The city so great, they named it twice
Hi from Kashgar, or if you prefer, from Kashi. This city, known as Kashgar in the local Uyghur language or as Kashi in Chinese, is the westernmost point in China, near the borders with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. And if I thought Turpan was starting to feel less Chinese and more Central Asian, well, Kashgar basically feels like I’ve left China entirely.
Kashgar is a desert oasis city that lies at the crossroads of several Silk Road ancient trade routes, and is a veritable bridge between east and west. It’s also, incidentally, said to be the city that is further from an ocean than any other place on earth. Beach holiday, not so much.
We arrived here late last night after an uneventful 2-hour flight from Urumqi on China Southern Airlines. Out the plane window, we had a spectacular view of the sunset over the snow-capped mountain ranges below. The flight also featured the quickest-consumed meal in history of airline meals, served just minutes before we began our descent, and collected a few moments later.
At the terminal, we started to see signs in Russian as well as Uyghyr, Chinese and English. I could already tell that the climate had changed, too. It wasn’t too warm, but the mosquitoes — absent thus far on the trip — were rampant. I got bitten about 5 or 6 times in the few minutes it took me to collect my backpack from the luggage carousel. Time to break out the bugspray.
Neon and glitter
Our drive from the airport into town showed a nighttime city entirely unlike what I was expecting. Neon flashing lights everywhere made this look more like a modern Vegas than an ancient Central Asian trade post. This isn’t an accident; the Chinese government has been systematically demolishing the old Islamic architecture and forcibly moving people into modern constructions, under the pretext of compliance with earthquake safety codes. Though, given the fact that two thirds of the Old City was destroyed for ‘political and economic’ in 2012 following dissident violence, that pretext wears a bit thin.
Our hotel is located in a complex of former embassies and decorated in what is meant to be traditional Uyghur style, it instead looks like a 5-year-old girl who’s a big fan of princesses and glitter was let loose in the rooms, and then after that, someone added a healthy dose of medieval brothel just to top things off. Floral motifs, archways, a shiny bathroom ceiling with stars that looks like it may date from the 1980s… you name it, this hotel’s got it. Our breakfast this morning was located in the former Russian consulate from 1890, and it still has all sorts of items there including velvet curtains, and even an old phonograph machine.
The people here are mostly Uyghur and other Turkic-origin Central Asian groups. They’re Muslim, of course, so mosques are everywhere and everything closes at prayer time. The men wear the araxcin hats, and the women dress in elaborately jewelled, sparkly dresses and headscarves. Howard, our guide, was here for the first time too, and he said he felt very much like he had left China and gone to a foreign country. Which, I suppose, he had in a way; Kashgar was only incorporated into modern China in 1949. So, basically, this is China’s Newfoundland.
Want to buy a goat? (Or a donkey, or a sheep, or a bull, or a camel…?)
Kashgar is the site of a very busy Sunday livestock market. After breakfast, we set out to check it out. You could tell you were getting close when the caravan of carts and cars with animals strapped to the back started driving along the side of the road. I’d look out the window and see sheep or goats or cows.
The market itself was madness. People everywhere, mopeds and trucks driving along through crowds of people shouting “bosh, bosh!” to warn people to get out of the way. And the animals. Thousands of them, every direction, everywhere you look. Organized chaos, because the market was divided into sections: Sheep over here, goats over there, donkeys in a third section. The bulls were merely staked to wooden posts that didn’t look sturdy enough to hold a man, let alone a charging bull. I have no idea how it all comes together, but somehow it does.
We wound our way through the maze, snapping photos — which the farmers were quite happy to pose for — and watching the negotiations take place. The food stalls all featured freshly-slaughtered meat mixed in with pastries, rice and meat, noodles, and some bread that looked a lot like bagels. There was dust everywhere. It was great!
Old Town wander
After the animal market, we headed over to the Old Town for a walk around. We went in to see the big mosque in the central square, and then walked through the small old city quarter, seeing shops and restaurants. One area appeared to be the dentistry quarter: One place promised to pull out your teeth; the next promised to put in some artificial ones. I bought the local specialty ice cream, and we stopped off at a bakery for some local cookies that looked a lot like ones you’d find at any eastern European or Russian bakery. It’s amazing how small the world is when it comes down to it.
On the walk back to the hotel, we stopped off to see a camel market. Hundreds of camels were just sitting there in what looked like an empty parking lot, waiting around for someone to come along and buy one, I suppose. We contemplated getting one for Sam, since it’s his 20th birthday today, but we thought that it might be a bit tough to explain at customs.
To market, to market
After a rest in the hotel, we met back up with the group to visit the famed Sunday bazaar. Kashgar has been a trading post for over 2,000 years, and the Sunday Market is renowned as being the biggest one in Central Asia.
To be honest, the market was quite repetitive. Entire sections devoted to single items — silk scarves, for instance, or shoes, or shirts — took up row after row. There wasn’t much to buy. It was fun to look at for a bit, especially to see the hilariously bad knock-offs (Bqss instead of Hugo Boss; New Balance shoes with a backwards N) and the mistranslated English words on clothing. And some of the fabrics that the local women used for their dresses were quite beautiful. But there really wasn’t much to buy. I’ve been to over 40 countries and China is the first one where I haven’t found a souvenir shot glass anywhere — which is ironic considering the ones I purchased in all the other countries were probably made in China.
When we’d seen enough of the market, we walked over to another section of the Old Town. This part is more residential and a bit less touristy than the last bit. You can really see how the Chinese policy of demolishing the old city has affected things. We walked up to the top of the old city wall for the views before heading back to dinner.
Birthdays and goodbyes
Then it was time to say goodbye to Howard. He flies out tonight to Hong Kong to meet his next tour, and we get a brand new guide tomorrow when we cross the border into Kyrgyzstan. We all went out to a restaurant in a local hotel for one last dinner, and gave him heartfelt thanks for being so awesome over these past 10 days.
It’s also Sam’s birthday today, so we celebrated by getting him a Chinese traditional bowl of birthday noodles. The long noodles symbolize long life. We made plans to go out to a bar afterwards to celebrate in more traditional western style, too.
Oscar Bar
After dinner, we went to another building in the same complex as our hotel. It probably used to be a consulate — all these buildings did — but now it’s a bar, restaurant and nightclub called Oscar Bar. It featured a giant two-storey area for tables, lavishly decorated, with a big dance floor and a stage with a giant screen.
For the first almost two hours, we were literally the only people in there except for the wait staff. We managed to make ourselves understood enough to order some drinks, though when they brought the bottle of vodka, it was mandarin flavoured and inexplicably accompanied by bottled green tea. We did eventually swap out the green tea for Sprite, which helped somewhat. We also had trouble getting the staff to understand that we wanted them to play some dance music. They seemed to be broadcasting off of someone’s laptop, so the songs were an odd mix of Turkish pop and power ballads, and weird stuff like the 2009 Eurovision competition or the British version of The Voice Kids. Don’t ask. Anyway, finally Laurent went out on the dance floor on his own and started dancing, and they understood and switched up the music, and we all took a turn out there, even getting the waiters out for a dance or three.
Later on, because they’re on local time here, people started showing up and a live band started to play. The music sounds very Arabic or Turkish, and the women dance with women and the men dance with men unless they’re married of course. But they all seemed to be having a good time and didn’t mind us crazy westerners out there showing off our attempts at dancing to their music.
Goodbye China
Tomorrow morning we leave China for real, heading over the Torugart Pass into Kyrgyzstan. (Incidentally, my false alarms about going off the grid notwithstanding, this time my internet really will stop working since my SIM card is Chinese and I don’t have a Kyrgyz one. So the next update may be a few days away.)
This trip has been insanely quick, crossing most of the country in a week and a half. I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I liked China, and I’m a bit sad to leave. I definitely need to make back to China for another trip that visits some of the more well-known sites in the eastern part of the country, like the Yangtze river, or pandas in Chengdu, or Shanghai and Hong Kong. That 10-year Chinese visa may well come in very handy.
Having said that, I’m quite excited to visit some ‘stan countries. It feels like we’ve already begun our Central Asian portion of the trip, so I’m looking forward to crossing the border and seeing more.
Love you all. More soon!