When I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure the itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever ad now that I am 58 perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked... In other words, I don't improve, in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is uncurable.
-John Steinbeck

Kashgar and the Karakorum Highway

Where shall I start to describe my trip to Kashgar? I think I will start at the beginning. Not because it's particularly interesting, but because I had over an hour to wait for my train and scribble some notes.

I had left the house early, in anticipation of the unexpected. But, given the circumstances, I was well prepared for this trip. The first hurdle was the taxi, and I had 'train station' written out in both Chinese characters and pinyin. I even had a picture of a train!

Arriving at the station, I passed through security and wandered up the stairs to a large waiting room. My ticket had already been purchased, so I knew the train number, my car number and my sleeping berth. When a large group of people stood up near my departure time, so did I, and there was the train, pulling up outside.

It is approximately a 12-hour ride from Korla to Kashgar, and it was already after midnight when I began. So with few preliminaries, I settled into my berth and click-clacked off to sleep.

In the morning, I alternately read and looked out the window (pretty desolate landscape). A young girl (4 or 5 years old) was in the same compartment, and we amused ourselves by drawing pictures back and and forth on my notepad.

The train reached Kashgar a bit after noon, and I caught a taxi to the Seman Hotel (formerly the site of the Russian Embassy) Hoping the name didn't refer to stained sheets, I checked into a 6-bed dorm room, acquired

a map of Kashgar, and set out.

The vast majority of the population in this city is Uighur, a Muslim minority that bear no physical resemblance to the Chinese. Indeed, wandering through the city it felt as

though a surreal blending had occured between Morocco and China. Signs were written both in the arabic script and in Chinese. An outdoor stand

selling kebabs was overshadowed by a massive statue of Chairman Mao.....

My first stop was the bazzar, one of the largest outdoor markets in Asia. Everywhere I looked, scenes of interest were being enacted.

Smells ranging from spices to goats set the appropriate olfactory background.

Heading back to the hotel, I stopped at the travel agency in the lobby. First, I needed a return ticket to Korla 4 days hence. Second, I wanted to know the cost of arranging a trip to Kurakul Lake (a scenic spot on the Karakoram Highway linking China with

Pakistan).

So, the next morning I checked out of the hotel (no one else had slept in the dorm, so I'd had the 6-bed three-room accomodation to myself). After a couple hours of wandering through Old Town, I returned to the travel agency where a taxi and a fellow-traveler from Korea were waiting.

The itinerary was a drive up the Karakorum Highway to Tashkurgan (near the Pakistan border), and then a return to Kurukul Lake for an overnight stay. As we left Kashgar, the mountains began. First the foothills, and then the towering snowcaps that this highway is famous for. We passed the occasional village of mud and stone, but by and large this was isolated country. We saw more yaks and camels than people.

In Tashkurgan we visited the old stone city, and then began the drive back to Kurukul Lake. Here my non-English-speaking Korean companion I stayed in a one-room stone hut with a Kyrzyk family. And, oh boy, we must

have timed it just right to arrive on Yak Night.

First we were offered yak butter tea with fresh bread. Next, fresh yak yoghurt. And the entree (cooked on a stove fueled by yak dung) was yak meat and noodles. Yak yak yak has a whole new meaning for me.

The altitude at the lake is about the same elevation as the peak of Mount Rainer, so it was a cold evening. But the stars were amazing. And layers of carpet and rugs made for warm sleeping.

In the morning I took a three-hour camel ride around the lake, and we then began our retrun ride to Kashgar.

I picked up my train ticket for the following day (no sleeper was available), and wandered off to a new hotel. There was nothing wrong with Seman's; I just wanted to check out another spot. The Chini Bagh Hotel (formerly the English Embassy) was located near Old Town and right next door to a Western restaurant, the Caravan Cafe. I HAD PIZZA FOR DINNER!!!! They even sold shots of absinthe imported from the Czech Republic. And more exciting still, the Cafe had a shelf of English books. Regretably, they would not sell me the John Irving book I discovered. I was informed that the books were only for reading on the premises. So I returned the next morning, had a coffee, and bought it then. Different staff; different rules.

I wandered through the alleys of Old Town for several hours. At one point a child was playing with a yo-yo. I took her picture, and gave her a thumbs-up for her skills. At her suddenly dismayed look, I remembered that thumbs up has an entirely different meaning in China than it does in Arabic countries. And in Uighur settllements? Who knows...

The train back (from one in the afternoon until one-thirty in the morning) was long ride. But my seat-mate spoke enough English for a 12-hour conversation, and the journey left my new John Irving book undented. For the last half hour before arriving in Korla I did some magic tricks, which entertained about half of the car crowding around my seat.

Arriving at Korla I told the taxi the name of my compound, and hooray he understood. I was prepared to say KFC (and even draw a picture of the Colonel), knowing that that he would have to drive past my home enroute to the chicken franchise.

It was an exotic trip. Just what I wanted. And even if I have been too lazy to properly describe its subtleties, maybe the picures will afford you a glimpse.