12.57 PM Urumqi to Kashgar Express, Xinjiang, China – Images by Jamie McDonald

Welcome to beautiful Kashgar. The oversized billboard in the old town square is not modest in its own description and nor should it be. This is a town that has been on the crossroads of the world for millennia, having seen empires and dynasties across asia, through the middle east and the mediterranean rise and fall as trader caravans crawled through the desert on the silk road.

Time today is brief as a 23 hour train trip to Turpan departs in a few hours, and I’ll make some separate entries specific to the town, the desert, and the Karokoram. But in brief we went out to the Taklamakan desert to spend a couple of days on camels and camping in the dunes, we’ve eaten the best street food I’ve had in China – the entire old town is a smoking charcoal grill, and a small indulgent for me, we went for a drive up the Karokoram Highway – the road to Pakistan, bordered by monster 7000km+ peaks.

To get here and to get up to date we flew from Chengdu to Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang. I confess that after five weeks in China I am getting weary of every cabbie taking me for a mug. Firstly, just use the meter, it’s getting tiring to have that argument, and don’t take me to your friends hotel, take me where I’ve asked to go, and thirdly, I’ve done my research and I know how far, how long, and how much it should cost, so don’t do circles around the city.

In Urumqi once we finally got to the hotel it was quite a disappointment, firstly it was deserted which wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t a 500 room hotel, and I expected Nurse Ratchet and Chief Broom to be around the corner. When the desk staff asked for a 200 Yuan deposit I was skeptical, when they refused to give a receipt for the deposit I was downright furious – after much demanding she relented, gave our money back and we left. The hostel we went to afterwards was on the other side of town and despite it being a bit grubby and overpriced at least it was honest.

The nightlife in that part of Urumqi was actually great with kebab stalls, music and beer down on the water – the fresh Wusu beer out of the keg was one of the best drinks I’ve had since been in China. The hostel sent us off the next morning with a touch of a hangover to the train station to get the ‘express’ to Kashgar – 1500km and 24 hours away. The landscapes along the way were absolutely stunning, switching from a scene from Ireland to one of the Saudi desert, and then snow capped mountains reappear in a matter of just minutes. On my site at the moment I have 15 photos from the train with the timeline of when they were shot in the caption.

Arriving in Kashgar on a Wednesday is an odd experience, we felt that we’d arrived in a ghost town, but within a day the tour buses filled with Han package tourists were arriving, and by the weekend it was absolutely buzzing.

I’ve got to head off now, but I’ll be back with tales of the desert, mountains, highways and this magical town soon.

Cheers

Jamie