Blogs from Kashgar, Xinjiang, China, Asia - page 8

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 ... read more

Hellooooooo from country number 4!!!! we're now in china and the journey to get here was unforgettable,we set off from sost on the pakistan border at about 1oam after sum dubious customs procedures. customs was a 3 sided concrete block with no ceiling 2 tables and one chair.they took about 3 things out our bags,got bored then waved us on our way.then we took a toyota landcruiser through the kunjerab pass wich was at first narrow canyons with ice falls, turning into snowy mountains and rolling hillsides. we saw marco polo sheep and ibex, and eventually arrived at chinese customs where helly just smiled and got passed through,where as i had to again make them get bored!! we had a chinese escort upto the first chinese town of tashkurgan, and he even had to wake up ... read more

Il mercante fa il suo ingresso in Cina attraverso la porta del passo Khunjerab, a piu' di 4600 metri d'altezza, e muove i suoi primi passi (comodamente seduto su un bus della Natco) percorrendo l'arido altopiano del Pamir, racchiuso ai suoi lati da ondulate montagne ed abitato esclusivamente da pastori tajiki dediti all'allevamento di yak, cavalli e cammelli.Superata la poco attraente citta' di Tashkurgan, la Karakoram Highway costeggia l'incantevole lago Karakul, sovrastato dalle vette dei monti Muztag-ata (7540m.) e Kongur (7719m.), da cui discendono numerose lingue di ghiaccio quasi a lambire le rive del lago. Qui gli insediamenti sono kyrgysi e, grazie allo spettacolare scenario, si e' sviluppata una piccola industria turistica che propone cavalcate a dorso di cammello, cavallo o moto e notti passate in comode e calde yurte per difendersi da un clima particolarmente ... read more

The Traffic Hotel in Tashkurgan loomed high and soviet-esque above us. It looks a bit posh and expensive I say to Robin, so does this whole place he replies. It was true China looked amazingly different to Pakistan. We noticed it immediately on crossing the border at the top of the Khunjerab Pass, even close to 5000m the Chinese have managed to build a super wide and smooth perfect new road. We watched the miles slide by effortlessly and we lamented the fact that Chinese regulations meant we were on the bus at all, but we were together with our soldier guard. We passed through customs in Tashkurgan and cycled away on perfect tarmac into the wide and clean streets of the town. Many people had warned us about unsmiling, unhelpful Chinese people who would not ... read more

The Silk Road has been connecting people for centuries, bridging spice traders with silk caravans long before backpackers every discovered its trails. It was here, in the most accidental fashion, that I met people from every corner of the world. I had come to Xinjiang, China to experience its unique and singularly Uyghur culture. Instead, it is the unexpected diversity that makes Kashgar the crossroads that it is. ------- Yurts are cold. I had spent the better part of a starless night curled up in a small ball, alternately sweating under flea-infested camelhair blankets and freezing in the Karakoram mountain air. The sun had not disappeared until 11 p.m., so when I saw it rising at 4:45, I knew it was time to get up with the rest of the yaks. “Did you see those two ... read more