[Posting this from Turpan, 3 days after writing. All is still well.]

I’m currently on board the train from Kashgar to Kuche. I’m in the dining car and have been watching episodes of “Prison Break” that I downloaded last week when I was in BJ. Meanwhile, my friends are still hanging in our assigned (hard) seats several cars up. This train isn’t as nice as the Z trains I’m used to, but isn’t all that bad either. The nice thing about it, is we are supposed to arrive in Kuche at 11:30p Beijing time, which is only 9:30p Xinjiang time. Off topic: Xinjiang time is quite confusing to me and almost caused us to miss our train. The locals use Xinjiang time when conducting their daily business (hotel checkout is 2p), but insofar as things like train schedules are concerned, BJ time is the only time that matters.

The scenery is desert with an occasionally sand dune here and there. Groupings of trees seem to pop up every 40 miles or so. The majority of my fellow passengers seem to be Han Chinese who went to Kashgar for work or study. Most are going to be on this train for a long time (some all the way to Urumqi; some will transfer in Turpan and continue east.

The rest of my time in Kashgar

I spent the first part of yesterday visiting semi-famous mosques around Kashgar. While those places were definitely worth seeing, my feeling towards temples and the like is that you check them, you take in their unique qualities, and you leave it at that (obviously, I’m not really the art history type).






Next, I checked into the 4-person room at the Seman Hotel my friends had reserved. Like the Qiniwa, the Seman consists of a nice building and a rundown building. Our room was in the latter, of course (y240 plus they subsequently nabbed y40 of my deposit because they claimed we damaged the drapes and sheets; with no time to argue, I considered it a tip). The room was definitely nicer than my room at the Q, but I think I prefer the Q because it felt less cavernous.

My friends (two of whom, I hadn’t met previously) showed up at around 7 and we decided to go to a nice place for dinner because one of them had birthday to celebrate. We also brought along their tour guides, in part because the birthday boy was smitten by the female guide. The restaurant certainly looked fancy (fish tanks, nice lighting, and pictures of famous Muslem landmarks throughout) and it seemed clean.

We let the locals do the ordering. The first course was a bowl of yogurt that I found difficult to consume. Next, there was pilaf, which I then learned was called 抓饭 in Chinese; the meaning is that you’re supposed to eat it with your hands. Uncomfortable with this idea, I requested and used chopsticks. Everyone else used their hands, which was just as messy as it sounds. Incidentally, it wasn’t even half as tasty as the pilaf I had for lunch (reported earlier). But, the bill was reasonable, only y20 per person. After dinner, we walked the female guide back to her dorm at Kashgar Teacher’s College, which she claimed was 5 minutes away; it wasn’t.



But, during the course of that walk (which entailed two crossings of the same river), we had the opportunity to take in a Bellagio style water show on South Lake. I gather a celebration was in progress (possibly having to do with May 4, a significant day in PRC history).

This morning, the same guides brought us to the bazaar so we could buy stuff. Predictably, the most senior guide kept trying to steer us towards his friends’ stalls, but to his chagrin, we pursued other vendors that were easier to lowball.

While the bazaar is big, product variety is relatively limited. The most popular items are rugs, tapestries, knives, and spices. In particular, there were hundreds of vendors selling Pashmena scarves. I don’t think these were real because the logos were inconsistent, however, what gives me pause it that were so many.









In the end, I bought 50 grams high quality saffron and a really nice bedspread. I went straight from the market to the main post office to mail these items to the US; I spent more on postage (sea mail) than on the goods themselves.

BTW, I started writing this over an hour ago (took in a passable train meal during the process) and the view is pretty much the same as reported above, but we did pass through a miniature sand village. I just saw a car as well.

Brp: I will try to get some pictures up after I get back to BJ.