Women of Kashgar
One of the things which I found endlessly fascinating in Kashgar, China was the variety of womens’ dress. In the photo above, you can see plenty of Uzbek ikat-patterned sik in blue and purple. Every woman is either wearing a long skirt or has leggings on to cover her legs. Yet even as you notice Read the Rest…
The Road to Pakistan: Upal to Tashkorgan
In the Upal market a man driving sheep passed by. We followed him out of the market proper towards the livestock area. There were three or four guys in white coats sitting by the entrance. Odd, I thought. The lady taking entrance fees waved us through since it was pretty obvious that we weren’t buying Read the Rest…
The Road to Pakistan: Kashgar to Upal
There were police checkpoints all the way out of Kashgar. Our taxi was stopped and re-directed off the main (paved) road on to an unpaved side road. The driver was not happy. We were just back on the main road when we came to a Y fork. A Chinese driver was waved through but our Read the Rest…
Markets in Kashgar
One of our reasons for going to Kashgar was to visit the famous Sunday Market. To get there we wandered through the Old Town and happened into the local fruit-and-vegetable market.
An Afternoon Walk in Kashgar
Kashgar, China. We’d reached the city I’d wondered about for months – reading and learning about its’ history as a trading post between East and West, Chinese, Pakistani, and Central Asian traders for hundreds of years. I wanted to get out, walk around and see for myself. Murph decided to come along too but our Read the Rest…
Western China Yardangs and Handynasty Great Wall
This is a Yardang. A what? I hear you ask? A Yardang is a desert rock formation carved from thousands of years of sand and wind erosion. They look freaky. This one is about three stories tall. I’m so glad I could share that with you, now you won’t have to take a hot, dusty Read the Rest…
Two Weeks In Western China
This is the map I used to describe our intended China itinerary in my brief “Phase III: China” post in early April. What I didn’t mention at the time was how nervous I was about visiting Western China. Pick a concern (food, language, hygiene, transport, possible ethnic violence) and I’m sure I wound myself up Read the Rest…
Monks and their Cell Phones
At Monk Chat in Chiang Mai, the monks were much more interested in getting a photo of CAM than of BigB. It turns out that BigB just had to wait for his moment of glory: these monks in Labrang Monastery, China couldn’t get enough of his freckles and blue eyes. Head on over to DeliciousBaby Read the Rest…
The End Of The Ming Great Wall
We took another train (well, two actually) on our quest to get from Xiahe onto the Silk Road proper. We spent a brief night in Zhangye – where Marco Polo lounged for a year – and met one lone other Western traveler braving the vagaries of the Chinese train system on the platform. He left Read the Rest…
Labrang Monastery and Little Lhasa
We arrived in Xiahe on Mother’s Day. Given that we left Beijing at 6am, traveled by plane, bus and then another bus to get to this remote town on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau – and arrived before dark – I’d say this ranks as a pretty good Mother’s Day 🙂
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