Blogs from Xinjiang, China, Asia - page 5

I was travelling in the far west corner of China and one of the most diverse provinces of the country along the Silk Road. I like those travels passing through the desert scenaries: it is enchanting and I love the admire the landscapes on a train I just find it fascinating and I adore to travel for days on it. I traveled through the Taklamakan desert in one of the rometest part of China. Kashgar or also Kashi as it is known by the "bendi ren" local people. Here the people are Uighur which is the main ethnic group of Xinjiang that has about 47 ethnic groups in total. This city with its people of very old traditions, cows, goats, camels, the stunning ancient city and bazaar made me fall in love with this place. Here ... read more

Since we left Turpan everything has been different. The people, the culture, the food, the language, and even - unofficially - the time. We had plenty of time to get to Kashgar so made a couple of stops along the way, one turned out to be a good idea, the other not. First up was Kuqa, the good one. We'd managed to book two soft sleepers on the train and amazingly had the whole four berth compartment to ourselves for the whole journey, but before we could discover that we had to make the 50km journey from the city of Turpan to the closest station which is in a hellhole called Daheyan. In my wildest dreams I can find no reason why anybody would live in such a place, not for the first nor the last ... read more

Tashikurgan provincial town, 230km south of Kashgar on the Karakorum highway - a focus of this trip, the town is still in China but only 14km from Tajikistan, a quick look round town and is has all changed again, 60% of locals from Tashikurgan, different hats & they might kiss your palm for a greeting, generally not really pleased to be Chinese. The whole area is steeped in history, back to Han Dynasty. Three mountain ranges meet here in town, Himalaya, Tien-Shan from North (bit annoying as thought I had been in Himalayas for 3 wks already - seams not), and Karakorum mountains to south. The route south passes within 30km of K2, although it requires 10 day trick to see K2. So where is K1?, well K1 is the Karakurum mountains of Pakistan - see ... read more

First day in China, we went to vehicle testing centre, for bike checks & permits to drive. Buying fuel for a bike is tricky especially in city, only possible at the 3rd service station, which we drove 100m up wrong side note dual carriegway to get too!. The fast pump flow rate is considered a risk, so attendants fill a kettle then we can pour fuel into bike away from pump, I would suggest this is quite risky too. Kashgar is a city of 1million people, so are there 1000 cities like it in China?. Estimate 200,000 electric scooters in this city - they are everywhere, have own special lanes between pavement and main roads, but seem to just move randomly with purpose, 1 in 30 would carry 4. Police and army are very visible here, ... read more

After a long but reasonably uneventful train ride, we finally arrived at Kashgar Railway station, which surprisingly was just on the outskirts of the city. Trip started with a bit of a drama when on entering our already small 4 bunk sleeper compartment to discover that a family of five had already made themselves home. Two yelling toddlers completed the picture ! We squeezed ourselves into the tiny space and heaved our large packs into the even smaller space between the bunks and the standoff commenced. "Get out of our compartment" was 'our' position, while "we were here first" was there's. We finally resolved when the husband and one child reluctantly agreed to leave our space, and return to their (we assume ) allocated compartment. So we only had the Mum and one yelling child and ... read more