Yuexin Hotel Kashgar

... op een brommer, gek gezicht.<br><br>Een half uurtje verder belanden we in Crazy Kashgar waar onze gids ons dropt bij een hotel met een prima parkeerplaats. Douchen mogen we alleen als we ook een kamer nemen en de wens voor een warm douche is wel zodanig groot dat we zowaar in een hotel slapen ;-)<br><br>Pehp, tooot, meh, it&#8217;s a busy crazy town! And it&#8217;s fun! Alles rijdt en loopt dwars door elkaar heen: auto&#8217;s, stille brommers, tuk-tuk-achtige taxiwagentjes ...

... by, but this time Michael locked eyes with the soldier wielding his machine gun in our direction, and spontaneously waved at him. To our surprise, the soldier&#8217;s face melted into a smile &#8211; a real, genuine smile &#8211; and he nodded briefly but warmly at us before returning to his stoic position. It was a sweet moment that seemed to last longer than it did in reality, and I thought to myself, politics aside, we are, in the end, all humans in this world, aren&#8217;t we?

... adventure arriving in Kashgar from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, gave us some tips on the biggest mountains to see on our own forthcoming trip into the 'stans. The owner was a really open bloke from New Zealand who told us about his China travel and business in Xinjiang - and how difficult it was with the bureaucracy, lack of communciations (no internet, sms or international calls), lack of power, petrol rations and drastic drop in tourism. We helped out by ordering a ...

... to check out the town. We started by walking down to a famous Mosque. Along the way, we noticed the Ughyr population looked very different from the Chinese. Their appearance runs the gamut from white-skinned European (maybe Italian) to Russian, to Indian, to a characteristic dark red skin/face and Russian features that characterize most of the Ughyrs (called &#8220;Mahn&#8221; by the Han Chinese) who live in the surrounding villages and not in the city centers.<br><br>We wandered ...

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... called Svetlana. And apparently all Svetlanas come with "Bride of Frankenstein" personalities. We never did meet a truly ferocious Svetlana but&#8230;.<br><br><br><br>Brightened up by the prospect of obtaining some money the next day, we decided to look for some shops where we could buy some bread and beer. Fortunately for our money supply, we were not feeling well enough to buy a meal. Finding a shop that sold beer was more difficult than we thought though. But just like our ...

... Friends we met later on our trip explained that the Chinese authorities always give the drivers a very difficult time because there are Uighur. It should of course have been quite obvious to us that we were once again entering Xinjiang Province and with a largely Muslim Uighur minority population desperately wanting independence, Chinese authorities are highly sensitive to its geographic proximity to neighbouring Muslim countries. We were assured by our ...

... the most hostile environment imaginable and with absolutely nothing in sight. The border buildings were dismal concrete blocks with no heating and staffed by equally dismal looking officials. Vita carried with her newspapers for the staff that not only gave them some welcome reading but we suspect it also facilitated our path through the Kyrgyz side of the border. An officious man took my good pen and didn&#8217;t return it. I was getting angry but decided this was ...

... of our budget. We had already spent our alloted money, but when Dan read me the Lonely Planet section about the Old City we decided to take the plunge, even though the price had gone up from 10 yuan listed in the book to 30 yuan each now. To put it in context, that was sixty yuan we could translate into several days' worth of breakfasts or a few days of dinner. "We don't want a guide!" Dan told the man for the fifth time, raising his voice. "But you might get lost ...

... deduced, it must be for poking patterns in the naan bread. Inside the market, at the front, a few aisles of tourist wares delayed us for awhile in the afternoon, but we also explored the well-organized pavilions in the back, selling hardware, building supplies, clothes and other necessities. Not quite tired enough, we walked back to our hotel and past the Kashgar Old City, a walled-off mud-brick city-within-a-city. It would be our destination for tomorrow, before the train to Turpan.