops and of course the ubiquitous square. And I was pleased to see that even this far west the Uncy of the people was still present: opposite the square is a gigantic statue of Uncy Mao! I took a few photos of me and Uncy Mao and then headed back into the old town
for some breakfast.
My breakfast was, actually I don't know what it was, it was a savoury pastry that had pieces of meat and potatoes mixed through it. One didn't look like it was going to be enough so I got two, but once again my eyes were bigger than my belly and after the first delicious one the second one spent most of the day clipped to my crumpler swinging around in its little plastic bag. As I was walking along eating my breakfast, still quite early for local Kashgar-ians, I watched vendors setting up their stalls, kids going off to school, and old buildings come to life as windows were opened and fires lit. The old town bathed in the soft glow of the morning sun low on the horizon looked beautiful and even older than it already looks. This time I snapped away furiously with my camera and I am pleased to say I have already taken an enormous amount of photos! There is one problem however, the computers at this internet cafe won't let me upload any photos! So I either have to find another internet cafe or you will have to wait for them,
but if you do end up having to wait I can tell you they are worth it.
There isn't much to report on the rest of the day as I spent it just getting lost in the old town, although I couldn't help myself and bought two small Uighur knives which I will post home and hope behind all hope that they get through customs somehow. I also enquired about buying a fur hat, and despite being fur (I'm not even sure it is real) they are really cool looking hats and are all the rage with the men in Kashgar. They seem to be pretty expensive but I'm leaning towards shelling out for one, it might help me blend in when I get to the Stans, either that or make me stand out even more...
After walking for most of the day all I wanted to do was sit down and I found a cafe, bought myself a beer and then was invited to wacth some random Chinese movie with the owner, it was a bizarre experience but the beer went down really well and refreshed me enough to head back out. Before dinner I headed back
to the hostel to drop off some grocery supplies that I bought and then I headed to a restaurant that I visited yesterday, the two kids that cook the shishkebabs and spruke out the front have taken an interest in me and one of them speaks a little English and has been trying to teach me some Uighur. Tonight it was 'let's-all-play-with-matt's-mobile-phone!' and pretty much everyone in the restaurant crowded around my mobile and took great pleasure in playing poker, golf, laughing at my music and checking out pictures of me without long hair and a beard, I'm sure some of them still don't believe me. Unfortunately in all this fraccas the stylus used for my touchscreen was broken, a pain but not the end of the world.
After dinner it was to the internet cafe and while I have been here I have been checking out flights from Tashkent, Uzbekistan to Beijing and then possibly changing my return flight to an earlier date. This could be more difficult than I first thought but fingers crossed I'll sort it out. Tomorrow is market day! And the day that, if I was ever going to buy a camel, it would
be tomorrow. Michael, the camel's on its way! Looking forward to checking it out and hoping that because it is winter there won't be any other tourists, just me and the locals. Anyway I will fill you in tomorrow (sans photos unfortunately) of the camels that I buy and all the excitement of the markets.
Thanks for reading, despite the lack of photos.
Matt out
END TRANSMISSION
Advertisement
Tot: 0.196s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 8; qc: 66; dbt: 0.1287s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Michael
non-member comment
Spankerific!
Awesome a camel! I am sure the little dogs and the cat will love a big hairy camel to play with :P Will make travel round good old geelong an interesting experience :P Awesome man, can wait to see all those photos, sounds like an interesting and vibrant place! Keep up the good work!