Days 11-12, The Legendary Markets of Kashgar

Day 11 continued, June 21.

We are now in the predominantly Uygur ethnic area.  The Chinese are few, but in positions of the government police, military,  and higher positions of authority, and they seem to be quite concerned about civil unrest here.







As we disembarked from the train, there were riot squad policeman with shields, barricades around the train station and high fences.  On our first night in Kashgar, in the peoples square which we could see from our seventh story room, 4 military vehicles filled with soldiers with rifles and shields, did a quick practice drill (perhaps a symbolic show of force or preparation for a real combat somewhere else in the city.)  Television news coverage is very limited and only Chinese news is permitted.

As usual in China, our internet access is difficult and we cannot get anything Google...maps, search engines, Picasa, our Worrall Travel R's blog, email accounts, our gmail contact lists, etc., nor can we access Facebook or other social networking sites.

Our guide Nur is a lovely Uygur man  Islam is the primary religion, but it has been sanitized and controlled by the Chinese government.  The Koran is an abridged version, and children under 18 years of age are prohibited from instruction and prayer at the Mosque.  Religious indoctrination of young minds is not permitted. Christian Missionaries are certainly unwelcome, although there is a small amount of Christians and Buddhists in Kashgar.  

Women are stylishly dressed in short dresses and long dresses of various styles, many sporting the Uyger design, and high heels.  Married women wear head scarves just as married women in the west wear wedding rings indicating their unavailability.

Most of the head scarves are beautiful silks tied behind the neck.  Some of the more traditional and  conservative women wear heavy knit scarves that cover over their entire faces.  Men wear pants, shirts, and Uygur hats.  Long beards are not permitted, although we did see some old men coming out of the Mosque with very long beards, and we also saw a few young boys under 18 praying which could be problematic for the families if these boys were found out.

Our groups first stop was the Abakh Hoja Mausoleum.  It is a beautiful building with a green tile roof and lovely gardens.

The graveyard next to he Mausoleum is characteristic of many that we have seen.  By the time a person is 40, each is expected to have built his own tomb in the family plot.  The top of the monument often varies between men and women, but all have a tunneled space underneath.

When the person dies, his/her body is washed and wrapped in white cloth and carried to the graveyard. Men get wrapped three times, women five times (higher degree of modesty).   One person crawls through the bottom tunnel and pulls the wrapped body into place, then the ends are sealed up. 

After the Mausoleum, we enjoyed a traditional Uygur lunch.  The vegetables were exceptionally good.  Russ liked the meat, but I could give it a wide pass.  There are no pork dishes here as Muslims do not eat pork.  We ordered lamb, but it turns out to be very old sheep.  The mutton is quite strong, grisly, and boney.  Seems that anybody with a hatchet is a butcher.  Even the rice pilaf was very gamey.  It will be just vegetables for me.  Two men sat on a center stage and played music on traditional instruments while we ate.

We walked through the old part of town made of mud mortar.

The old section is quite picturesque, but very dangerous from an earthquake perspective.  Over 27,000 people still live in the old section.  The Chinese government is tearing down little by little the old sections and encouraging people to move, but the Uygurs have lived here for many centuries and do not want to move.  As we walked through the town, a wedding party was going on in one of the small streets.  Music was playing loudly and we could smell the mutton cooking.  We also heard in the distance what sounded like an ice cream truck playing "We wish you a merry Christmas and happy New Year, then Frosty the Snowman".  Seemed quite incongruous here in Kashgar.

As we passed one open door in the old part of the city, there was a mother and grandmother sitting by a baby sitting up in his cradle.

The cradle was suspended from an automotive spring attached to a beam in the ceiling, so the cradle could swing and bounce.  The family invited us in.  They had a few items to sell, so we played with the baby and Russ bought a hat and gave the family a few extra Yuans for the baby.  We were happy to see this old town as we suspect in the next 10 years or so it will go the way of the donkey carts which are slowly be replaced with electric three wheeled farm carts.

From the mud section of town, we walked through the market section of town, where business takes place everyday.

Egg business is  a little slow today.

Unlike India and Southeast Asia where petrol run motorbikes buzz through the cities with brummmbrummm, horns honking, and hot exhaust polluting the air, all the small vehicles in China and even the trains we have ridden on are electric.

Consequently, the air in the cities is cleaner and less smelly.  It is also very quiet and almost disconcerting to have an electric motor bike sneak up behind you then honk to let you know that they want to pass.  Just as in Southeast Asia, crossing the street is an adventure.  Pedestrians have no right of way...even in the cross walks.  







When one wants to cross a busy street, one goes carefully and slowly letting the cars and electric bikes dodge around you.  If you are in the way, you must stop because the cars won't.  It is amazing to see small children crossing these busy streets and standing in the middle of traffic waiting for a break.

Sunday, June 22, Day 12

This morning after our breakfast, we went to the Sunday Markets in Kashgar.  The first market was the animal market.  Each Sunday farmers bring their livestock to the market to sell, trade, and buy, coming to and from the market are carts, cars, and motorbikes with people and animals.

Families come to buy their meat on the hoof.  This is the beginning of Ramadan here so the sheep market is busy.  We did not see any camels today, but we did see donkeys, cattle, sheep, and goats being bought, sold, and butchered.  It was quite unappealing and confirmed my goal of being a vegetarian while here.

The animals are treated terribly.  Big steer are made to jump off high bed trucks and their legs and feet are not built for this kind of jumping.   One large bull collapsed under his own weight and fell to the ground with a loud thud and cloud of dust.

Sheep have nooses tied to their necks in long lines.  Animals who have been to this market before but have not sold are aware of their fate and they are crying, nervous, and anxious to break loose.

No Diapers Here.  Children have slit pants so they can do their business without making a mess of themselves

From the animal market, we went to the Sunday market bazar.  Actually this bazar is open everyday, so I don't know why it is called the Sunday market.  Perhaps at one time it occurred only on Sundays and was associated with the animal market which indeed is only once a week on Sunday.  

The market place is in a large covered building.  There is everything here from spices, shoes, leathers, fabrics, fragrances, curtains, toiletries, housewares, clothing and magic carpets are sold.  This is the legendary market of Kashgar.

After another amazing meal, this time veggies only, we are back at our hotel, resting up and preparing for our departure from China into Kyrgyhstan tomorrow.  We will transfer out of China in a private bus for the next couple of days.

 It should be interesting going through the border tomorrow.  From our understanding, it is much more difficult coming into China through these high mountain pass border points than it is going out.  Our itinerary tomorrow looks like this:

"Departing Kashgar we steadily climb through the Tien Shan Range to the Torugart Pass (3752m) en route to Tash Rabat, one of the few remaining caravanserai of the Silk Road is a large impressive stone shelter in a beautiful valley setting and dates from the 10th century. Later in the day we continue onto Naryn."

All is well with Worrall Travel R's in Kashgar.

Day 10 - On the Silk Road from Turpan to Kashgar

We are on the road this morning to the train station. The weather is cloudy and grey. It is cooler not only because of the cloud cover but because we are ascending to a higher elevation out of Turpan. Soon we will be boarding the train for a 24 hour ride to the outer edge of China.

The farther west we travel, the minority ethnic groups particularly the Uygurs (of Turkish descent) are more pronounced. They are central Asians with dark skin, deep set eyes, and larger noses. Unlike the Chinese, the men have facial hair. From what I gather between the lines is that the Uygurs a repressed minority with fewer rights than the majority Han Chinese, and identify more with central Asians than with the Chinese. The radicals of this group are the ones who shot up the train station a few months ago, three hours from Turpan in the capitol of this province.

Han Chinese people, particularly the elderly, women, and children were the targets of the violence. As a result, domestic Chinese tourism to this area has drastically dropped off. Because of the recent violence, westerners have also dropped off. We did not experience any hostilities and the people here seemed as welcoming and as kind to us as the people farther east. There were many vendors on the street with little tourist business and eager to sell something to us as we passed by.

The locals seemed quite curious about us, particularly a group of high school students who were staying in the Turpan hotel and had traveled from farther regions of the province to sit for final examinations that would determine college entrance. Many of these students looked Uygur and seemed fascinated with us as we may have been first westerners they had seen.

There are barriers in front of the train station, queues and turn styles into the station with passports closely matched with numbers on our tickets, security ex-ray of all bags and luggage, and light frisk of our clothing as we enter. When we reached the interior of the train station, we climbed up four flights of stairs to the second floor waiting area with all of our gear to find that almost every seat in the station was taken. Our local guide seated us in a special area where our travel group could sit together. A few of the local people eyeing the opportunity to sit in the same area that had some seats, tried to push their way in to the area. The area control officer, a Chinese woman, started shouting at them and pushed them back. There was quite a commotion and it drew attention to our little group in an uncomfortable way, as we were the haves, and the rest of the people were have nots.

The station master released us earlier than the other ticket holders to board the train, Once again our tickets were checked, we climbed down the four flights of steps to the main platform, then down two more flights to the subway crossing and up two more flights of steps back up to the platform. It was hot and exhausting lugging around our gear. Our tickets were checked again as we boarded the train. We are on the bottom floor of a double decked train. The head space and overhead storage areas are lower so our bags do not fit and we have them piled under the little table. We need to unpack some of them in order to squeeze them under our bottom berth. Like sardines in a full can, we begin our trip to Kashgar.

We have been crossing more desert and skirting through the foothills bordering the Takla Makan desert. We have been steadily climbing and have passed through all variety of mountains from red rock (Flaming Mountains), brown, black, sedimentary fault block and conglomerate rubble. Once again we pass through mountain tunnels and gauge our passage over the summit by the flow direction of the river that zigzags below us as we cross tall concrete span bridges. Snow capped mountains loom on the horizon and we catch glimpses of locals on horses with colorful saddles, cattle grazing on fresh green grasses, mountain pastures filled with sheep, and colorful yurts as we descend from the mountains.

Morning of Day 11

In China, despite the distance across the continent, all time is Beijing time. As we travel westward, the time stays the same, but the sun comes up later and sets later. At 10:00 pm it was deep twighlight. Not long after that, Russ and I were in our berths, along with our roommates, soundly sleeping. During the night, our car which had heretofore been empty with the exception of our small group filled up, and the lineup for the washroom and toilet was long.

From the looks of the ground , it appears to have rained heavily last night as we slept. We are skirting the vast Takla Makan desert. Our train has some vegetation along side of it, and there are large puddles of water on the margins of the desert. It appears that with some of the white crust on some parts of the sandy soil, there may also be some salts. So despite some of the larger bodies of water we see beyond the immediate fresh water puddles close to the train tracks, the water and the soil maybe too salty for agriculture.

Everywhere we look this morning there is evidence of Chinese progress in extending their high speed electric rail and roads across the continent. Wherever our train rails on a frequent siding in the remotest part of the desert, there is a man with a flag, dressed in uniform, in a little guard shack, responsible for manning the switches. Where there is evidence of agriculture, there are no unskilled laborers referred to here as "coolies" in the fields, but small villages with tractors. China is pushing modernity and progress west, aggressively using their natural resources of sun and wind. We understand that Han Chinese are offered monetary incentives to move west and populate these traditionally ethnic tribal areas.

We will be arriving within the next hour in Kashgar at 10:30, and I will get this blog posted when we have some Wifi.

All is well with Worrall Travel Rs from the Takla Makan Desert on the Silk Road.