Overseas Chinese Hotel Kashgar

... ben er nog sprakeloos van&#8230;<br><br>We hobbelen en stuiteren nog een hele tijd door totdat we 5 km verder bij het volgende hek komen met een hele grote Kirgische man in een groen pak, paspoort checken en doorhobbelen&#8230;Het gaat voorspoedig, te voorspoedig?<br><br>Door de stofwolken heen zien we een hele lange rij wachtende vrachtwagens opdoemen, die we uiteraard besluiten te passeren. Bij het hek aangekomen blijkt dat de juiste tactiek want we mogen gelijk door het hek waar ...

... was harder than coming in. That high pass reminded me of why I swore I would never go into altitude again. As my head pounded relentlessly, I spent the next hour and a half focusing on not throwing up. To complicate matters, the air conditioning had broken down, so until the darkness set in, we were all bouncing along the treacherous roads in a pool of collective sweat. But the views made up for it &#8211; the sun setting over the Pamirs seemed to turn everything to ...

... to the mosque since the riots in Kashar had originated there, was fairly quiet, with a few Uighers sat relaxing on the outside walls and a couple of camels posing for tourist photos. The weather was clear and hot, which meant that many of our walks were punctuated with stops for tea, water and rest. We chilled out in the park, observing the locals' ping pong and card games and mused over why a group of soldiers were carrying piles of books out of the park library ...

... day after the disturbances and flew through the epicenter of the conflict&#8212;Urumuqui. <br><br>Because we remained within the hotel grounds, we have little visibility on what is going on outside the hotel and cannot report first-hand on what really went on in Kashgar. According to the local television station, a few protestors were arrested after a demonstration near the Mosque. <br><br>If the Ughyr people have a problem with the central government, we can certainly sympathize with ...

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The last truck driver Mr. Ke told me that the 460 km between Aksu and Kashgar there are only three small villages. In between these villages are barren deserts. There is a cement factory on the outskirts of Aksu and many trucks depart for Kashgar from there. The dusty and hot cement factory has a lot of trucks flying by. We wait by a small soft drink stand and it seems we're the only customers this poor girl has. Each time a ...

... colourful trading history and a melting pot of exotic peoples, faces and cultures. We found it was easy to lose ourselves in time as we explored the Old City and back lanes of this extraordinary city. <br><br>For us it was good to be back in the city we came to love so much.<br><br>Of course the bank at the first border check point was closed and so was the Bank of China in Kashgar when we finally arrived late in the afternoon. We then found out that our up market International ...

... would be unable to cash money - before travelling onto Pakistan. We also knew that we would have to pay in cash our Chinese guide and our hotel bill in Tashkorgan, and of course bus fares, food and so on. All our accommodation from Kashgar to Pakistan was booked and we were committed to our pre-arranged travel arrangements. It was an awful situation made worse by the knowledge that there was not one thing that either we or our driver could do about the endless ...

... logistics. Without written confirmation and a driver we would not have been allowed to cross the border and in a 70 km wide No Mans Land Zone some 300 kms from the nearest town, it would be a miserable way to spend any time at all. We were reminded of a story about a group of Dutch backpackers who did not have their correct paperwork. They exited Kyrgyzstan only to find that they were not allowed to enter China and spent some weeks in the freezing and hostile No Mans ...

... through the cows to the donkeys on the far side of the large brick-wall enclosure, past the wall seemingly designated for the public toilet, and over to the lambs and sheep. We were constantly in the way--a donkey brayed wildly and rushed at us, a truck full of lambs started unloading its cargo over our heads. I kept my scarf over my camera when I wasn't taking pictures to keep it clean-ish, but soon our faces and arms were covered in grit. On the right side of the animals ...