Bazaar Ladies

For many Silk Route travelers, the Push-Push bazaar outside Ashgabat is one of the greatest highlights of the road. The bazaar spans several square acres and includes a livestock bazaar, car bazaar, construction section, clothing, fabric and national arts and crafts. Anything you can imagine wanting can be found at the bazaar. Opened on the weekend and on Thursday, the bazaar is teeming with people from every walk of life in Turkmenistan. From agile old ladies grinning rows of gold teeth to young boys pushing portage carts.

I arrived with a friend at 11:00am on a Sunday, Mike having decided to stay behind for some extra computer time. The parking lot was little more than a collection of hundreds of cars in various states of disarray parked along and atop the rolling sand dunes that surrounded the enclosed bazaar. We added our jeep to the pile and set of across the dunes towards the main entrance, a lavish two story entryway crawling with people. Within moments of entering the bazaar we had been spotted by a gang of pick-pockets, who use a system of distractions and bumping to pry valuables from unwitting shoppers. I walked ahead of my friend, snapping pictures, all of my valuables in my camera bag at my hip. Behind me, my friend watched my back, turning suddenly every once in a while to catch some young man suddenly very intensely studying a tire, or fabric, or whatever was at hand. It was a hilarious parade of obviousness, with the pick-pockets eventually losing their patience and trying to blatantly reach into my camera bag. They got nothing and our system, albeit an old trick, was effective in deterring them.

The bazaar itself was well worth the visit, and remains one of the most astonishing collections of humanity and merchandise on the planet. Rows a half mile long of rugs extended several columns deep, with each carpet hand made by Afghans, Turkmen, Uzbeks and Tajiks. The carpets looked like an off red oasis amid the desert, and even odder were the old ladies with long, white braids and gold teeth, who eagerly sketched numbers in any currency you demanded, all while telling the history of each piece.

We walked for several hours around the maze of booths, from canning equipment and seeds to dresses and lace and carburetors, there was little we did not see in the bazaar, yet so much that is unexplainable, like an entire row of women, a half mile long, selling exactly the same fabric collar at exactly the same price.

Back outside the bazaar several hours later we searched the dunes for our jeep and found it along a dune that had been cut open by a small marmot. We spotted the odd creature running across the dune behind the jeep- it had the legs of a racing dog, the head of a cat and the belly of a rabbit. We ran after it, despite the 100 degree weather, and chased it into a hole that had visibly dangerous claw markings along the interior, but it was gone. We drove the jeep up and down the dunes several times on the excuse that the suspension needed to be tested. In reality that kind of off roading is exhilarating—and the suspension, we now know, is fine.

The small and relatively untouched village of Nohur rests in an unmarked valley of the Kopet Dag Mountains, which make up the border of Iran and southern Turkmenistan. The people of Nohur dress and act conservatively, and their traditions have been able to survive Turkmenistan’s modernization because of the remoteness of their village.
Descendent from Alexander the Great, the Nohurli are surprisingly hospitable. We arrived at 6pm via 4X4; the only way to reach the town is down a long pebble road flanked by shale mountains covered in lizards. As we rounded a desolate corner, we were amazed to find a small village awaiting our arrival. Damat jumped in the back seat and smiled as he pointed up a narrow alley. The engine was gunned and we bumped along on our nearly vertical assent up the northern face of a hill in the middle of Nohur.

The roads were little more than compact dirt and rocks where water had once drained from the hills, yet a village had found this method of road making suitable to their needs. Large adobe houses sat firmly on their wooden beams (though where the wood came from was a mystery is this desert landscape). Children and elders dashed in front of the 4X4 to look at our pale faces as we pushed them to the glass to return their eager stares. Finally, with Damat pointing out the window and whispering the village’s secrets in Russian, we stopped at his hill-side home.

Damat introduced us to his wife and granddaughter. His wife, an elderly woman with all gold teeth and sun-damaged skin, grasped my shoulders firmly and planted three or four wet kisses on my neck before running her calloused hands across my chest and smiling at me. I stood shocked for a moment before I could smile back—chest rubbing was not a normal Turkmen greeting, this must be native to Nohur. Damat, thankfully, just shook my hand, and his granddaughter simply hid behind his leg and peeked out from time to time to look at my reddish hair or my white fingernails. She was a beautifully, frail child of about eight, dressed in bright colored western clothes that contrasted sharply with her grandmother’s traditional dress and headscarf.

They settled us into a small, empty room and set up a tarp on the floor. They piled bread, butter, home-made cheese and other treats on the tarp and poured us each a hefty cup of tea. Damat sat cross-legged on the floor and began to talk adamantly, using gestures as much as any homesick Italian. We ascertained that he wanted to show us around town in the morning. Since we already had onward travel plans he agreed to take us on tour of the area tonight. He jumped up and yelled for his granddaughter, and we were off.

We bumped along a dirt road that looked little used and likely to peter-out into a rock drop off, but Damat continued to point out the window and insist we crawl forward, no matter how much the Jeep leaned to one side. Though we were threatening to topple over, Damat insisted we continue to the city’s graveyard. The graves cannot be explained as we did not understand Damat’s gesturing, but suffice to say that each headstone had a ram or gazelle’s hors firmly tied to the peak, giving the cemetery a warrior-like feel.

We bumped along the road at a 40 degree tilt to the right until we reached a lone house on the hill, we got out and walked up the steep steps to find one of the oldest surviving trees in Central Asia, which is covered in bits of cloth representing villager’s wishes (mostly for a male child). The steep steps led further up the hillside so we traversed them to find a small cave claiming to be the resting place of Kyz Bibi. Legend has it that when an invading force was nearing this unfortunate woman prayed that the mountain would swallow her up rather than allow her honor to be challenged. The mountain obliged and the tiny cave that remains is testament to Kyz Bibi’s bravery.

We continued on our Nohur journey deep into the ravine and then urged the Jeep forward and onto a flat plateau. After 12k we disembarked in a small ravine filled with cows, toads and lizards and marched down the hill following Damat and his granddaughter. They led us through the brush to a clearing made entirely of rock. Damat grinned as he led us right to the edge of the rock plateau and pointed over the edge. “This is easily a 100 foot drop-off” I thought as Damat held his granddaughter’s hand so she could lean way over the edge to catch a glimpse of the waterfall. I snuck a peek as well, the water was pouring out of mountain seemingly conjured from out of nowhere. A small trickle of water ran across the top of the plateau, but this was hardly enough to feed the waterfall. Damat, though easily in his seventies, quickly scaled down the side of the rock face for a better view, with all of us skeptically in his wake. The view was dangerously beautiful, for as you looked around you started to waver from awe and could easily “ooh” and “awe” your way off the edge. We sat for a while, the lizards scurrying in the background, and listened to the falls.

Back at the house Damat’s wife had prepared plov and tomato salad for dinner. Damat waved her away good naturedly and steered us to a house nearby that was his son’s. Inside a frail but beautiful girl, his daughter-in-law, was weaving silk. The loom stretched from one wall to the other, and required amazing dexterity as she pumped the loom with her feet and passed the shuttle with her able hands. The silk takes several days to make, but they wanted only $20 per piece, which is about 6 feet long. We watched her work for several minutes and then easily coughed up the money for a fine piece of blue silk.

Back at Damat’s house, his wife had set the tarp out on the roof of the house so we could watch the sun finish setting. We all took our places on the floor around the tarp and began to eat. “What is that thing?” I yelped before I could control the urgency in my voice. Mike looked over and caught a quick glimpse, “it’s a scorpion!” We sat silently looking around, our heads rotating like an owls. I grabbed my notepad and quickly sketched a scorpion and showed it to Damat, who leaped up with an agility that shocked me, and ran to the spot. The critter was long gone, but Damat informed us that they were very bad, and we should be careful. We sat on the roof into the late evening as the sun gave way to the moon and a blanket of stars filled the sky. Nohur’s lights came on one by one as we watched, and soon the whole valley was specked with soft yellow bulbs. Late into the evening a chanting rose from the valley, the last call to prayer. We watched the stars circle the mosque as the moon dipped behind a hill, and listened to the chanting prayers of a devout village, a hidden village, as it prayed its way to sleep.

Merche Ruins

We decided to take a weekend trip out to the Caspian Sea from Ashgabat.  Leaving mid-afternoon on Friday we planned to stop in the small village of Nohur in the heartland of Turkmenistan – the Ahal Region.  Located between the Kara Kum Desert and the Kopet Dag Mountains to the South, the Ahal Region boasts a long Silk Road history as well as ties to Alexander the Great.

On the way to Nohur, we passed the ruined city of Murche that also holds the tomb of Zengi Baba – the patron of cattle breeders.  Zengi Baba comes, most likely, from the Zoroastrian reverence toward cattle.  The ruined city of Murche, crumbling mud walls, spreads the distance before the foothills of the Kopet Dag mountains in the background.  Murche was eerily silent but one of the more interesting attractions around Murche and the Zengi Baba mausoleum are the assortments of fossils.  Surrounding the mausoleum and small tree grove, sit several fossils of choral, amphibians, and even what are said to be dinosaur eggs.  Many people argue that they were cannon balls put on display.  However, one was cracked in two and the central of the fossil had what could be argued to be a yoke.

After walking through some of the ruins and picking through the dirt at the hundreds of pottery shards, we got back in the car and proceeded towards the turn off for Nahur.  Another hour or so farther down the road, we passed Archman and missed the turnoff.  Luckily, the Brandt Guide mentioned a really small green sign that marked the turnoff to Nahur.  Eventually we spotted the sign and bounced down the bumpy road toward the mountains.  We climbed from sea level to about 1000 m and saw some amazing landscape.  The people of Nahur claim to be direct descendants of Alexander and his army.  We noticed more pale blue eyes in and around Nahur than anywhere else in Central Asia.

The dusty desert slightly gave way to more mountainous terrain.  Strange mountains were widdled down to sand dunes or piles of shale.  Large lizards, only a little smaller than a coffee table were visible on the rocks.  They would dart out of view just as the jeep would round a turn or bend.  Farther up the mountains, we could see small areas of green leading us to believe there were hot springs other geothermals in the area.  After about 10-15 km we reached the city of Nahur with ancient stone buildings and homes.  It was an eden in the middle of the desert mountains.  However, we had no idea how much farther we had to go to get to the Caspian.

Strange sign

After recovering the cell phone in Bukhara, we decided it was time to move on as we had been in Uzbekistan for almost 25 days and in Bukhara for 7. We checked out of our hotel and we were not surprised when they tried to add on several different expenses that we had never agreed upon. After renegotiating what had already previously been negotiated and saying a farewell to Bukhara, we strapped on our packs and headed for the local bazaar to catch a marshutka (shared mini-bus) to Alat and then from Alat, to Farap – the border crossing into Turkmenistan.

We were immediately hassled by several taxi drivers saying they would take us all the way to Farap for 30, 40, and 50 USD. Eventually we found someone who offered 3000 SUM per person, which is what the cost should be for a shared cab. (This is equivalent to about 2 USD per person.) Multiple guide books confirmed this, as well as personal experiences earlier. To clarify we asked the driver to write it down and re-stated that this was for each person all the way to the border crossing. He nodded his head and wrote down 3000 SUM. This was a fair price for this ride as we paid the same for a ride to the bus station in Urgench from Khiva and the ride lasted the same amount of time. After about a half hour, we approached a road block with several soldiers sporting machine guns and a barbed wire blocking the way. Our driver crossed his arms together in the air making a giant “X” and said HET, pronounced “Knee-Yet”, which means no.

Immediately as we got out a huge group of people surrounded us trying to get us to take their cab for God knows what reason because it is a 1 km walk through the desert to get to the customs center from that location and cars are not allowed through. I handed the driver the 6000 SUM for the two of us and, just like I had expected – then came the scam.

Now before I go any further, I want to mentioned that I really enjoyed the sights and traveling in Uzbekistan. We have tried not to use our blog as a means of complaining or grumbling about the difficulties of travel. However, it is also necessary to give a fair account of our impressions as well. That said, Uzbekistan is one of the few places I have been in which I would recommend going with a tour group for one reason: money. Everything you do, comes down to it and it is exhausting to deal with in this country. You literally have to go through an entire menu, if they have one, and ask the price of everything before you order. Otherwise the bill will be outrageous. If you forget to ask the price of, lets say peanuts, you will have a bill that states 3 dollars for the meal and $10 peanuts. Moreover, you shake hands on a deal at a certain price and then get in the car 5 miles up the road the driver will ask for more money and then insinuate that if you don’t agree he will kick you out in the middle of nowhere. After 25 days of this bickering over every meal and ticket, I was a little burnt out and was not in the mood.

So as I handed the 6000 SUM to the driver, a puppy dog look came over his eyes, which was speaking, “Oh, no! What a terrible mistake has been made. I meant 30,000 not 3,000 sorry I left off a zero. Moreover, I mean 30,000 per person.” My patience was 100% gone. In a barrage of madness, in front of border security guards with automatic weapons, I threw down my bag and pulled out the notebook in which the driver had scribbled 3,000 SUM. He grabbed it out of my hands before the circle of other taxi drivers could see what he had written, took the pen, and added a zero to the end. After about 5 minutes of him yelling and kicking in the sand that he wanted 60,000 SUM. We grabbed our bags and headed for the border guards – who do not get involved in these sorts of squabbles. They visibly did not know what to do. Only about 18 years old, the guards looked at Lauren’s visa and passport and completely forgot to look at mine. Then we walked through the crossing.

By now, the mod of taxi drivers had dissipated but our cab driver pushed through the guards and followed us through the crossing. He started pulling at my pack to hold me back and yelling and screaming. I took out the rest of the SUM I had in my pocket, which I shouldn’t have, and offered him the remaining 12,000. At first he refused, but then he took it. Now, still grossly overpaid for the ride, he continued to follow us. He even stepped in front of me, glared, and then pushed me in the chest as hard as he could. I flew back a few feet, as I had about 80 pounds of gear strapped to my back. That was it. I turned around, stared at him. Unclipped my bag and let it drop to the ground. I walked right up to him nose to nose and treating him like an infant, pointed back to the barbed wire fence. As I stood there staring him in the face, three of the boarder guards raised their weapons and yelled at the man. He shrugged his shoulders and walked away laughing.

Mike

Somewhere in the ruins of the Urgench fortresses the cell phone dropped out of my side bag and into the hot, desert sand. It was not until we were half way back to Khiva in the car that I reached down in a panic and noticed the phone was gone. It could have fallen out anywhere! I grabbed my camera and flipped through the pictures, pausing at each picture of me wearing the side bag and then zooming in to see if the phone was still a black bulge in the side pocket. With this method, I managed to narrow down the area where the phone was probably lost to two giant fortresses and a long dirt road path leading to a lake, an area covering several miles, at the least, and several hours in the opposite direction.

I sat back in the seat as the car bounced across uneven roads toward Khiva, and after a while whispered to Mike that the phone was gone. Strangely enough, the girl next to me, Olga, was going through her bag in a rising panic and eventually announced that her mobile phone was missing! We tore through the car, reaching under the back seat (I think something is living down there!) and under the front seats, shoving empty water bottles around as we peered underneath—neither phone was located.

Back in Khiva, Olga and I sauntered off with our heads hung low and waved goodbye at the driver, whose puzzled look Mike tried to quell with an explanation and a good-natured shrug. While Olga later found her phone in her room, I was not so lucky. Here is what became of the phone after it was deposited unknowingly in the sand.

Back in Bukhara two days later I got word that someone had found the phone and pushed redial: which directed them to a friend of ours in Tashkent. I heard all this via email, where my friend eagerly explained that they were waiting in Khiva with the phone for us! Khiva is 5 hours away and we had just come from that direction, luckily the finders of the cell phone were coming to Bukhara in a few days. I tried to call the phone but the call would not go through, I tried from various phones in Bukhara and ran around the city pouring sweat until one fluent local explained that I was trying to call an in-network phone from an out-network number—“Impossible!” So, I located an in network phone (which, incidentally, is a bee-line cell phone) then called only to get the message, translated to me, “Your phone is power off. Have a nice day!”

Before the phone mysteriously went to power off I had sent a few messages through to my friend in Tashkent about the tentative plant to exchange the phone, he had, in turn, passed parts of the message on the finders of the cell phone in Khiva. Long story short, we did not know if or when they would be in Bukhara, but Mike and I waited by Lyabi-Hauz pool from 5:30 until 9:00pm for two nights in a row wearing the clothes described to the finders, and running around to every British face asking if they had an excess of cell phones. We now have a reputation as crazies in Bukhara who wear the same clothing multiple days on end and rush around to every occupied table with wide, hopeful eyes.
It was heartbreaking to lose the phone and then the brief, glimmer of hope that had us running around in 90 degree weather and waiting anxiously by the pool for hours on end has left us even more defeated and cell phone-less.

This story, miraculously, has a happy ending. The British girl called in one final attempt as she was leaving Bukhara and left the phone at her hotel’s front desk. She even paid for that phone call since the battery on the cell phone had died. What a nice lady! And now we have the cell phone back and a great saga to tell of our first lost and found item.

Lauren

Shopping in old town Bukhara is an expensive endeavor. A meter of fabric is $8 USD, “hand made! Very beautiful!” while a T-shirt is $20USD and a carpet over $1000. Looking around in the souvenir bazaars there was nothing I could afford other than overpriced postcards. We decided to walk to the local’s market to see what locals paid for things and to stock up on snacks for the long train ride to Ashgabat.

The local market, the Kolkhozny Bazaar, is located on the extreme west side of town down several long, narrow roads closed to thru-traffic. We hiked down there one afternoon in sweltering heat, on the off chance that we could afford a token of our travels from this gathering of merchandise.

Walking into the bazaar from the eastern side we were shocked by the smell of rotting flesh. It was thick in the area and palpable—it is a smell unlike any other and one that will stay with you once you encounter it. We pushed through the smell and emerged on the other side in a matrix of alleyway shops all made of white plastic with snickers advertisements in the windows.

Walking through the matrix we came to an exit and walked out into a vast courtyard with the longest strip mall we’d ever seen in the distance. This strip mall housed food, clothing, shoes, household supplies and baby toys: everything you could imagine. It extended from one horizon to the other as far as we could see. We picked a direction and walked until our feet were sore, Mike bought a pair of 6000CYM plastic sandals and I was ecstatic to find that 2 meters of rich, patterned fabric cost 2,400CYM ($1.20USD). I bought some fabric and we picked out snacks for the border crossing and headed back to the hotel with our arms loaded down.

Back in old town prices for escalated the closer to the town center you got, and we smiled with the knowledge of our secret bazaar on the western fringes of Bukhara.

Yarkand Blacksmith in Old Town

Although our time was limited, I did not want to leave out our day trip from Kashgar to Yarkand. Albeit a late entry, Yarkand was a significant city and part of the southern silk road pass around the Taklimakan desert. We purchased tickets at the long distance bus station in Kashgar for the 3 1/2 hour ride to Yarkand on the outskirts of the Taklimakan Desert. This bus drove around Kashgar for over an hour looking for people for the one-way trip through the scorching desert basin between Kashgar and Yarkand. Rumbling along while listening to Chinese and Uyghur songs on repeat, we were surprised to see that the railroad was being extended from Kashgar to Yarkand. Migrant workers were digging up the desert in preparation for laying the rails.

I checked Marco Polo’s description of Yarkand and it was, like several other entries…brief. The most memorable statement he noted about Yarkand was that he was surprised by the large population suffering from goiter (a swelling of the Thyroid caused by a lack of iodine in the diet). I did not notice any issues several hundred years later as surprisingly, Yarkand looks similar to other modernized Chinese cities. As we pulled into the bus station, I was hoping to see rolling sand dunes and bazaars, but was disappointed as I saw paved roads and cars. Instead, Yarkhand was a moderately well-developed Chinese city. More than half of the population was Han Chinese and there was a large PLA (People’s Liberation Army) base in the North central part of town.

Yarkand can easily be seen in about one day. The gem of the city is the central mosque, which is located right next to the Old Town. There was more starring going on here than other places we had been recently and it was not surprising that these people didn’t see too many foreigners coming through. After seeing the parts of Old Town in Kashgar destroyed, it was refreshing to see that it will live on in Yarkand. Around the corner from the Mosque, there was a thriving Old Town bazaar. One can see rows of blacksmiths fashioning metal tools, furniture, birdhouses, and a variety of goods; most of this done in a way similar to several hundred years ago. Not much has changed since in this part of town.

Our return bus ride somehow took 5 hours, making it a pretty long day trip, but I would highly recommend going to Yarkand – especially if you appreciate the bazaar and the Old Town of Kashgar. Maybe one day we will return and cross the entire southern route of the Silk Road around the Taklamakan. Perhaps we may return through Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan.

Lamb kebabs - Urumqi, Xinjiang. Urumqi has an amazing night market near the park with beer, kebabs, nan, plov and other Central Asian treats.

Pizza – Tashkent, Uzbekistan. There is a locally owned Pizza cafe called Bistro in Tashkent with amazing pizza, good beer and outdoor seating.

Coffee - Tashkent, Uzbekistan. This is on the list at everyone else’s request as I don’t drink coffee. Cafe Jum is the best spot in Central Asia for an espresso.

Spiced Tea - Kashgar, Xinjiang. We ran into a man mixing tea in buckets by the mosque in Old Town. Amazing spices and knock-you-out tea.

Nan - Almaty, Kazakhstan. This is, by far, the best bread I’ve ever head, and it is totally different from Xinjiang nan.

Battered califlower - Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Steamed, and then battered and fried. Creative and savory.

Fatush – Tashkent, Uzbekistan. This Lebbonese salad is a mix of tomato, califlower, tortilla and vinigar. Amazing.

Donar Kebab – Almaty, Kazakhstan. The best donar this side of the Tian Shan.

Goat milk yoghurt - Kashgar, Xinjiang. Mixed with sugar and served ice cold.

This morning, after a bout of food poisoning which rendered us useless and hostel-bound yesterday, we decided to check out the famous Kashgar Sunday Market. According to our hostel owner/Kashgar guru the Sunday Market swells the city’s population by 50,000 people once a week. This morning, however, was a different story because of a freakishly random and intense rain storm which flooded part of the city and overturned potted plants and rattled the fragile wooden shutters.

We took the number 8 bus from the Old Town Mosque to the last stop on the line, which was 200m from the market…. across a giant puddle the size of one of the Great Lakes. After skirting the giant flooded road (effectively covering my black pants in yellowish-brown mud and clay) we found the Sunday market partially deserted. Apparently the rain and flooding was enough to scare away many an eager merchant.

The folks who did turn up were mostly selling livestock. We found a certain breed of sheep quite foreign to us, and a bit bizarre. The sheep had human-looking butts, no joke. They were pink, plump, and hanging off of the body of the sheep where a tail should be, almost like baboon butts. Buyers were inspecting the sheep’s teeth, utters, and then lifting and groping the plumpness of the sheep’s hind quarters, which were substantial.

Walking past the bizarre-butt sheep I nearly fell when my foot slipped on something atop the mud and water. I looked down and gasped to discover I had stepped on a goat’s ear that was attached to a goat’s head, but that is where the attachments ended- there was simply a pile of goat heads on the ground and I had managed, somehow, to step on it.

After jumping goat-ear-foot first into a puddle to rinse my shoes of the goat’s blood I turned to find Mike peering through a gateway into a giant field of mud and poo that was sectioned off into stalls where, on one side people were selling baked goods and spices and on the other selling big-butt sheep, goats and cattle. Strangely enough, amid the swine flu, there was an entire truck loaded down with large, pink pigs. Swine flu paranoia is at its height in Kashgar, with one French resident of our hostel having been forcefully quarantined at the local hospital for having a fever.

After slipping on severed head and watching people grope sheep butt we

decided it was time to eat. Still a bit quasy from the food poisoning (and raw meat and heads lying about) we decided to head to the only western place in town, the Fubar Cafe. We arrived and instantly felt like we were back in the states, a pool table was the center piece of this establishment, with a wall of board games, a bar and several menus that made my mouth water. We pulled out the risk game where we proceeded to play 5 full games (we were there about five full hours as well, as a result) while eating pizza and hamburgers and drinking captain cokes. When you are away from your homeland’s food and feeling ill, there is nothing quite as satisfying as something recognizable.

We spent the rest of the evening and well into the night walking around Old Town bazaars and getting lost (intentionally) in the old back alleys. The Old Town section of Kashgar is fading quickly, with some recent reports indicating that a full 2/3rds of the area has been leveled in the last two weeks. There is destruction all around us and I honestly think this place will be gone within the next two years, if not sooner. It is one of the nicest and most lively neighborhoods I’ve ever seen, and that makes this a real shame.

Mr. Friendly in Alley

As our night train rolled in from Urumqi today (24 hour sleeper train), we came upon a very Chinese station platform. Although I had not awoken to the rolling sand dunes of the Great Taklamakan that I had dreamed of, there was an ocean of a desert that spread as far as the eye could see. We found a driver to take us into town and found a nice hostel in Old Town near the local Mosque.

Xinjiang province was predominantly Uighur until the last 5-10 years as Han Chinese were integrated into the region. The Uighur are a combination of Central Asian Kazak, Tajik, Uzbek, and Mongolian – they are also a Islamic culture. The 2500 + kilometers of desert preceding, slowly faded into a lush desert oasis tucked away in between the Taklamakan Desert and the Himalayas.

We walked around the surrounding alleys leading to the centralized Mosque for hours taking several great pictures.  The 500 year old city wall, which used to surround Kashgar is literally a 3 minute walk from where we are.  It is amazing that anyone could send an army out here to conquer anything, but Russia and China have throughout the past.  In the next few days we will take a camel tour into the Taklamakan Desert and take a bus up the Karakorum Highway.

If you are interested in staying here:

233 Wusitangboyi Road – it is very difficult to find, but most taxi drivers know the street and you just have to find the random unnamed alley ways to this destination.  It is near the Edgar Mosque and West Renmin Road and has two large red doors with a very small “Youth Hostel” sign on the doorway.  I will update later with more information if I can.