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We had an early morning flight out of Urumqi (pronounced “Oo-Room-Chee”), and four and a half hours after takeoff we landed in the other Shanghai airport — Hongchiao — north of the city center. We got instructions on which bus would take us to the Metro, and we easily found our way back to Patrick and Tina’s apartment in the western French Concession. Patrick was there to greet us and wanted to hear all about our adventures but careful not to let us get too carried away because Tina would want to hear all about it as well later at dinner.

I managed to download all 750 pictures from our trip West, as well as the 350 emails, before we headed out to dinner at a neighborhood Sichuanese restaurant — a last trip on the spicy side, although Patrick warned us that it wouldn’t be “true” Sichuan” food because the spiciness would be throttled back for the Shanghai palate. Still it was fun and spicy enough:

–Sliced pork belly in sauce
–Vinegared cucumber skins
–Crispy rice and seafood
–Stir fried wild mushrooms
–Stir fried green beans and red peppers
–Mapu Tofu, cubes of tofu braised in a red pepper sauce
–Hot stone oil fried beef

and because Patrick (of course) new the owner and said hello, we got an extra dish of Hot Stone Oil Fried Shrimp. The Hot Stone Oil technique is just what it sounds like: the waiter brings a basin of VERY hot oil to the table with stones in it (to keep the heat I suppose), and then vegetables are added to the oil, along with green pepper corns (still on the vine), and then the meat (the beef was loose, the shrimp were on skewers). It makes for quite a show, and a delicious result.
Continue reading “Initiate Re-Entry” →

At this point I’m sure my readers are a bit confused…didn’t we just visit the Kashgar Sunday Market? The market one tourist remarked that, “The Sunday Market is fresh and vital, with a kaleidoscope of colours. There is a wonderful profusion of ethnicities”. And of which another tourist said is “…vibrant, pulsing, almost unbearably joyous,” and which caused a third tourist to admit “I want to have an orgasm over the whole world,” That Kashgar Sunday Market? Well, yes and no.
Continue reading “Doorstep To The Moon 2” →

We enjoyed the sights, smells, sounds and people of the Kashgar Sunday Market. Kashgar is as far away from an ocean as any place on the planet, and just down the road (about 100km) from Pakistan.

Before we traveled to China, I used to tell people that the most “exotic” place I had ever visited was Israel and the Sinai desert because, although there were familiar elements (especially in Israel), I really felt we were on the doorstep of Asia and another way of living from what I knew. I looked forward to visiting China to finally step across that threshold and begin to understand another culture. Shanghai, despite it’s sky scrapers and fast food restaurants, granted my wish, and more. But more than two thousand miles later I felt on the edge of yet another threshold, to what I could not imagine, yet something was palpably *there* beyond what I had already learned about China in our short stay. Am I that far removed, I thought to myself, from understanding how large portions of mankind live? If so, how do I best describe Kashgar?

First, it is in the center of Central Asia : at the western edge of China where Xinjiang Province meets Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Kashmir region still being fought over by Pakistan and India. It’s as close to the Mediterranean Sea as it is to Beijing. It’s an ancient Silk Route trading post on the western edge of the Taklamakan Desert that separates it from the rest of Xinjiang Province where travelers stopped to prepare for their dangerous trek around this most forbidding obstacle separating the riches of the West from those of the East, or where they stopped to celebrate a successful crossing from the East. It retains the spirit of being an important hub where the world comes to buy, sell, and barter. The city’s graphic symbol is the pomegranate tree, and it’s a wellspring of the Uighur culture where they still make important Uighur products — knives, water kettles, lace hats, string instruments, silk fabrics — by hand, and grow and process much of their favorite foods in the surrounding small farms where 90% of the 3.5 million residents of the Kashgar prefecture live. While Turpan showed some direct Han influence on the Uighur people, the only recognizably Han part of Kashgar was a giant statue of Mao overlooking the main square.

We arrived with little knowledge of the city, only snippets (a *fascinating/hilarious* link!) that we had read about on the web, and the bare list of sites we would visit in our trip itinerary. Most of what we knew about the area came from “Beyond The Great Wall” where Duguid and Alford mention it only as a jumping-off point for their bike ride (!) to Pakistan via the newly opened Karakorum Highway linking Kashgar to Islamabad. The one recurring note was that we must visit the Kashgar Sunday Market…
Continue reading “Doorstep To The Moon” →

Chapter 2
(Go to Chapter 1)

The next morning we met Ahmad and Mr. Chou at the breakfast buffet (Ahmad had melon, Mr. Chou a bowl of “gruel”), then checked out of our hotel on schedule at 9am and piled into the minivan. “After dinner Mr. Chou spent two hours last night in line at the only open gas station in Turpan right now,” Ahmad explained. “This is one more thing that frustrates me: Xinjiang provides China with 35% of it’s oil and natural gas, and yet the people of Xinjiang benefit very little from it.”

We turned onto the main highway and headed east away from Turpan back into the desert with the Flaming Mountains to our left glowing in the early morning sun. Half an hour later we turned left and headed into gap in the mountains, winding our way up the back sides until we stopped in a newly built but empty parking lot. We were handed tickets, presented them to bored attendants (who had been playing basketball when we pulled up), went through the turnstiles (“Sheh sheh.”) and then followed Ahmad down a stairway. After descending for a few minutes we came around a sharp turn and saw a series of caves up and down the hillside with stairs leading to each one from a main plaza.
Continue reading “Raisins In The Sun, 2” →

(Click here to see our Picasa album of this story.)

Dawn was late.

We woke at 7am in the Huozhou Turpan hotel (“four star!” according to our tour guide) and it was still dark out, barely a hint of light in the eastern sky, where the sun didn’t appear until 8am. Our room overlooked the only lake in the Turpan region, an artificial pond surrounded by cement in a park in the center of the city. Dominating the skyline across the pond was the Tuha Petroleum Hotel, the only “five star” hotel in Turpan, and also the offices of the region’s largest commercial employer Sinopec.

Our room was pretty nice despite the rock hard beds (like barely padded plywood on top of some springs); it would compare well with any quality hotel room in the US, which thankfully meant a western pedestal toilet. (I think “four star” really means “private bathroom with shower and pedestal toilet.”) The buffet breakfast was Han Chinese — corn porridge (labeled “Gruel”), stir-fried vegetables and/or noodles, bao buns, and lots of sliced fruit — disappointing only because we had loved the Uygar dinner last night and looked forward to more of it. But that would come.
Continue reading “Raisins In The Sun, 1” →