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On the Silk Road

By Tiffany Wong (China Daily HK Edition)
Updated: 2009-05-12 15:05

Kashgar

One night in Urumqi is enough and in keeping with its tradition as a quick stop before heading off elsewhere - in this case, southwest to Kashgar and up toward higher altitudes via China's penetrating railway system.

It looks like an archaeologist's dream: arid mountains, towering geological formations revealing layers of history, followed by snow, streaks of rain on the train windows, back to sandy deserts, ribbons of rivers, and gleaming sunshine upon arrival.

As the westernmost point of China formerly known as "Chinese Turkestan", Kashgar does not have the same level of high Han immigration as Urumqi with only 10 percent of its population being Han nationality. It remains largely Uygur in population, language, culture and Muslim religion, although many inhabitants speak Mandarin and limited English.

They are all card-carrying Chinese citizens, yet they look different : some with green eyes, others with Eurasian ancestry, blonde hair, occidental or Middle Eastern facial features due to thousands of years of migration, immigration and trade.

We settled into a hotel with open ceilings and white tiles mosaics of the Chini Bagh hotel located on the grounds of the former British consulate. A five-minute taxi ride away finds the sounds of "boish, boish!" (meaning "get out of the way" in Uygur) as donkey carts push through crowds at its famed animal market. The Sunday Bazaar which is open throughout the week offers silk scarves, household items, spices, dried fruit stalls, carpets, jewelry, musical instruments, traditional clothing and especially Xinjiang hats.

As one fellow traveler remarked: "Everyone in Xinjiang has a different hat." Locals are not obliged to wear hats, although many of them do out of respect for their ethnic tradition. Women wear elegant headscarves and sometimes colorfully embroidered four-corner hats. Men wear circular embroidered hats (plain white for the Hui; blue, maroon and yellow embroidered patterns for the Tajiks; a tall white hat for the Kyrgyz and a green and white four-corner style for the Uygurs).

Hongkongers would not be disappointed with the selection of unique Uygur cuisine. Friendly locals offer yellow-apricot-like fruit freely while you dig into a meal of "laghman" spice hand-pulled noodles with lamb and greens with side dish skewers of baked mutton kebabs and baked meat dumplings. Various sizes of circular "naan" breads and bagels are haggled for and sold straight out of the oven. No pork, of course, as this is a Muslim place.

This is only a slice of what Xinjiang offers. The city's splendid beauty inspired directors of the 2007 Academy Award nominated movie, The Kite Runner to film on location in Kashgar. Further down the Karakoram Highway, moving toward the border town of Tashkurgan, is the southern portion of the Silk Road. It provides only greater visual, culinary and cultural delights - all within a relatively untouched part of the mainland.

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