Kashgar 2
Peregrine description: Day 12 / 13 Learn about the history of the area today with a visit to the Tajik Museum and the nearby Stone City – an ancient fort on the outskirts of town. You’ll then meet a Tajik family and spend time enjoying a meal together. Tajik...
Tea in a Yurt on the banks of Karakul Lake
Our local guide stood at the front of the bus and waxed lyrical about the lovely new road ahead. It had been built to replace 2 previous roads and cut the journey from 6 hours to 2 hours. Part way along this lovely road we had to turn off and use the old road...
Upal Village Market
We left Kashgar with a full day’s driving ahead of us climbing to altitude of 4000m (12000 feet). First stop was Upal Village market. It was a very dusty traditional market with people bringing in their produce by donkey. The women were dressed immaculately as...Mausoleum of the fragrant concubine
Breakfast in the Hotel opened at 9am (Beijing Time which is 7am local time but there is only 1 timezone in China). We then headed off to see the second largest Mosque which also has the Mausoleum for the ‘fragrant concubine’.. look up the story 🙂 . The...
Tashkurgan
Peregrine description: Day 11 Travel by to Karakul lake via the little town of Upal this morning (approximately 5-6 hours). The Upal country market is a great place to stop off to stretch your legs and browse through the food and daily supplies on sale. Next stop is...Kashgar Stories Sunday Market
We went to the Kashgar Sunday Market which is the biggest in Central Asia. It was filled with colourful cloth, tea, spices, carpets, dried fruit and nuts.. We bargained our way around the place, tried all sorts of foods and tea and had a great time. We all had...
More Kashgar Animal Market stories
It was pretty sad to watch how scared the animals were but I wanted to look at what we do as meat eaters. We are prepared to buy packets of meat from a supermarket, but are we prepared to look at the whole process? The market was packed, there were carcasses hanging...
Kashgar Animal Markets 1 – food stalls
Kashgar Animal Markets 1 – food stalls We then headed to the animal market – it was a little smelly, but no more than Alice Springs Show. It was crowded and chaotic. We had to watch out we didn’t get in the way. These photos are of the food vendors...
First evening in Kashgar
Kashgar has been the most exotic town so far. It has a real middle Eastern/Western China feel to it. The local women wear bright colourful clothes and the men wear suits and their Islamic hat. The men have dark leathery skin and white beards. They say that only the...
Kashgar 1
Peregrine description: Day 9 – 10 A long drive today takes you from Aksu to Kashgar (approximately 6 hours). Kashgar is very much a frontier town, quickly developing to take advantage of its geographical location right in the heart of Central Asia. There are...
Aksu
We left Kuqa and headed towards Aksu where we will stay overnight on our way to Kashgar. Just our of Kuqa was the Subash Buddhist temple. This temple was visited by the monk who ‘Monkey Magic’ is about. He wrote a factual book about his journey and...
Aksu
Peregrine description: Day 8 Visit the Kuqa Great Mosque and then stop off at Subash Ancient City ruins on the drive to Aksu (approximately 2-3 hours) today. Aksu is located in a picturesque place at the Tien Shan foothills on the border with the Taklamakan Desert....
Kuqa and the 1000 Buddha Caves
We drove out of Kuqa to visit the thousand buddha caves. Most of the frescoes were removed by the Germans in the 1920’s but enough remains for it to be quite incredible. No cameras were allowed, and who am I to argue with an armed guard? On the way to the caves...
On the road from Korla to Kuqa
It was a long drive which should have taken 3-4 hours but instead we took 9 hours travelling through the Taklamakan Desert. Delays occured firstly because of the constant roadside Police checks. Sometimes they waved us through, sometimes they opened up the door to...
Kuqa
Peregrine description: Day 6 -7 Today travel from Korla to Kuqa via the mighty Taklamakan desert (approximately 3-4 hours). To break up the journey you will stop in Luntai for lunch, as well as for some photo stops at the edge of the desert. The Taklamakan, also known...
Foreigners in Korla
Today we made the long drive from Turpan to Korla across the Taklamakan desert. The city has a different feel to Turpan. This region has an abundance of coal, gas and petroleum. Even though we are in the middle of a vast desert, construction of roads, railways and...
Korla
Peregrine description: Day 5. Travel from Turpan to Korla (approximately 5 hours). On your way to Korla you’ll stop at the Iron Gate Pass. Historically the Iron Gate Pass was of strategic significance because it formed a vulnerable bottle-neck on the Silk Road....
Turpan Day 2
Here are the photos from Day 2 in Turpan. Tomorrow we head to Korla. This morning we travelled 70km to Tuyak village. It’s a Uyghur village where about 70 families live in a traditional way. The Flaming Mountain range has 7 valleys and this village is situated...
New best friend in Turpan
Here’s my new friend I met at the Buddhist Caves near Turpan More Posts Easy WordPress Plugin Management and Bulk Upload | WPCore.com How To Remove Sidebars From Divi | Elegant Themes Blog How To Become A Successful Divi Web Designer – Full Series –...
Fun day in Turpan
Population 630 000 – 78% uyghur, 20% Han Chinese, and the rest a mix of 27 minorities. We arrived to our lovely Government Hotel in Turpan. Everything is luxurious and clean and fresh. This is a relief after Urumqi. The first thing we did was look for a lunch...
Across the Desert to Turpan
I had a really great day today. We drove out early for the 2 hour journey across the desert to Turpan. The landscape was grey and shaley. Mountains were in the distance either side of us. We passed through masses of windfarms for over an hour of driving. There...
Turpan
Peregrine description: Day 3 – 4 Today you will travel from Urumqi to Turpan (approximately 2 hours). The Turpan Depression is second only to the Dead Sea in Jordan as the lowest point on earth, and it gets quite hot here. It’s a small city by Chinese...
Goodbye Urumqi
After an early morning walk around the streets of Urumqi saying goodbye to the cigarette smoke and pollution haze, I went back to the hotel for breakfast. It turns out that other people in my group had a bad night with some of the young staff living it up and being...
Gas mask, torch and prayer mat
My hotel room in Ürümqi is well equipped with a torch, prayer mat and gas mask. I Sent from my Samsung Galaxy...
Armed guards at toll gate… Xinjiang
Beijing to Urumqi and Security steps up
ecurity is ever present everywhere you go in Urumqi. There’s at least one Police building every 100 meters. When we entered the hotel we had to pass through a metal detector then get patted down. This happens every time we enter. Then we headed off to a restaurant… guess what? Metal detector and pat down! Super market?? Yep metal detector, pat down, scan with a hand held metal detector just for good measure.
Urumqi, Xinjiang
Day 1 and 2
Trip itinerary for May 2017
Here’s where I’m going to be in May – map updated to show all the neighbouring ‘Stans’ May 1Sydney May 2-5Beijing, china May 5Urumqi, Xinjiang, China May 7Turpan May 9Korla May 10Kuqa May 12Aksu May 13Kashgar May 15Tashkurgan May...
Trip 16 Leaving in 2 weeks
I will be travelling for the whole month of May. After a few days in Beijing, where I will be staying in one of the old Hutong districts that are being mostlly removed to make way for progress, I fly to Urumqi. Urumqi is in the NW Xinjiang district which borders the...Best Wordpress Hosting
