I arrived in the distinctly more Muslim city of Kashgar via a sleeper train in the afternoon of the 19th. People speak a lot less Mandarin and a lot more Uyghur (a Turkic language complete with squiggle style writing). Don't ask me how to pronounce Uyghur.
Since trains in Xinjiang are much slower than the rest of China (due only having one track and the use of diesel locomotives), I only had half a day to explore Kashgar. The city itself isn't very big though and I managed to fit everything in. I showed some cultural tolerance and visited the city mosque, supposedly one of the biggest in the world, there wasn't a "sermon" so I didn't see that many Muslims.
After my brief foray into Islam, I checked out the old city. Hippies and Lonely Planet editors harp on about how Han Chinese developments are going to wipe out the old city altogether, but the government has now stopped bulldozing the old city and a fair portion of it still remains, at least enough for you to look at it and be wowed by how their houses don't fall over after a healthy sneeze or a docile shower.
The rest of the sightseeing was somewhat lacklustre with a trip to the tombs of the local royal family when Kashgar was a prosperous city-state, and then a visit to the bazaar, where Uyghur and southern Chinese merchants fight to get you to buy their stuff, half of which is fake, and didn't even have any fake Rolexes (Rolexi?), or watches where Chairman Mao waves his hand :(. Sorry Thomas.
Oh yeah.. there is a People's square with a huge Chairman Mao statue, but I felt a bit religious after visiting the Mosque and decided that it wouldn't be right visiting Mao after going to a Mosque. Afterall, Karl Marx did say "Religion is the opiate of the people".
The next day was much better, left the hotel bright and early to embark on a journey 150 odd kms in length, and 4kms in height. The brave taxi driver picked me up in a stock standard Volkswagen Santana (don't ask me about the name, I'm sure Chinese people have never heard of Carlos Santana) with bad suspension and a totally wasted CV joint. I thought the vehicle was going to be at least a Pajero, oh well.
The first 5kms outside Kashgar was OK, and then we hit road works on the Karakorum Highway, according to the taxi driver, there are non stop road works because the government keeps giving funds for it. The next 3 hours were very bumpy, dusty and generally kept me on the edge of my seat, I almost had to get out of the car and push. The crapness of the car ended up not being entirely a bad thing as I have a tendecy to fall asleep when the ride is comfortable, and you don't really want to fall asleep at anytime on the way to lake Karakul, the scenery changes constantly and is absolutely stunning.
You start off with a few trees, receding to barren desert and wasteland, then the foothills of the Panmir moutains suddenly spring out of nowhere, and you have big rocky hills, the hills are multi-coloured depending on the content of the minerals inside the rocks (chiefly red, black and grey). Before you know it, a few snow-capped peaks appear, and the vertical journey starts. After a kilometre vertically, you hit a grassy plain and a lake (not Karakul), which seems totally out of place compared to the bare mountains around it. The taxi driver stops for a nap, I go for a walk and am immediately greeted by Kirgiz hawkers trying to sell me rocks that I can pick up on the ground. Another kilometre or so, there's another unnatural feature, a lake (again, not Karakul) with a moutain of sand (possibly a dune) next to it, some goats, donkeys, Kirgiz and Tajiks. The view from here on becomes a bit more predictable, Kongur peak and its nine surrounding peaks become more and more visible, and eventually you seek another peak(I can't remember the name, its too Pakistani) opposite Kongur peak and of course the lake itself.
The views around the lake are absolutely stunning, although I decided to be cheeky and not pay the RMB50 admission fee (its natural scenery! I shouldn't have to pay to see it!), so some attention was diverted to looking out for people on motorbikes accosting people for their tickets.
If anyone ever comes to Xinjiang... come to Kashgar, you can see other parts of Xinjiang in New Zealand.
Friday, July 22, 2005
Saturday, July 16, 2005
Northern Xinjiang
Since the last update, I've been running around North Xinjiang taking in the views, gobbling down kebabs. The ones on skewers, not the Doner variety in pita bread. Kebabs here are much more preferable to the ones in NZ due to the absence of vegetables and bread. The usual companion to 20 skewers of kebabs is either fermented horse milk (not as bad as it sounds, it tastes just like really really really sour runny yoghurt :D), or kwass - a central asian / russian brew of hops and honey, its actually really nice despite the fact that when you think about it, kwass ends up being sweet beer...
Anyway the altitude in northern Xinjiang is about 2000m above sea level, so most of the scenery here is either grass or really tall pines and pine related trees. The first couple of days involved trekking around this nice alpine lake near the China/Kazahkistan/Russian border, the views are simply amazing to the average Chinese tourist since they've never seen such clear water, blue skies, so much grass and trees. Due to the lack of photographic evidence at this stage, I can only say that the place looks kinda like fiordland, swap native bush for pines and firs, swap the fiords for a lake and thats what you get in north Xinjiang.
Accomodation is abysmal though... no showers(i wasn't brave enough to skinny dip in the lake), small log cabins, and an outhouse (squat style!) to do your business.
On the subject of squatting, I think I now have stronger thigh muscles from increased amounts of squatting in the last couple of weeks.
Then it was onto eastern Xinjiang, firstly to the multicultural city of Yining (or Ghulja) with a similar mix of ethnic Han Chinese, Kazakhs, Mongols, and Turks. You have to be slightly careful being Han Chinese here, about 8 odd years back some suicidal Turks blew up some buses and killed some Han Chinese here, my heavy-handed government came in and made things slightly better, there didn't seem to be any visible tension between the ethnicties from what I saw though. Anyway, activities around Yining invovled a horse trek around a large grassy plain ending up with a visit to a Kazakh family's yurt, sampling fermented horse milk, and exciting the locals with my digital camera.
Next stop, southern Xinjiang, to Kashgar and from there to lake Karakul on the Chinese-Pakistani border. Hopefully I won't get altitdue sickness, lake Karakul is supposedly 4000 odd metres above sea level.
Anyway the altitude in northern Xinjiang is about 2000m above sea level, so most of the scenery here is either grass or really tall pines and pine related trees. The first couple of days involved trekking around this nice alpine lake near the China/Kazahkistan/Russian border, the views are simply amazing to the average Chinese tourist since they've never seen such clear water, blue skies, so much grass and trees. Due to the lack of photographic evidence at this stage, I can only say that the place looks kinda like fiordland, swap native bush for pines and firs, swap the fiords for a lake and thats what you get in north Xinjiang.
Accomodation is abysmal though... no showers(i wasn't brave enough to skinny dip in the lake), small log cabins, and an outhouse (squat style!) to do your business.
On the subject of squatting, I think I now have stronger thigh muscles from increased amounts of squatting in the last couple of weeks.
Then it was onto eastern Xinjiang, firstly to the multicultural city of Yining (or Ghulja) with a similar mix of ethnic Han Chinese, Kazakhs, Mongols, and Turks. You have to be slightly careful being Han Chinese here, about 8 odd years back some suicidal Turks blew up some buses and killed some Han Chinese here, my heavy-handed government came in and made things slightly better, there didn't seem to be any visible tension between the ethnicties from what I saw though. Anyway, activities around Yining invovled a horse trek around a large grassy plain ending up with a visit to a Kazakh family's yurt, sampling fermented horse milk, and exciting the locals with my digital camera.
Next stop, southern Xinjiang, to Kashgar and from there to lake Karakul on the Chinese-Pakistani border. Hopefully I won't get altitdue sickness, lake Karakul is supposedly 4000 odd metres above sea level.
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Xinjiang
I'm in the extreme northwest of China now in a province called Xinjiang (literally New Border), after a stop-over in Mei's hometown of Wuhan where I did the obligatory visit to Dong Hu (East Lake), and "Yellow Crane" Tower. Apart from visiting the tourist spots one other highlight was having a meal for under $NZ1, I was also forced to utter Mei's famous words "So Cheap!". Of course it wasn't my choice to have the meal at that particular restuarant (it was actually more of a stall, offering full meals), the Taxi driver place me there promising clean, healthy and tasty meals would be delivered. The meal was none of the things he mentioned... but hey it was cheap and I'm still alive :D
Another thing... I can actually see blue skies in Xinjiang!! There is very little pollution here, and dust storms tend start from here and blow into China. If it wasn't so damn hot here (40 degrees today) I wouldn't mind actually spending my whole trip here.
Anyway.. the idea is that the next week or so is spent here looking at various scenic things and mixing with the local Kazakh, Islam and Turkish cultures, oh.. and eating obscene amounts of meat (its a regional religion for all cultures involved). My gym instructor and I are going to hate myself after I get back :(
Another thing... I can actually see blue skies in Xinjiang!! There is very little pollution here, and dust storms tend start from here and blow into China. If it wasn't so damn hot here (40 degrees today) I wouldn't mind actually spending my whole trip here.
Anyway.. the idea is that the next week or so is spent here looking at various scenic things and mixing with the local Kazakh, Islam and Turkish cultures, oh.. and eating obscene amounts of meat (its a regional religion for all cultures involved). My gym instructor and I are going to hate myself after I get back :(
Monday, July 04, 2005
Macau
This is another SAR (Special Administrative Region) of China, it was returned later than HK and was owned by the Portuguese from about the late 1400s.
Its really the poor cousin of Hong Kong having had negative economic growth until very recently when it was returned to the Motherland. Unlike Hong Kong though, a lot of the Colonial buildings still exist, and Portuguese-styled buidlings aren't all that bad to look at. The tourist locations here are slightly less crowded, as most Chinese tourists only come to Macau to goto the Casino, I was actually able to get a good shot without the masses of people in most of my photos of Macau.
Its really the poor cousin of Hong Kong having had negative economic growth until very recently when it was returned to the Motherland. Unlike Hong Kong though, a lot of the Colonial buildings still exist, and Portuguese-styled buidlings aren't all that bad to look at. The tourist locations here are slightly less crowded, as most Chinese tourists only come to Macau to goto the Casino, I was actually able to get a good shot without the masses of people in most of my photos of Macau.
Saturday, July 02, 2005
Day ???? - Hong Kong
Left for HK from Guangzhou this morning on an express train (goes at 200kph) for the China/HK border city of Shenzhen, then we took the light rail right into the heart of Hong Kong.
Day 1 in Hong Kong involved wandering around the island, taking numerous photos of tall buildings, loving the fact that the toilets weren't squat ones anymore. Still hot as hell (35 degrees), but one of the good things about Hong Kong (island) is that you can almost walk from one end to the other (not that I did), without ever leaving an air-conditioned building for more than 10 seconds. They've got all these neat little bridge things between each skyscraper. Obligatory tram trips were taken as well as other "touristy" things. I made it up to one of the highest points on Hong Kong island by evening by way of cable car, this one in Hong Kong is far longer and steeper than our piddly little one in Wellington. There's a few nice scenery shots I took from here, I'll eventually shove them up somewhere :)
Day 2 - HK isn't really that big, unless you take in to account the New Territories which didn't really have that many attractions for me (just little fishing villages, rice paddies, i.e. stuff I could see in China anyway). So, I decided to be a real Chinese tourist and visit Ocean Park, your run of the mill theme park with an obvious Ocean theme :P. Watched the obligatory dolphin and sea lion show, there were very few non-lame rides apart from the rollercoaster (any Gold Coast theme park beats it hands down), although one of the rides gave a good aerial view of the south side of Hong Kong island. After a gruelling 6 odd hours at Ocean park I decided that it maybe a good idea to go and buy a certain camera for a certain person, as I was going to leave HK the next day. Took the ferry back to Kowloon Peninsula and proceeded up towards Mong Kok the electronics district in HK, dear god there are so many shops up there, you even see two shops of the same franchise on opposite sides of the streets. Anyway, after about 4 hours of walking around, haggling, lying and generally being deceitful just to get the prices down, Andrey now has a brand new Canon EOS 350D. On the way back, I lined my stomach with a few choice delicacies from the street stalls... no... I didn't eat any cats, or dogs, or rats.
Day 1 in Hong Kong involved wandering around the island, taking numerous photos of tall buildings, loving the fact that the toilets weren't squat ones anymore. Still hot as hell (35 degrees), but one of the good things about Hong Kong (island) is that you can almost walk from one end to the other (not that I did), without ever leaving an air-conditioned building for more than 10 seconds. They've got all these neat little bridge things between each skyscraper. Obligatory tram trips were taken as well as other "touristy" things. I made it up to one of the highest points on Hong Kong island by evening by way of cable car, this one in Hong Kong is far longer and steeper than our piddly little one in Wellington. There's a few nice scenery shots I took from here, I'll eventually shove them up somewhere :)
Day 2 - HK isn't really that big, unless you take in to account the New Territories which didn't really have that many attractions for me (just little fishing villages, rice paddies, i.e. stuff I could see in China anyway). So, I decided to be a real Chinese tourist and visit Ocean Park, your run of the mill theme park with an obvious Ocean theme :P. Watched the obligatory dolphin and sea lion show, there were very few non-lame rides apart from the rollercoaster (any Gold Coast theme park beats it hands down), although one of the rides gave a good aerial view of the south side of Hong Kong island. After a gruelling 6 odd hours at Ocean park I decided that it maybe a good idea to go and buy a certain camera for a certain person, as I was going to leave HK the next day. Took the ferry back to Kowloon Peninsula and proceeded up towards Mong Kok the electronics district in HK, dear god there are so many shops up there, you even see two shops of the same franchise on opposite sides of the streets. Anyway, after about 4 hours of walking around, haggling, lying and generally being deceitful just to get the prices down, Andrey now has a brand new Canon EOS 350D. On the way back, I lined my stomach with a few choice delicacies from the street stalls... no... I didn't eat any cats, or dogs, or rats.
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