Kashgar's Bizarre Bazaars

Anyone interested in a donkey? Hundreds are for sale at Kashgar's
"camel" market (where there wasn't a camel in sight), along with
herds of fat tailed sheep and the occasional horse. Kashgar is the
terminus (or the beginning) of the Karakoram Highway reaching to
Islamabad and it's proximity brought a bit of the devastating
earthquake in Pakistan to the lively Chinese outpost for a few
nervous moments. I've seen Chinese construction techniques in
action, and would recommend being anywhere but inside in a shake!
Kashgar is also the place (in China) to buy a carpet, silk or wool,
or wickedly sharp Kashgari knives, some of which will certainly serve
a Klingon well in future generations. It is the least Chinese of all
the places we've seen, in appearance, temperament, pace. This is the
only place where we've seen veiled women, and a cab ride is surely an
adventure born across the mountains, in Pakistan. There isn't a hope
of hearing Chinese music from the street vendors: it is all Paki-pop
and Bollywood.

Dolkun took us for a walk through the old city, and a visit to a
Uighur family home there. Again, any vestiges of China were cast
aside in the richly carpeted room surrounded by walls carved into an
intricate fretwork of screens and nooks through which emerged family
members bearing trays of fruit and drinks. The patriarch was
distracted by his wife's hospitalization, but was kind enough to sit
with us for awhile and answer our questions. In the fine Kashgar
weather, he was still sleeping outside on the porch, but guessed that
in three weeks he'd move inside as the weather cools. In the hustle
and bustle of the Old City, the Uighur family courtyards were
private, cool and a comfortable oasis, and I imagined that he'd
rather be sleeping under the old fig tree than anywhere else.

As we entered Xinjiang Province, Ramadan was just beginning, so even
this town given to bending the rules of Islam was a bit subdued. It
was difficult to find a restaurant, and we were forced to the kabob
vendors again and again until everyone but Dolkun was feeling a bit
toxic from an excess of meat, which none of us was used to. But the
exceptions were delightful! Fresh yogurt, pitas which resembled
calzones or empanadas, onion-laced nan bread, tasty pilaf, fresh
squeezed pomegranate juice. We took lunch in understated elegance on
the verandah of the former British Consulate where the Great Game was
played out between Czarist Russia and the British Empire for
supremacy in Central Asia. We then returned to our hotel, the former
Russian Consulate, whose decor can only be described as a blending of
Byzantine baroque and ticky tacky Turkish, where a dormitory wing
hosted a constant stream of Eurotrash in blonde dreadlocks using the
slowest internet service in Asia or changing money at the Russian-run
usury counter.

Dolkun told us that our flight back to Urumqi would be delayed, and
when asked for the reason, he said that it was due to weather (this
was better than 30 hours before the flight, and there are a lot of
people who'd like to have such an accurate flight forcasting plan).
When pressed, Dolkun suggested that perhaps the pilot has been
drinking and needs the time to recover...hmmm...either the weather
will be bad or the pilot will be drunk! I think the truth has more
to do with China's own War on Terror against Uighur separatists and
the sensitivity of travel during this National Week stretch. Ah yes,
that brings me back to the real world!

What to do with Excess Labor

Imagine driving along the most desolate and remote desert this side of the Mojave and seeing some poor schmuck sweeping the highway with one of those wretched Chinese brooms that requires (or develops) a constant stoop. It's a never ending task, to be sure, a real "iron rice bowl."

Driving out of Urumqi to the old central Silk Road route was a fascinating study in geology: the former seafloor has experienced violent interaction at some point and the magnificent twists and folds make a unique landscape. Along the Tienshan Mountain pass, it could be Afghanistan, from what I've seen of the pictures in the news: not a shred of vegetation, not a hint of water, but bitterly cold in the Winter and unbearably hot in the Summer. And Tienshan in English means "heavenly mountain!"

Sad to report that my years-old China notebook was lost somewhere along the way, including my choice menu translations. I can only remember my favorite: Six Flavor Match the Color! But I do have some cute "Engrish" quotes from our Muslim Uighur guide, Dolkum: Crossing the mountains, he pointed out cell phone minarets. He told a story of how the Mongolians on the area preferred to have sky burials, where relatives took the deceased into the jungle (clearly, there is no jungle between here and the Burma border) and a local delicacy is jungle kabobs, made with mutton. We could pass our free time at the Beauty Saloon if we liked.

Food isn't very exotic here: no coconut grubs, baby bees or ant eggs. In Shanxi Province donkey meat was a delicacy: I did try it, but as it was served with Shanxi vinegar, the unique taste was rather subverted. In Kanas, we tried the local fish from rivers that flow to the Arctic, and at $25 a plate, it was the priciest thing I think I've ever had in China. Mutton is of course the common culinary denominator here, a thread of commonality between Buddhist Mongolians, Muslim Uighurs, Kazakhs and Uzbeks, and Han Chinese.

The first stop as we skirted the Taklamakan Desert was Korla, a town we all expected to be a dusty backwater, but lo and behold, it is an oil center and as such has direct flights to Beijing, and one of the loveliest riverfronts this side of San Antonio. What a pleasant surprise! The weather continues to be warm, even at night, and we continue to enjoy what must be the best time to visit Xinjiang Province. Kucha was smaller, but I'd put the hotel there up against anything in the States below the Ritz Carlton level, but Aksu's finest is a Soviet-era Friendship Hotel, everything you'd expect from a Friendship Hotel: dank bathroom, shower curtain too short, rock-hard mattress. Actually, since our other lodgings have been so nice, and exceeding my expectations, Aksu was the only expected thing on the Silk Road so far!

I am just enchanted with the poplar-lined roads wherever there is agriculture or a town: I'm sure I've seen the scenes in Dr. Zhivago. The most popular mode of transport is donkey cart, and well-tended donkeys trot along pulling skullcap-wearing grandfathers and their loads of corn, or women wearing babushkas and knee-length skirts (but no veils). Really, it could be Russia except for the occasional camel ambling along the roadside. The Northern part of the Province is officially trilingual, so all signage includes Uighur, which looks like Arabic and sounds Turkish; Mongolian, which looks and sounds Tibetan, and Chinese. And of course, Western writing is also popular.

I'm looking forward to Kashgar and the Sunday camel market there, but I have little room for carpets, knives or any other specialty of the region. That's the end of the trip! In a province with about as much environmental diversity as California, I feel as if I've been all over China on a magic carpet (which is about how our driver conducts his car: he's received two speeding violations so far).

Kanas Lake Monster Replicates Itself!

National Week in China's recreational areas: Be Afraid! Overrun does little to describe the anthill that the most remote area in China became when we visited Altay and Kanas Lake. But I digress...

The drive from Urumqi to Altay and on to Kanas was lovely. In Xinjiang Province, wherever there is a city, there is an oasis of poplar trees, reeds, marshes and a greenbelt. Outside of the city, it is a grassland with cows and sheep grazing together in defiance of the Range Wars mentality of our Old West. In fact, the scene could be a ranch in Colorado or Montana but for the occasional herd of Bactrian camels or yurts standing in the fields.

We stopped to have a look at some deer stones, petroglyphs and rock carvings that looked Celtic to me, and were drawn to a nearby yurt where a family in residence invited us in to the communal home. Like the arbor-covered courtyards of Turpan, the interior of the yurt was carpeted in brillian carpets, all the way to the high ceiling, and a little boy was working on his homework, a baby was playing on the floor, and we were all nibbling on rock-hard pieces of tangy yogurt offered to us by the lady of the yurt. It was a nice bit of serendipity!

The undulating landscape offers a new vista at every turn. Sandy dunes yield to grasslands and then to a rocky moonscape, and then to a poplar-lined promenade in towns: if you don't like the view, wait 5 minutes. Altay prefecture is a textbook case of glacier geology: a wide valley embraced by dagger-sharp mountains, complete with cirques, aretes, pushing down moraine and till, and leaving a loess area where big round sheep pick their way around big round rocks. The river which runs to the Arctic is brilliant turquoise, and the lake itself is stuning in blues and greens, framed by golden birch trees. That is, when you can actually see the lake through the swarm of humanity! Our accommodations at the lake, for one night were old Russian dachas converted to modest Chinese dorms: not recommended.

Russian culture here is prominent. Architecture, language, ethnicities...our Khazak guide got us through the worst of the crowds as a highly-placed member of the tourism ministry, and we were treated to the honored guest routine (toast after toast) at a Russian Dancing and Sinning (sic) restaurant.

The 7-hour flight delay for our return to Urumqi was the unfortunate conclusion of this leg of the trip, but a noisy group of Cantonese travellers who demanded compensation for their trouble provided a high bit of drama and entertainment: in the end, everyone received a $25 refund on their $60 ticket, which turned into a nice tip for David and our local Uigur guide, Dolkun.

Back to the Silk Road...

Night Train to Turpan

Lots of people can't sleep on trains, but I find them relaxing. It was quite a difference waking up in the sandy dunes of Turpan. This is a grape growing center, despite the arid desert environment, with water provided from a series of underground wells, a technology borrowed from the ancient Persians. Water from these wells is considered zamzamsu in Islam, worthy of a Haj to Saudi Arabia.
The ubiquitous grapes are a part of every home here, and a peek into the family coutryard reveals a lovely outdoor room covered by a grape arbor and carpeted in the vibrant reds of their Persian carpets. The music is Middle Eastern, the dress Central Asian, the donkey carts could be from anywhere in eastern Europe 100 years ago. The most common food is shashli kawob, more familiarly known as shish kabob to us, beef or mutton.
What is striking here as a contrast to most of China is the single story buildings: in Datong it was due to the honeycomb of coal mines under the streets, but here it the style in a land that can accommodate larger homes, yards even, and graves with a tomb and a yard. The architecture is basically mud, as it has alwys been, something that has made preservation of ancient sites a challenge.
We visited a raisin merchant's home, taking tea under the bright green ceiling of the grape arbor and sat with a 108- year old woman. Encouraged to ask her questions, the group complied:
Do you still dream?
What was the furthest you've travelled from home?
What do you think of the young people today?
For your information, she eats little more than a handful of dark raisins every day, or so she says, clever girl!