Kashgar August 2007

Kashgar - the far west of China. Some thoughts are at the bottom of the page. It was a wonderful trip.

Taxi for Mao....

Just so there's no doubt who's in charge.

Would you buy electriacl goods from this man?

Loads of places had phones outside for people to use.

No idea what it was/is, but it tasted great

All the latest technology available....

Findikli - Aytun's home village

Finally to Kashgar - about as far west as you can go in China and a long way from Suzhou. We flew from Urumqi to Kashgar - about 1oo minutes. It's a whole other world there - you're certianly far removed from Han China and the Han Chinese. The people look different and the time zone madness is heightened there. Sunglasses at 9.30pm?? The town is bisected by Renmin Lu - to the north you're in the old town. All rambling streets, bazaars, a mosque. To the south is concrete block apartments. There's an absurdly large Mao statue - he's hailing a taxi - just to remind the locals that however far from Beijing they are, there can be doubt as to who's in charge.

In terms of language Aytun and I were pleased to find that our Turkish was useful. Not to the extent of full on conversations, but many words were the same. We could bargain using Turkish numbers and ask for 'soguk su' - cold water! We also used the phrase 'hayvan bazaar' - animal market - to get to the animal bazaar.

The Sunday market was our main reason for going - The Central Asian International Market, no less. The traditional market was interesting enough, but we both felt that we'd seen similar in Turkey. The animal market was fascinating, but sadly I was unable to buy a camel. I did get a shave though.

Urumqi August 2007

Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang Province. The biggest city with over a million people, the majority who are Han Chinese. Much less interesting than the other places we stayed, although it did have a very busy bazaar quarter. The museum had some mummies that had been found in desert burial grounds.

A Turkish chocolate company

The bazaar quarter - could be Eminonu

Anyone need to buy a coat?

We moved on quickly after seeing the snake.

Somewhere the old ones to retire to....

Turpan August 2007

Turpan - Tulufan to the Chinese - was the destination of our epic train journey. It's the hottest city in China apparently, and was 40 degrees some days. But it's not humid so it was fine. It's in a different time zone to Beijing - or it should be, but the whole of China operates on the same time. So 10pm in Turpan is 10pm in Beijing. Because we were going West it made for great light nights, and also meant that the sun was hottest at 2pm to 4 pm!

A traditional Uygur home

Evening entertainment

The buildings are for drying grapes

Many of the houses in the countryside had these kind of coutyards.

A cemetery

Shower juice.....read the label

Dunhuang August 2007

On to Dunhuang. We flew from Beijing at some absurdly early time after going to be recklessly late.

Turn left out the hotel, cycle 5km, desert.

Oasis.

This is what you look like if you trudge up a huge sand dune.

Health and safety.....

Dunhuang train station. Incomplete, but functioning.

12 hours became 19. A spectacular delay. Aytun beat me at cards. I had beer, she bought some boiled eggs in a bag.

We were told the delay was 6 hours. It was 7.

We were in hard sleeper. 6 bunks to an alcove, no door. But it was fine.

The sunset as we left Dunhuang on the way to Turpan.