Xinjiang October 2003

Of course there was no one waiting for me at the airport. When I asked the staff at the airport they were dismissive and beyond immigration there was no Air China staff to be seen at all. My luggage came out along with all the other luggage, although I did see a paper note attached to it which read "Out First". With some difficulty I found someone who could tell me which direction the domestic flights terminal was and there I was running along with my trolley with bags curb off curb on. Midway some lady insisted that I changed trolleys. The domestic flights terminal is a new contraption that looks a lot like the Chep Lap Kok design complete with ribbons for civilized lining up and yellow lines to wait behind. The infrastructure is there, only nobody explained the Chinese what it is for. I think I'm waiting in line at the check in desk but when I see a couple of people coming in from left and right and completely ignoring the ribbons as well as the yellow line. I decide to get more assertive but my luggage trolley prevents me from an equal battle with the Chinese. Still I manage to push my ticket under the nose of one of the attendants behind the desk. But all the running was for nothing because my next flight is delayed until after midnight due to engine failure! Welcome to China.

Is there's another flight to Urumqi that night and yes, China Southern has a flight. I hasten to the CS desk where I encounter a similar scene. One man rides his trolley into my ankles while trying to cut into the line. I try to block him by throwing my trolley in front of his. Unfortunately just at that moment the desk next door is opening and he's first at it. I wave my ticket and give it to one of the ladies behind the desk who walks away with it, comes back and puts it on a big stack of other tickets. After quite a long wait I'm just about to join in the screaming for my ticket as I get it back with a little sticker on it for .... China Southern that evening! Well, that was relatively easy.

The hotel in Urumqi where I'm staying is not half bad. A bit like standard middle class with ok bed and hot shower. In the Lonely Planet they call anything from a stinking grotto to a luxury hotel something vague like 'value for money' or 'your best bet' so I really never have any idea what it will turn out to be. Only problem is that the personnel enters the room continuous without knocking and whole herds of people stand outside my room all the time arguing and shouting.
Urumqi seems like a relatively wealthy city. I feel almost underdressed in my traveller's outfit.

I have booked a train ticket to Kashgar for tomorrow with Peter from the little travel agent behind the hotel. If he has ripped me off he has done so with grace and flair so I can't be too upset. Peter is a wealth of information. This hotel is being owned by the military and generals live on its ground. The big Kazakh yurt behind the hotel is for classy diners for top army officials. Peter really is a MCSIE certified engineer and has run a radio show on poetry in the past. We were talking about Zhang Yi Mu films in which apparently the Xinjiang landscape has played a big role.
After arranging the ticket I go look for the Museum of Xinjiang Uigur Autonomous Region. A colossal building is being erected on the spot where I expect the museum but a temporary exhibition is set up behind the building site in a decrepit old warehouse. A sign points me towards "Exhibition of Xinjiang relics, treasures and ancient corpses". It's exactly that. At the entrance a sign tells me that the articles on display prove that Xinjiang has always been Chinese. Subsequently I see many mummies which are according to the explanatory signs from European origin, judging by their features and blond hair. Among others I see the "Beauty of Loulan". Strange to have all these mummies on display. Imagine our dead to be dug up some time in the future and put in a museum for people to gawk at.

On the way back I look for the Internet cafe that's supposed to be located next to the hotel. After much searching I finally find a door with a lock on it through which I can see a lot of computers. That was probably it. At the hotel desk I ask them if they know where I can find an Internet cafe. The unhappy looking lady says "left". Where left I ask but she repeats "left". I say I've looked there and couldn't find it. Then she says "right". I decide to give up.

The 23-hour train ride from Urumqi to Kashgar offers views on vast expanses of nothingness and a lot of settlements in rubble. But we also ride alongside the beautiful Tian Shan mountain range, isolated herds of sheep, goats, horses and camels. At the sight of my first lone camel next to the train track I get very excited. This looks more like it! I share my compartment with an elderly Chinese man with his grandson and a young man. We cannot exchange much information but nod politely and share grapes.
We are constantly offered musical diversion, be it whistled renditions of Love Story and Edelweiss, Chinese comedy or, even worse, an entire album of Justin Timberlake.

I meet Josh, Tim and Melissa, three Americans living in Shanghai and we decide to plan a trip together. We immediately head off for the old part of the town of traditional Uyghur life, and taste and sniff all the exotic flavours on offer. We catch glimpses of the courtyard life hidden behind the colourful doors in the alleyways. Older ladies wear brown knit headscarves draped over their heads but in contrast younger women wear bright glittering red and gold sequined dresses, often with thick leggings under their stockings. Not because its cold, since it is surprisingly warm and sunny in Kashgar.
These months before the winter cold are very popular for wedding parties and circumcisions. At night we is many a pick-up truck driving by with a trumpet and drum announcing the happy event.
The men seem to be highly excitable, in the space of two days I see no less than three fights, one at a hairdresser where a knife (pair of scissors?) is being drawn. Did he dare to complain about his haircut?

How must the place have been only ten years ago, before most of the old city was destroyed and replaced with characterless Chinese white tiled and blue windowed buildings. Every Chinese road seems to be designed to allow an army of tanks to roll through it. As a result of this and the relatively low traffic density, driving in China does not have to adhere to universal driving etiquette. Nobody ever stops for anyone, ever!

Need be six cars can fit in the width of one street so instead of stopping and giving way, one just goes around the other car. Pedestrian crossings exist but definitely don't mean that traffic will stop for you. No, you will be honked out of the way. Honking is a way of life, everything and everyone is being honked at, be it old ladies, children, donkeys or a herd of goats.

The Sunday is reserved for the famous Kashgar bazaar. Although also this has changed since the Chinese government has decided that the old bazaar grounds are to be used for development so the bazaar is now more scattered. The animal market is located further out of town now. Still it's amazing to see all the ware on display and the people who buy and sell. Especially the hat section of the market has our interest. The Americans buy at least 10 of them all together and I wish I had space for at least one of them in my backpack. Beautiful astrakan hats, big furry ones, simple felt ones, they are all wonderful. We draw quite a crowd trying them on.
We take a donkey cart to the animal market. Our donkey cart, families on foot, cyclists and herds of cows and goats, men skinning sheep on the side of the road, everything happens on this road that looks like a 6 lane motorway to me. The animal market doesn't disappoint us. Goats, sheep, cow, donkeys and horses, all is for sale. I even try out one of the horses in the back of the market. Korban, our self appointed guide, takes us to his home not too far from Kashgar, where we get fed by his mom and walk through the orchard with grapevines and fig trees. Korban goes to university in Kashgar and will go to the Minorities University in Beijing next year. Nevertheless when we ask him, Korban admits he would rather have a village girl as a wife than an educated wife. Because they are more 'honest' according to Korban.

Chilling in Tashkurgan
We rent a 'jeep' (which turns out to be a Chinese version of a Mitsubishi Pajero that looks new but already has lots of parts missing or malfunctioning) for a 4 day trip to the uttermost western border of China with Kirgizstan and a few other stans, to Lake Karakul near the mountain of Muztag Ata and a stint to the Southern Silk Road town of Yarkand. Our driver, Mr. Zhou, is quite a character. Born in Urumqi but a Han Chinese originally from Gansu province, he represents for me the archetypical unceremonial and unmannered Han Chinese who the following four days is continuously picking his nose while driving. He drives like a maniac, preferably on the left side of the road. At one point Tim inquires with Josh who sits in the seat next to the driver and has the best view on the road "Is there any reason why he wouldn't be driving on the right side?", "Nope, the lane on the right looks fine to me." Mr. Zhou keeps his hand continuously on the horn and all and everything is honked at, whole families on motor cycles, herds of sheep, a class of school children. It is a miracle that at the end of the four days the death toll only counts one chicken. I would have almost offered to drive the car myself if I didn't suspect that there are loads of bogeys sticking to the steering wheel. He repeatedly falls asleep behind the wheel. We try to wake him up by faking toilet and photo breaks and asking him senseless questions. But Mr. Zhou gets more charming towards the end of our four day trip, when we need to start thinking about the tip!
Interestingly enough, on the fourth day, he all of a sudden stops the car in the middle of nowhere, gets out of the car and blows his nose. This seems to be a direct hint to Melissa, who is suffering from a cold and has been blowing her nose in the back of the car quite a bit the last few days. So nose picking is ok, but blowing your nose not. Actually I knew this already, but it keeps baffling me. Also, blowing your nose between your fingers in broad daylight in the middle of the street is quite ok as well, judging from the number of people I see doing this right in front of me. It almost seems they exactly pick the moment I come by to do this. Please don't, thank you.

The route from Kashgar to Tashkurgan is spectacular. We drive over the Karakoram Highway (or the KKH for die-hard travellers and wannabees) passing the Pamir mountains, Kongur Shan and said Muztag Ata of resp. 7,700 and 7,500 meters. Especially the glaciers of Muztag Ata leave a deep impression. At Lake Karakul we ride camels and horses and visit the horse man's family who live in a low stone house. From the looks of it life is not easy there. These are the winter grounds but it is already freezing cold in early October. The little yak dung fueled stove does warm us a little but the heated area is only small and most of the life takes part outside. We sit on an elevation covered with rugs and eat hard bread which we dip in milk tea and yak yoghurt which is quite tasty. An old biddy moves in a tries to sell Melissa a pathetic looking bracelet for 60 Kwai. Melissa is feels bad about bargaining but we urge her to save our honour and bid no more than 10 Kwai. As soon as Melissa has named her price, our herdsman throws her the bracelet and seems to be telling the old lady to bugger off with her worthless trinkets.

We spend the night in a yurt without stove and try desperately to get warm. The toilet conditions turn out to be among the worst I will ever encounter in China (and that's saying something). It's outside squatting above stalagmites of faeces which smell like a slaughterhouse. On top of that a draft enters the structure, making it virtually impossible to dispose of your toilet paper. Instead the paper flies right up again, in your face if your unlucky.
The next night we stay at Tashkurgan, a stone throw away from Afghanistan, Kyrgystan and Tajikistan. The population is predominantly Kyrgyz and seems more liberal than the Uygurs we have seen so far in Xinjiang. The town is desolate like most Chinese towns but is situated in a beautiful valley and boasts ruins of an unnamed fort from the 13th century.
The hotel we have chosen is absolutely dreadful. Only the third hotel room I am being shown has a remotely clean toilet (= not filled to the brim with poo water). The manager does not seem to be bothered by it. Only by 9:30 pm there finally is electricity but our hot shower never materialises.

Yarkand
In Yarkand we wander around the Uygur streets. Initially we get hostile stares from the men and none of us feels all too comfortable. But once we greet them with "Asalam Aleikum" we establish a connection and the faces break open. I hand out some balloons to kids and next thing we know we have a train of children behind us who want to be photographed continually. We imagine that we see decendants of Alexander the Great when we see a girl that positively looks Irish with fair skin and freckles.
At night after a wonderful Uygur dinner where the owner made us feel more than welcome with photograph sessions shaking hands after dinner, we feast in our hotel on suspicious sounding and looking booze (pommagranate wine, Hami melon wine and a 'Scottish' whisky called Strachnovar) we brought from Kashgar which in the end doesn't taste half bad.

Back in Kashgar we kill some time shooting pool until our train resp. plane leaves. Pool seems to be terribly popular everywhere you go in Western China. Pool tables are lined up on the side walk everywhere I go. Initially we draw quite a crowd of locals around our table but once they see the appalling quality of our game they lose interest quickly.

Continue reading on Xinjiang Part 2