Yarkand

Unable to find bagels we settle for fruit instead, something which the silk road has in mouth watering abundance. The bus journey takes us out of the Oasis town of Hotan and on towards our next stop, Karghilik. The landscape outside of the big Chinese cities is very much like that I have seen on TV of Afghanistan. Sprawling mud walled compounds sit amongst a lattice work of dusty alleyways. Surrounding the homes are green fields of wheat, orchards and vegetable plots. As we pass a tall line of Poplar trees, that I guess are planted as a form of defence against the sandstorms, we burst out of the greenery of the irrigated area close to the river and are plunged back into the bleak yellow brown desolation of the desert.

The in-bus entertainment system plays a ‘so bad it’s funny’ cop drama from Pakistan that has been dubbed, badly too, into Uighur which makes it all the more hysterical. The fight scenes, which need no explanation, are all masterpieces of slow motion bullet strikes and laughable kung fu. The film climaxes with the hero driving a bus containing a bomb off a very high pier. He jumps to safety, landing miraculously unharmed on the beach whilst the bus plunges into deep water and explodes harmlessly. Despite having driven some distance from the busy urban centre where the bomb was supposed to explode, a platoon of smartly dressed cops appear from nowhere seconds later to salute their comrade. I wait, poised for the inevitable, barely able to contain my mirth... and then it happens. A beautiful girl with two kids in tow pushes through the crowd and the aforementioned hero is reunited with his beloved family. I crack up in barely concealed cackles, this film would definitely have won the Oscar for the greatest number of overused film cliches, I suspect however that somebody on the bus is shedding a tear at the emotion of it all and check myself accordingly.

Any kind of distraction from the bus journey itself is sweet relief so the film is welcome nonetheless. The seats on this bus are so narrow it feels like Jude and I are sharing 1 and a half seats rather than the two our tickets show that we have purchased. The road starts off not surfaced at all. This results in our ‘seats’ being turned into one of those vibration weight loss contraptions sold on QVC only I’ll have to wait for the swelling to die down before I can let you know if it has worked or not. When the road does become surfaced it has a long wavelength rippled surface that perfectly matches the natural oscillation of the buses suspension springs, this sets off a nauseating bouncing motion similar to driving a powerboat in big seas that makes reading or playing solitaire on the iPod totally impossible. Then there is the driver who clearly obtained his license from the back of a breakfast cereal packet and is determined to do the full journey without a toilet stop, not a wise move when several passengers are small children and sure enough 4 hours in a distinct sniff of wee cuts through the otherwise musty, muttony, unwashed body odour kind of smell that pervades the bus.

One highlight of the journey is that shortly outside of Hotan we pass a herd of what must be wild camels, and this goes some way to offset the generally awful nature of the five and a half hour endurance fest. I am sure that ‘herd’ is the wrong word for a group of camels. Like a parliament of owls or a constellation of starlings a group of camels deserves a fittingly ostentatious title. Perhaps a Medressa or Jirga of camels would be most fitting in terms of geographical location and cultural identity? Answers on a postcard please.

A railway line and motorway are being built alongside our woefully inadequate road and of these I have mixed feelings. I know they will be of immense financial benefit to the oasis  towns of the southern silk road, not to mention the convenience of shortened journey times and my bum would appreciate the joys of spirit level smooth asphalt or train tracks that’s for sure. The Uighur cultural identity in this part of Xinjiang is almost certainly going to be the victim though. By virtue of it’s inaccessible nature it has, so far, remained largely free from the destructive influences of modernisation. These will inflict upon it the scourge of shopping malls, tour buses, chain stores and hotels that will result in it looking exactly like everywhere else, just another unidentifiable part of the fat homogenous lump that is modern China.

For the time being enough of the old ways of life remain to make this diversion off the easy route direct to Kashgar a worthwhile digression. Karghilik lies at the junction of three roads, one from Hotan that we arrive on, one to Kashgar on which we shall leave and a third that heads south before splitting in two. To the south east lies the backdoor route into Tibet, a road rumoured to be as hard as it is rewarding. To the south west the road goes to the worlds highest battlefield, or it would do if the border to Pakistan wasn’t closed as a result of the ongoing tensions with India in this area. 

In Karghilik we go and see the ‘Friday’ Mosque and adjacent bazaar, other than that there is not much to grab our attention. We are using Karghilik though as a base for visiting the next town on the southern silk road, Yarkand, which lacks sensible accommodation options. The only hotel that allows foreigners to stay does so at substantially inflated prices.

In the past Yarkand was the seat of an ancient Buddhist kingdom and an important stop on the southern silk road. In its heyday it was larger than Kashgar, profiting immensely from its location at the end of the trade route from Ladakh in Pakistan. Next door to the 16th Century mosque is the pretty blue and white tiled tomb of Amannisahan, a former Queen of Yarkand and a distinguished Uighur poet and musician. Her husband, the King, is buried in the peaceful graveyard nearby but it is clear that she is held in much higher regard than her beau by the Uighurs of today, her contribution to their cultural heritage has not gone unnoticed or unrewarded and her tomb has become something of a pilgrimage site for a devoted following.

In the streets close by we find what I really wanted to see most of all, a slice of authentic Uighur life. The old town is everything it should be, full of life and an assault on every sense you posses. First we pass a collection of blacksmiths and metal workers where the loud ringing of hammers on anvils combines with the retina scarring sparks of welders at work. After this comes the noise and dust of carpenters sawing, shaving and sanding away at doors, cots and screens by the side of the road. We look inside a small shack where dozens of beautifully crafted stringed instruments hang from the walls. If we thought we could have got one back to the UK in one piece we may well have bought one but the long thin fret board obviously requires a fairly delicate touch, besides, neither of us can play… Barbecues belch billowing clouds of choking smoke into the air as the vendors furiously fan the coals and advertise their lamb kebabs to passersby with the Uighur equivalent of “six for a pound your gas lighters!”

As we approach a junction the air thickens with the metallic, sickly sweet smell of blood. A line of women sit behind a bench displaying a dozen or more severed goat heads, each perched atop their own four severed feet. The women flick fans back and forth above their produce in a half hearted attempt to keep the flies at bay. The goats’ vacant eyes stare unblinking into the midday sun and their tongues dangle in mock thirst as the heat of the day builds. I enquire as to the price and am surprised to learn that there is significant variation between them, it would seem that there is a scale of goat head quality that I am unaware of. Given the flies and smell I suspect the cheaper ones might not be as fresh, this makes the old adage ‘buy cheap, buy twice’ somewhat inaccurate. I’d certainly shell out the extra cash for a fresh head and feet given the choice. Having now experienced the sight and smell of all this up close though, I am not so sure I would be capable of eating one. The locals don’t seem to mind though as they casually fill plastic carrier bags with their newly acquired dinner.

The old town in Yarkand is one of the best experiences of the trip so far. The predominantly sterile Chinese tourist sights have little to offer in comparison to the raw vitality of life being lived, in many respects, as it has been throughout the ages. It is not hard to make the leap from what Yarkand’s ‘old town’ looks like now to what it would have looked like in Marco Polo’s day for instance.

Back in Karghilik we decide to have a Chinese dinner rather than Uighur, for a change, big mistake. Cold dishes take forever to arrive and fail to deliver in the taste department too. Afterwards we make a beeline to a Uighur restaurant for dessert where we make yet another stunning discovery. We have a couple of small strudel like cakes topped with a walnut and boy do they hit the spot. Sadly, when we return at breakfast, we find that they are awaiting the days delivery of these and as such we are unable to stock up on them for our bus ride to Kashgar, should have bought the whole lot the night before.

The 5 hour journey to Kashgar is yet another example of awful roads and worse driving standards. This drivers erratic behaviour is only matched by his superiority complex. Idly he plucks his nose hair and cleans beneath his nails whilst driving. At one point this almost results in us running off the road entirely but for the most part it just causes us to drift and swerve at random to and fro. It is with relief that we arrive safely into Kashgar bus station although Jude almost instantly becomes the target of a pickpocket attempt. With a set of tongs our would be thief dips into the side pockets of her combats but comes up short and rumbled. He slopes off all casual, still looking at us and lighting a cigarette as if nothing had happened. Alas, carrying three bags each prevents us from exacting our desired wrath and Jude settles instead for flicking him a very scottish finger.