Jiayuguan Photos

Xian Photos

Hotan Jude

I had a near spiritual experience in Hotan. Nothing to do with Hotan itself, as upon arrival it seemed to be just like many of the other Chinese towns we have visited. Dirty, noisy and chaotic. Now, while Rich seems to enjoy being part of the madness of the thoroughfare I have more difficulty appreciating the finer points. Especially when you have just disembarked a 25 hour bus journey. I don’t feel the need to expand on this too much, as I am sure even the most laid back of travellers would empathise that this is a trying experience at best. A well known fact amongst my family and close friends is that I don’t ‘do’ lack of sleep very graciously. On these occasions my sense of humour has bolted leaving nothing but dust in it’s wake. So it is fair to say that I met Hotan in less than my best mood. After a good old cry and a morsel of sleep we awoke with plans to see some carpets and silk. 

After a few dead ends we stumbled upon the Atlas silk factory which was nestled serenely amongst an avenue of poplars on the outskirts of town. The setting was idyllic, it was quiet, the sun was shining and, it was a silk factory.

I have had textiles and all things fabric coursing through my veins since a tender age. My earliest, and possibly slightly rose tinted memory, is of my dad showing me how to knit when I was about five. My mum was in the hospital and for whatever reason my dad thought knitting a good distraction for me. Kudos dad, by the way. Mum had me on the sewing machine making outfits for Barbie not long after that, they were the coolest looking Barbies going, actually I think I had Sindy dolls as the folks thought Barbie a bit grown up. I wasn’t allowed a Ken doll until much later, but I digress. I have several people in my life, you know who you are, that have at crucial points helped navigate my path to reach my potential. If I believed in fate then mine would be a good example of things going swimmingly. I don’t actually, but I do believe my passion for textiles was too strong to ignore or deny. The level of excitement I feel when faced with a fabric shop, balls of yarn, haberdashery etc is off the scale. In fact if I was hooked up to a an ECG at these moments I know it would be flashing and beeping furiously. Fabrics float my boat, make me tick, get my juices going and flick my hair back. Got the picture? 

The Atlas silk factory would be enough to make any self respecting textile student sell their granny to have a look. It is one of those experiences that money really can’t buy. It is such a hidden gem, and as Rich pointed out before it should be a huge tourist deal, but thankfully for us, it is not. The Chinese tourists like BIG affairs you know? Lots of flash and pazzaz, wear the cap and buy the T-shirt. The Atlas ‘factory’ has probably no more than a dozen workers. Their average age I guess at around 70. We saunter in casually, there was no ticket desk, and are met by two young friendly Uighur girls. One of them has very good English and she begins our ‘tour’. The first stop is a shady corner where an old couple work together, almost telepathically, extruding the silk filament from the cocoons having been softened in a boiling vat of water to release the thread. This in itself let me tell you is no mean feat, to see it done with such ease and speed was a treat. The old lady would pull up the fibres and feed them through an eyelet onto the spinning wheel the old gent on her right was working. Goodness knows how many years they have been doing this together. It was like watching Fred and Ginger work the dance floor. Seamless. 

Next stop was the dyeing process, again a couple of old chaps sitting under the shade of the vine trellis having a natter and tying up sections of the yarn to begin the tie dye effect. The Atlas method is a sort of dye by resist method, you build up the colours and patterns by covering specific sections so as they will not pick up all of the colours. This is done at the thread stage as opposed to the usual finished fabric stage. Although unlike the tie dye look often sported by hippies and folks stuck in the 1970’s it is a much more graphic and sophisticated result. It wouldn’t look out of place on a Marni or Prada catwalk. 

Lastly we enter the weaving shed (shed being the official term for the room housing the hand looms the fabric is made on). There are about 8 hand looms, and about 5 of them in use. In contrast to the other stages of the process, the weavers are mostly younger folk. However, working away contentedly in the far corner was who I will call the Seifu (Chinese term for Master). No joke, I think he must have been about 100 years old given his multitude of wrinkles and the few teeth he had left in his mouth. 

A brief explanation on the weaving process. This is how we get what most of us know of as cloth/fabric, what your shirts, trousers and skirts are made of, and so on. The ‘cloth’ is made up of interlocking vertical and horizontal threads. These are called the Warp (the vertical backbone of the fabric) and the Weft (horizontal). The Warp threads are laboriously threaded through the hand loom to achieve the correct tension and end up sitting in what look like fine toothed metal combs in front of the worker. The fabric pattern is made by positioning pegs of wood in a rotating cylinder which determine the sequence with which these combs move with the aid of foot pedals and firing the Weft thread in between using what is called a shuttle. 

Anyway, I hope that rough explanation is a help, apologies to weave experts for any inaccurate terminology...it has been many years since I have handled a loom. Back to the Seifu. I wandered over to spectate while he artfully communicated with his loom. There was something about him that drew me to him. Thankfully for me he seemed just as curious by my presence and welcomed my interest warmly. Immediately he handed me the shuttle encouraging me wordlessly to have a go. He was keen to nurture my interest. As far as tutors go he was something special. Although his fingers were knarly with age, he was a bit nifty with the apparatus. During my time at college our weave tutor was a friendly chap called Jim Marshall. He had one glass eye, so it was difficult to know where to look when you spoke with him, you know the way. He was always more than helpful and as most geeks are, genuinely enthusiastic about his subject. I find myself wondering what it would be like to sit for hours with this old Seifu just soaking up his experience. I was reluctant to make the move and leave his world behind. 

We finish the tour off with a trip to the shop. Incredibly restrained, I leave with only one scarf. But what a scarf it is. We exit the factory and cross the road to wait in the shade of the poplars for the next bus back to town. Briefly we contemplate visiting the next factory in the guidebook which boasts 2000 plus workers and the silks made by power machines. No, we could not improve on our morning. My mood has lifted, my weary soul nourished by the treasure of the experience. I am speechlessly content. Hotan wasn’t so bad after all. 

Turpan Jude

We are not in Kansas anymore Toto. We are now in Xinjiang province having left Gansu behind. It feels remarkably different, excitingly so. Although still in China it doesn’t feel like it due to the high population of the Uighur people. The Uighur are a Turkic-speaking people living almost exclusively in Xinjiang having been forced out of their Mongolian homelands in the mid-9th century by Kirghiz raiders. Ethnically they come from early nomadic Turkic tribes, looking far more Mediterranean than East Asian. Abandoning Shamanism they had brief flings with both Manichaeism and then Buddhism before finally converting to Islam in the 10th Century. Their music, textiles and cuisine have a Central Asian feel to it, most speak little Chinese. There is little love lost between the Uighur and the Chinese, the latter viewing the former as knife wielding barbarians and the Uighur thinking the Chinese despicable atheists or Buddhist heathens.

We are in the town of Turpan having traveled west from Dunhuang, via Liuyuan which was a toilet but that was the nearest train station, for about 14 hours by mini bus and sleeper train.  Turpan is 154 metres below sea level, making it the second lowest depression in the world, after the dead sea. It is an oasis in the middle of the desert, the highest temperature having been recorded at 49.6 degrees! You could be forgiven for momentarily thinking you were in Southern France as the white grape vineyards stretch as far as the eye can see. The guidebook strongly recommends to sample the Dry White, we make a note.

What I am loving more than anything is the Uighur sense of style. The men all sport dapper hats, be it a flat cap, trilby or what seems to be the local speciality which looks like a densely embroidered pill box. They love their big shades too, can’t say I blame them. The women have such flair, be they old or young. There is something almost Romany in their look, the key accessory being their headscarf. While this a requirement of their Muslim faith in preserving modesty, they have not let it hinder their style. I am dying to ask one of them how to do it, the scarf is wrapped around the head then twisted and tied in an almost 70‘s style turban worthy of a Prada Ad campaign or a Vogue spread. The ladies here are taking no back seat, they are seen and heard. Walking down the main street is a feast for the eyes in colour and fabric. 

We have only one day in Turpan, but what a peach of a day it turns out to be. We arrive early from the sleeper train and find a place for the night. One of the things that makes our day so lovely is that we have made some friends. Whilst in Dunhuang we started chatting to a chap following a similar route to us. Travis is a musician from New York. It was with a little caution that we started our relationship with him, and no doubt he was treading as carefully as we were. Let me briefly explain.  

It is a precarious thing starting conversations with fellow travellers, it could go one of two ways. Have you ever been on a long haul plane journey with a ‘chatty’ neighbour? I for one always seem to attract the drunks on the buses in Glasgow. Once engaged it can be quite impossible to rid yourself of your new ‘friend’. During our trip to the Terracotta Army in Xian we met a German chap on the bus. What started out as a casual chat and exchange of particulars went rapidly downhill as he talked AT us about, well, anything he could think of. We got a barrage of data, prices, times...everything in minute and exact detail of his day to day existence relayed as only a German could. It was a tiresome journey. We finally managed to give him the slip amongst the clay warriors, there are quite a few of them, feeling a wee bit guilty we had not endured  his inane chat and kept him company. 

Thankfully Travis turns out to be a kindred spirit and we find ourselves hoping we bump into him again along the way, not least because Rich needs a chum with whom to share his sheep’s head. We did not have to hope for long, as Travis’ sleeper bus was cancelled and he had to re-route following the same path as us. Meanwhile he had picked up some other new friends, the Maor family from Israel. Now wait for this, the Maor family have taken a year out to travel China, of which they are in month 10, with their 3 young children…….eldest 5 and ½ and youngest 2 and ½. That’s the truth. We thought we had taken on a challenge! Until I met the Maors I had indulged several moments of self pity at having to slog it out, schleping from place to place with heavy bags etc. Can you imagine doing all this with 3 wee people in tow? That they manage to check out of each hotel without leaving one of them behind is, I think, quite an achievement. Amazing. What is even better is that they seem to be having a blast, and no, they are not hippies, they are ordinary joes like you and I just keeping it real. 

After a lazy breakfast under the shade of some grapevines with our new bevy of chums, Travis, Rich and I set off to explore on our trusty steads, or single gear bikes. We head first to see the ruins of the Ancient city of Jiaohe, built during the Han dynasty. Our hopes are not set too high as we have been promised some amazing sights before in the guidebook, yet been disappointed by the ‘amusement park’ that has been built around often sacred sites. Instead we are pleasantly surprised by the lack of bells and whistles, what we find is breath taking. Once we shake off the bus loads of tour groups we spend a serene hour or two snaking our way through the giant maze that once was the garrison town of Jiaohe. It must have been pulsing with life back in the day and we find ourselves imagining what it would have been like to live here. There are 3 temples in the heart of the town and under close inspection it is possible to make out the remnants of the Buddhas at the centre of each temple. The ruins are in remarkable condition given their age and that they were constructed of mud and straw. We make a brief pit stop for an ice lolly and some shade from the mid day sun before jumping back on our bikes to see what we can see. 

We take the back roads to see what glimpses of real life we can steal, it is a blissful way to get from A to B. Wind in your hair and just the right pace to soak up the sights and smells without panes of glass to keep you safe and quarantined. We are stopped in our tracks, tempted by the lure of a watermelon seller, his truck weighed down by the most delicious and juicy fruit I have had in ages. Venturing further onwards and feeling like a childish trio from an Enid Blyton tale, we head towards the Emin minaret and adjoining mosque. Built in 1777 by Emin Hoja the Turpan ruler, the Afghan style minaret stands at 44m high and is really rather beautiful. One of the guidebooks also tells that a wander through the graveyard at the rear will have you stumbling across ancient sun bleached bones. I was gutted to find that most of these said bones have been dutifully tidied away, possibly in a grand spring clean before the 2008 Olympics. What a disappointment. We did find a few fragments after a rummage amongst the pebbles, but not quite what I was hoping for. Rich thinks I have a grizzly appetite for the macabre, I think my enthusiasm for the goat slaughter in Nepal had him shocked. This from the man that wants to eat a sheeps head…..

Many miles of cycle tourism had us parched and frankly ready for a sit down and a good old chin wag about our groovy day. What better way to enjoy the late sunset than tasting a glass or six of Turpans finest Dry White. And enjoy it we did, it was served ice cold and had a lovely golden colour and smelled rather like a desert wine, although it was not sweet. Three bottles later we can definitely report that should you happen to see a 3 for 2 offer in your local Tescos,  pop them in your basket, you wouldn’t be disappointed.

Xian Jude

We’re on the road again. If I’m honest I was a little reticent to leave Hong Kong behind. What was supposed to be a 2 week stop over grew into almost 2 months. Note to any would be Silk Road travelers, visas and paperwork for these lands are not a piece of cake to obtain, leave enough time! It was a wonderful 2 months though. Being back in our ‘home’ with friends that are as good as family, without the stresses and strains of a work life...what’s not to love? I became very comfortable, too comfortable. Thanks to our long suffering friends we had a luxurious place to call our temporary home. I started to wonder if we were doing the right thing, panicking even, at what we would be leaving behind, and this time seemed all the more final as we have no definite plans to return. What were we doing?! My anxiety was fed by the wild ramblings of my imagination, we are off into China for a start, then practically into the desert through countries that are not well trod by the western tourists foot……...and so my mind went into a downward spiral. After several teary goodbyes we were off.

The most immediate of my concerns was our impending departure by train from Hong Kong to Xian. Rich and I had discussed which classes of travel were available. The top was ‘Soft Sleeper’, a private cabin with four bunk beds, we would of course have to share with two others, but this seemed like our best (read my favourite) option. The second option was ‘Hard Sleeper’, where by the entire carriage is split into cubicle sections that hold 6 bunks each, these are open to the corridor and general thoroughfare. In total each train carriage would sleep 60 folks in this class. There are other classes but these involve sitting upright on hard seats for the entire journey. It is a 25 hour journey. No need to expand on that. Initially after a brief think about it, and I really did, I asked Rich if we could go for ‘Soft Sleeper’. We agreed on this, however after a look at our budget we decided that ‘Hard Sleeper’ was the only option we could justify. Hmmm. So, after buying some pot noodles and fruit as sustenance for our journey we waited in the station for about 3 hours until a friendly gent practicing his English advised us it was time to board. We could have worked this out however as the 1000 or so folks waiting with us rose en masse and made their way to claim their seats. We headed for carriage number 16 to find our bunks, I was trying to remain upbeat and optimistic.

How much of our lives are wasted fearing the unknown I wonder? My fears were not justified. The carriage was clean and bright and our bunks were even made up with fresh coordinating sheets, it had the feel of a giant caravan. We put our bags away minus the bits and bobs we wanted to keep us company. Settling into our top 2 bunks, which are not hard as the name would suggest by the way, rather firm which is the way I like my mattress should anyone care to know. What is nice about being in China is the lack of staring, even though where we are our white faces are not as common as in some parts, it is nice not to be a complete spectacle. Indeed if you do catch someone looking they offer a shy smile before turning away quick smart. In fact I would go as far as to say there was a gentle feeling of camaraderie between our immediate bunk neighbours. As the train slowly chugged out of the station I was starting to feel a real flush of excitement. 

There is something really fab about train travel. I am a big fan of plane and bus travel, but the constant gentle chug of the train on its tracks is hard to beat. Watching the scenery flit by as you begin to realise there is nothing else to be done other than sit back and relax. No dishes to wash, no jobs to be done. No, you can get your book out, listen to your tunes, do a bit of knitting (!) anything you please as long as it involves sitting back and letting the world literally go by. And so our 25 hours passed. We watched a movie, read our books and ate pot noodles as and when we felt like them. We drifted off into blissful sleep around midnight and awoke early by the only drawback we found. The music. There was a constant flow of upbeat Chinese tunes blaring through the speaker a couple of yards from our heads. This did stop thankfully from midnight to 7am to allow some sleep, but other than that it kept on pumping! Apparently it is not so long ago that passengers were able to smoke in the carriages…...this would not be pleasant given how strong cheap chinese cigarettes are! Thankful for small mercies this is now limited to the sections between the carriages.

And so here we are in Xian. It is hot, but not the humid kind of stick and sweat of Hong Kong, more like a summers day in Tuscany. We are settled into a very modest hotel/youth hostel. It seems quite a prosperous city, since having had a wander today we have stumbled upon a few Starbucks and I did see a Louis Vuitton store. We have had a couple of tasty dinners of spicy soup noodles and dumplings, although lunch today was an food experience I would rather not repeat. I can only describe it as what looked and tasted like a bowl of flem. Rich managed a few stellar bites, but I left a little hungry and figured I’d burn off some of my pounds gained in Hong Kong in relative luxury instead. We are off to see the Terra cotta Army tomorrow and then we leave on another 20 hour train further west. I honestly can say I am glad I hauled myself out of my comfort zone in Honkers, love it and miss it as I do, I can always go back. Bring on the adventure!

Kashgar

Kashgar! What to say about a place as synonymous with the Silk Road as this? The name alone conjures up images of remote and exotic travel without need of further explanation. For those of you who are, unlike me, not a Silk Road nerd, let me expand.

Kashgar stands at a couple of very important boundaries, one modern and political and one age old and physical. Politics wise this is our last stop in China, when we head west from here our next encounter will be with the border and Kyrgyzstan. Physically it marks the end of so much desert travel, for now at least, and the start of the mountains, the Pamirs and Tian Shan to be precise. As a result of this, in times gone by Kashgar would have been the place where the ships of the desert (camels) would have been replaced by the more surefooted and cold hardy ponies. It may also have seen the switch between one merchant and another. Never would one trader have made the whole journey from west to east. Instead the commodity would have been passed through a succession of middlemen, each taking a cut of the final profit, ensuring that the mark up for silk sold in Rome would have been even more eye-watering than it is today.

What has and continues to make Kashgar so important in terms of trade is its prime location at the nexus of so many important roads. There is the Southern Silk Road from Hotan, on which we arrived, and the Northern Silk Road from Urumqi which most people follow, there are two separate routes into Kyrgyzstan, the Irkeshtam and Torugart Passes, the first of which is our intended route and lastly there is the legendary Karakoram Highway to the Khunjerab Pass and Pakistan, a route currently blocked to road traffic by the mother of all landslides. On the streets of Kashgar this translates into a buzzing cosmopolitan painters palette of Han Chinese, Uighur, Kyrgyz, Tajiks, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Pakistanis and of course western backpackers, the first of which we have seen since Urumqi.

As a Brit Kashgar has other secrets to divulge. The Hotel we have decided to stay in has some interesting accommodation out the back in the shape of the old Russian Embassy, this would not be of all that much interest if it weren’t for the context though. At the end of the 19th and start of the 20th Centuries Russia and Britain tried to outmanoeuvre each other in a diplomatic and military quest to exert political power and influence in Central Asia. Britain, seeking to create a buffer zone between its imperial rival, Russia, and the jewel in its colonial crown, India, also held an embassy here. Funnily enough, also located behind yet another hotel.

And so remote Kashgar came to play host to the crux of what is endearingly if inaccurately referred to as “The Great Game”. The high stakes of this ‘game’ however were often traded in the blood of locals and protagonists alike, making it a more serious affair than most. If your still tuning into this blog when we reach Uzbekistan I’ll share some of the more grizzly stories with you. Nonetheless, life in Kashgar for the diplomats of Russia and Britain would have consisted of a very elaborate charade. In this dusty backwater the ambassadors would certainly have shared each others company in what would have been the smallest of expatriate communities. Over hors d’oeuvres and a G ‘n’ T or Vodka they would have swapped pleasantries and traded tales of consular life. Behind each others backs, and in the interests of their respective governments however, they would have plotted endlessly against each other. 

Our first day in Kashgar is a Friday so we go and see the impressive Id Gah Mosque at prayer time. Despite being able to hold several thousand of the faithful at any one time part of the large square outside is required to soak up the surplus of worshippers. Evident also is the police presence, a definite sign of the unease felt by the Chinese government towards the muslim population. We hang out in a tea shop down the road, order the most expensive tea on the menu, by accident, and enjoy its intense mulled wine flavour nonetheless. From our balcony vantage point above the old town we are able to indulge in some quality people watching.

In terms of hyped up must see, must do experiences along the Silk Road, Kashgar’s Sunday Market appears to be one of the most vaunted, even if it does come with disclaimers regarding how touristy it is becoming.

We arrive early to make best use of good light and hopefully catch a more authentic experience. As we enter the stall holders are beginning to set up although, by the entrance, many of these are of the tourist tack variety. A fur hat seller tries to replace my cap with a dead animal of some sort. I’m in no mood to be hassled this morning so I extend a firm left hand to intercept his furry gambit and stay my course with a pointed “no thanks”.

Leaving the not so interesting covered section behind we amble out into the surrounding alleys cut through with the sunlight of a new dawn. Vendors are busy spreading their wares out on sheets laid upon the ground. We find an old Uighur chap selling tea and spices, we try to identify the brew we had on Friday and come away with a small package wrapped up in a few pages from an old booklet. Next stop is a colourful street side eatery where a bald toothy hawker shouts “Kash ka kash ka” or something to that effect. He likes that Jude is wearing a head scarf, repeatedly pointing, miming and giving the thumbs up. Whether this is in appreciation of her cultural sensitivity or her taste in fashion we shall never know. We breakfast on steamed bread dumplings in a cabbage gravy and continue our discussion with the Uighur mime artist. He looks utterly crushed when he discovers that we have no children and tells us that he has four, although he might be talking about his grandchildren given how old he looks.

Finding nothing much else that takes our fancy on the vast but otherwise overhyped market we head for the Caravan Cafe for a much needed coffee. Both of us slept appallingly the night before as a result of me leaving the window with the broken mosquito net open. Three Navy Seals of the mosquito world plagued us with hit and run attacks all night long. By dawn two of these had been killed in minor blood explosions but a third remained mysteriously at large. Whist at the cafe we watched a showing of the previous days England vs USA match on CCTV 5, my expectations of mediocrity proved to be dazzlingly accurate.

Feeling human again we head to the Sunday Livestock Market and instantly realise we should have come here first, the place is heaving. A large central corral is packed with sheep, goats, cows and donkeys and is overrun with Uighur men buying and selling. Fat tailed sheep get their udders, testicles, bottoms, back and legs pinched and poked to ascertain their worth and large handfuls of notes are exchanged with exaggerated slapping handshakes before mud encrusted Bulls are lead away by their proud new owners. Around the corral are numerous eateries of the strictly carnivorous variety that dispense kebabs and mutton soup to a hungry clientele. The noise is incredible. “Boish, boish” shout drivers coming through with their animals in tow, trying to clear a path through the dense crowd. The baying, mooing, bleating, honking, shouting, clanging, revving and screeching mass is wonderful and the combination of smells, dust clouds and photo opportunities makes for an incredible hour or so before the heat of the day forces us to retire  to a darkened room to catch up on our sleep.

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.