Kashgar, where minorities form the majority

After a great, comforable but long train journey through vast plains and deserts, we arrived in Kashgar, in the far western end of China, on Friday morning. It doesn't really feel like China, though: the vast majority of the people here are Uighurs, an Islamic people from Turkic origin. There are also Tajiks, Kyrgyz, Pakistani and here and there an odd Chinese. Most people also dress quite traditionally here: women wearing all sorts of colourful dresses and scarfs, men cheap but rather neat vests with traditional hats and children just about anything that fits them.

We stayed in the Chinibagh Hotel, a rather run-down but cheap and nice enough hotel on the grounds of the former British consulate, where we had a room with airco, TV and cockroaches for 70 RMB. After freshening up a bit, we went into the city, where we got even more enthusiastic about the place: the Friday prayer was just starting, and a lot of people where out and about.
We found the old town, the part of the city that has not yet given way to modernity (/ has not been Sinified), especially charming, with small streets, loads of children cheerfully running around, old women chattering on the pavement and chickens sprinting up and down courtyards, waiting to be slaughtered. It is by the way quite obvious that the Chinese one-child policy doesn't apply here: there are children most everywhere.

The city has a long-standing reputation as a trading post, on the crossroads between major east-west and north-south trading routes. This is most clearly evident in the Sunday market, but also on other days there is a lot of activity: people forge knives, make kitchenware, jewelry or music instruments, weave carpets and prepare all kinds of delicious-smelling food. Of course, we eagerly sampled the local cuisine: we had some of the best chicken we had ever, wonderful mutton-filled buns from street stalls and we ate yogurt with honey, drank Pakistani milk tea and tasted weird fruits.

On Sunday, we went to the Sunday market: a mind-bogging place where literally everything is for sale: clothes, scarfs, kitchenware, jewelry, knives, all kinds of traditional hats, bags, shoes, boots, tools,... There must have been tens of thousands of people, selling and buying, chatting and eating, with salesmen from the wider Kashgar region bringing their goods to the market on donkey-carts, camels, motor cycles, bikes, cars, trucks - anything with legs or wheels, really. It is a million times more charming than your average western-style supermarket!
The other market in town, the animal market, was even more interesting. Thousands of locals (mainly men) were fiercely negotiating the price of a couple of goats, lifting bleating sheep on a cramped back of a donkey-cart, test-driving horses and donkeys and inspecting cows with an expert eye. The peope-to-animal ratio must have been around one to one, making it the biggest animal market either of us has ever witnessed.

When we were in Kashgar, there were very few other travellers. The tourist infrastructure (bars, hotels,...) could easily accomodate a tenfold of the current amount of tourists. This is mainly due to China's visa policy, making it more difficult for westerners to visit China during the Olympics. However, there are also very few Chinese travellers here, probably (from what we heared) out of a media-induced fear for terrorist attacks. (A fear, by the way, that is completely unfounded.)

Tomorrow morning, Monday, we leave early by taxi to the Irkeshtam pass, from where we will cross into Kyrgyzstan. Local travel agencies asked ridiculously steep prices of up to 900RMB for a taxi, but we arranged one for 500RMB. We should, if all goes well, arrive in Osh tomorrow evening.