This column is dedicated to my brother, Joseph Scott. Today is Joseph’s birthday.
Xinjiang doesn’t have the best reputation when it comes to Chinese provinces.
Ask Han Chinese from Beijing, Sichuan or Shanghai what they think and they’re likely to say it’s a dangerous place they’ll never travel to. Their views aren’t completely unjustified, but it’s not as bad as they think. In fact, tell this to Han living in Xinjiang and they’ll be surprised that their brothers to the east would think traveling to Xinjiang is dangerous.
Ironically though, ask a Han what he thinks of Kashgar (the Uyghur heartland in western Xinjiang) and he will give you a similar answer about how dangerous it is. This is what my Chinese boss said when I told him I was going to travel to Kashgar for a week.
Kashgar is actually a popular tourist destination for foreigners and most travelers to Xinjiang will make visiting here a priority. Kashgar’s appeal has a lot to do with its location on the Silk Road. Many travelers looking to re-create the historic journey from Turkey to Beijing end up spending a few days.
Kashgar also is the last large city on the way to Pakistan or Kyrgyzstan and Central Asia. Beside the location, the city’s history and culture draw people from all over the world. The city is a mix of Chinese, Uyghur, Turkic and Muslim.
My first visit to Kashgar had been quite an adventure – nightmare trains, military checkpoints, food poisoning and lots of soldiers patrolling the streets.
This time, my friend was traveling with me, so I told him what to expect. However, as luck would have it, I was completely wrong. The train was not only comfortable but probably the nicest train I had been on in China. The streets still had soldiers and checkpoints, but it wasn’t as bad as before, and we chose our food carefully to avoid food poisoning. Things went smoothly, which is not always the case when traveling in China.
Once in Kashgar, we traveled around the old Uyghur town, saw the Id Kah Mosque (the largest mosque in China) and ate a lot of mutton. The next day, we took a bus up to Karakul Lake on the Karakoram Highway. The Karakoram is the world’s highest international highway and connects Pakistan to China. The lake is about 125 miles from Pakistan and the Himalayan peak K2. At the lake, we spent the night in a yurt with a Kyrgyz family.
Like I said before, everything went pretty smoothly, and it was a nice, relaxing trip. But China always has a way of keeping you on your toes. The trip to Kashgar was easy and uneventful; the trip back to Korla was another story.
Because there aren’t any buses from the lake, most travelers just hitchhike back to Kashgar. I didn’t think it would be too hard, but there wasn’t much traffic on the road. After an hour of waiting, a Uyghur truck driver pulled over and picked us up. He couldn’t speak English or Chinese, and I had no idea what he was trying to say. All I knew is that it had something to do with money.
On our way, we picked up a Kyrgyz family heading to Kashgar to sell some wool. The husband could speak a little broken English, and he translated as best as he could for the driver. The driver had said he wasn’t going to Kashgar, but if we paid him, he would find us a ride. His fee was somewhat expensive, but we didn’t really have a choice and gave him the money. It took all day, but we made it to Kashgar and got ready to go to Korla.
This time though the train was full, and we could buy tickets only on a sleeper bus. Anyone who has ever traveled in China by one of these buses knows they are usually a last resort. The beds aren’t quite beds or chairs, but something in between, which means you can’t really sleep or sit up. The buses smell like feet, and the only air comes from two windows in the front. They also are notorious for being late. This one was six hours late because of checkpoints and because we lost a passenger who went off to the bathroom in the desert.
China can teach you a lot, but the most important thing I’ve learned from living and traveling here is patience. Without it, there is no way I could ride one of those sleeper buses.
David Scott, a 2008 Durango High School graduate, is teaching English in China’s far western province of Xinjiang (New Frontier) in the city of Korla. He can be reached at darysc24@gmail.com.
