Blogs from Xinjiang, China, Asia - page 10

Nos encontramos con la Tati en Pekín y al día siguiente volamos a Urumqi, capital de la provincia occidental China de XinJiang. Xinjiang significa "Nueva Frontera", nombre dado a la región durante la dinastía Qing. De Pekín a Urumqi hay unos 3.200 km. El Urumqi que visité en el 1993 cuando regresaba a Moscú en tren a través de la República Socialista Soviética de Kazajstan, con calles de tierra, mercados en la calle y una población mayoritariamente uygur desapareció. Ahora es una mega ciudad, como la mayoría de las ciudades chinas, donde se pueden ver algunas caras con rasgos kazajos, cabezas cubiertas y una que otra mezquita. Por eso decidimos irnos ese mismo día a Kashgar (喀什) donde el nivel antropológico subiría decibeles. Queríamos antropología y la tuvimos en el bus. Los buses son coche-camas ... read more

Here we are late into Sunday afternoon, the Kashgar night market, which in fact moves along quietly all day then revs up in the evening . The street vendors setting up in every available square meter of pavement. Packed, vivid, a colourful array of people and their produce. Starting along the rag trade pavement, stalls that boasted, trinkets, shoes, constantly sorting through the piles, bargaining, packaging, paying, the cashier at the busy spots keeping an eye on the money. The crowd is a wonderful array of differently dressed people, the men are typically all very much similarly dressed, The older men wearing the felt hat. The elderly woman covered head to toe only lifting her heavy face cover to answer her phone, some prefer talking through the head rug. On the other end of the spectrum ... read more

My little team and I have had 4 very intensive days them guiding me through the daily lives of some of the 47 different nationalities that live in the Kashgar Region, a wonderful cultural experience. It was time for a gentler Tommy Tourist pace, including little tests of Bo’s vast collection of accumulated knowledge, unfortunately have been getting quite a lot of the eye rolling thing, I think I am a little slow for this lot. A couple of Uyghur men who’s company motto is to ”exceed ones expectations” and they have certainly done that. Both Muslim men, Abdul Guide, for 9 years, is a very devout 26 year old five times a day prayers if he can. A young man with more than his share of .tragedy who’s work is what keeps him going. Abdul ... read more

Day two headed out of town with Abdul Driver and Abdul Guide we found the Chinese. Like Bole a massive modern city is in the making. Guangzhou has moved in, pouring huge amounts of money into apartments, industry, businesses, etc and it was mentioned as in Bole, 80%of every train in, is Han Chinese who arrive here and seemingly disappear to their new city ghettos, so to speak. Every time we drove down the main street I got, the Chinese live on this side of the road and the Uyghur’s on this side of the road. Tall buildings are allowed on the Chinese side and not on this side, I must go for a wander down these separate streets and see if there is a different feel to them. At one point a van load of ... read more

This finds me still in Urumqi, 4thday since arriving, fully recovered and rearing to go. Held up a little due to a lack of organisation, awww perhaps I’ll go for a little wander after the race, without delving more into the practicalities especially the language barrier. The people are no problem they are very tolerant even friendly, China would be one of the safest countries in the world to travel, man, woman or child, deepest depths of the night, its meaningful communication that’s the problem. One really needs to have the contacts lined up, whether that be private guides or other travel help, or in my case now that I have meaningful contact, getting them to pass me on down the line. I found Beijing and Shanghai easy enough to get around as English was a ... read more