The next morning, after that starry night, we hiked around the lake filming lambs and goats. We figured we had time to play around; the redneck Chinese truck driver had told us that he would probably be coming back sometime in the afternoon, so we cleaned our stuff out of the yurt and climbed back …
In the farthest West of China After we found a driver, we milled around for half an hour, eating pilaf for lunch while we waited for the pick-up truck’s other passengers to gather. It was around eleven o’clock, Xinjiang Time, by the time we left. The redneck Chinese guy driving our pickup gathered several other …
We were trying to leave Kashgar for a lake on the Karakorum Highway, the world’s highest international highway, where we would camp out at Karakul Lake, just sixty miles from the town of Tashkurgan. Not sure where we could hitchhike from, we had originally wanted to take a bus there and hitchhike back. I went …
Previously, we did a Faces of Kashgar that took a look at what Kashgaris looked like, to give readers a visual sense of what it felt like to be in Kashgar. Now, we’d like to go back to that, with some of the fantastic portraits Galen did at the Eid al Fitr celebrations
The morning after Eid al Fitr, we were preparing to leave Kashgar for the Karakurom Highway. As we tried to upload photos and send out emails, our internet slowed to a crawl and then stopped completely. This was not unusual. Though we were using VPNs to navigate around the Great Firewall of China, we were …
Here are some photos that we were not able to fit into the article on the End of Ramadan (and a few that we wanted to throw in again). Note that these photos are more of a mix, as far as who shot them. Galen and I each had cameras, as did our friend Josh, …
They will not allow us to dance tomorrow. For five years, we have not been allowed to dance to celebrate Eid al-Fitr.” – Uighur Tour Guide commenting on religious repression. Since riots in 2009 in Urumqi, the Chinese government has severely restricted religious expression. Though the government has not ended the sermon at the …
Kashgar’s Urban Planning Museum was tough to get into, but it was worth it. Hidden behind the staid language of historians and economists and a skyscraper-speckled diorama was a story of the death of Kashgar. China has a slew of these Urban Planning Museums. Normally, each museum has a section acknowledging that city’s inevitably glorious …
Yesterday I did a post on our visit to the Afaq Khoja Mausoleum. A few months ago, the New York Times did a story on the same Mausoleum. Their story did not completely jive with what we saw, though, I would still recommend reading it there. The author of the Times story suggested that bus …
Continue reading ‘The Gray Lady at the Afaq Khoja Mausoleum’ »
In Chinese, it is called the Fragrant Concubine’s Tomb. In Uighur, it is called the Afaq Khoja Mausoleum. The difference says a lot about the problems in Xinjiang. Afaq Khoja was a political and religious leader based in Kashgar in the 1600’s. His teachings started a brand of Islam, and his family remained influential in …