Travels with Kathryn

Another day, another blogging session on the bus… We are on the road from Aksu to Markit so we are heading into the Taklamakan desert. So again, we start with scrubby bush and the odd huge solar farm.

We have just had a police checkpoint/toilet/snack/shopping stop. It even had ostriches- we were not sure why?

But lets use this time to learn a little about the Taklamakan desert. It is the second largest shifting sand desert in the world (after the Sahara) and is 337,000 km2 (around the same size of Germany) and its name may be an Uygur borrowing of the Persian for “to leave alone/out behind”, but folk law says it means: “The Point of no Return” (hopefully I will come back?!). The Silk Road crossed at its Northern and Southern edges to Kashgar – caravans would stop at the Oasis towns and on the Northern route these were Kuqa and Turpan ending in Kashgar (like me).

We approached the city of Markit (populatin 235,000 of which 85% is Uygur, 10% Han Chinese and 5% Tajik) and after a lunch stop visited The Desert Exploration Memorial Hall. Now the name is probably not indicative of what this actually is – you are thinking a learned and authentic experience perhaps? No. Its a courtyward of Silk Road bronze repicas and then a very small museum mainly focussing on stuff that got knicked by “explorers” to this region.

There were even a group of local Uygurs (one can never work out whether this is a government enforced activity or a nice little earner) who performed a traditional hunting dance. Whilst the older gentlemen leading the singing (Grandad perhaps?) was somewhat pitchy, the dancing is effectively sedate walking with the odd arm/hand twirl. I have a lot of time for it.

Our itinerary then stated that we would “explore Kumikisa Village and then take our own ‘ships of the desert’ – the camel – and ride into the desert to enjoy the remote beauty of this area.” Erm, nope. So, this being China I expect an element of turning things into tourist traps and theme-parking, but this was something else. We pulled through massive gates to a “Tourist Centre” and were then transferred to buggies about 200m into some sand dunes (probably made when the centre was built as they did seem to run out very quickly) and from here there were any number of options: mini trains, quad biking, sledges and of course camels. I am genuinely still processing the whole thing as opposed to my expectations…

But, I did ride my camel (a whole 20 minute loop) in the Taklamakan desert – two hump camels are far more comfortable than one hump. Importantly the camel meant I didn’t have to climb any more sand dunes and I could pretend that I was not roped tegether in a line with my fellow tourists and was actually on my very own silk road adventure…

We are now driving into Markit and have just passed a massive complex which, according to the maps, doesn’t exist… I have travelled to a number of authoritarian countries (think Turkmenistan), including previously to the Tibet Autonomous Region within China, however, I am more aware here of the amount of serviallance. Not just for tourists (although that is pretty heavy with the constant passport checks and visible police), but also for local people – for example, every crossing in every city we have travelle through has a police checkpoint and CCTV photographing every vehicle. As much as I love China and I can see the many advantages of China today, this is one of the sides I do not like very much.

We reached our hotel at 6.30pm and today’s interesting room offering is a giant massage chair. Obviously we both spent sometime playing in it and whilst the massaging element was nice, the squeezing was very much not so. We dined in a typical Uygur restuarant and I emembered to take photos:

Tomorrow we take our last long-ish bus journey (guess where I am writing this post?) to Kashgar which is our final destination on the tour. It has been interesting to take the route less travelled, and we have seen less and less Western tourists (although I expect this to change in Kashgar). But in recent days it has become very obvious that China is creating a single Chinese-mono culture aong the Silk Road so, unlike in other countries, it becomes harder to see how cultures and ideas varied from China to Central Asia and onward…

Finally, the answer’s to yesterday’s quiz question (countries that begin and end with the same letter that is not an “a”): Solomon Islands, St Vincent and the Grenadines, St Kitts and Nevis, Central African Republic and Seychelles. A note to family members: I can not yet fully read and respond to your comments, but remember the quiz master’s decision is final.