Reporting from Kashgar

Tomorrow we leave China for Kyrgyzstan for one day then into Tajikistan for about 6 days. During this time we are not expecting much if any Internet for blog posting. I will be however writing a post every day as we go along which I will post as soon as we get Internet. At times I may only be able to publish the post and not get it emailed out to you all so if you have not heard from me just click on the blog and see if I’ve posted some new stuff and photos. Until the Internet returns this is the Kashgar report.

Day I

Kashgar is a very busy town for international tourist as it’s the cross roads of the northern and southern Silk route.

We have a 2 day stop here as we had made up a lot of time crossing the desert in that past few days. Yesterday morning was car service morning for the other cars and Alim took us to the service centre for the BYD dealership. BYD stands for Build Your Dream. As Peter is a excellent Radiologist and a not so good mechanics I went with him to help service the Peugeot. When we got it on the hoist we changed the oil and checked out all the underside of the car. We found that he had a slight crack in his fuel tank so we drained that and fixed it with quick metal putty and all seem to fine now. Garry’s Landcruiser needed some welding on the exhaust and Frank’s Willies needed some brake-fluid but nothing major for any of the cars.  We left there after a couple hour working with the local Mechanics with no common language, a car wash and a bill for about $40.00 each.

After lunch the rest of the group when out looking around the town. I how ever was feeling unwell and tired so decided to retire to my room for a rest. I must have got something really bad in the morning because the rest of the day was spent with the worst tummy bug I’ve had since Kathmandu in 1976.

Day 2

Today is market day in Kashgar so the first stop for the morning was at the animal market just out side town. This is the market to buy and sell you animals from sheep to Camels plus purchase any supplementary food for them as well. After the animal market, taxis were a bit thin on the ground out there so we headed back in town in the back of little 3 wheel electric carts things.

Once in town we headed to the town market or what would be best described as a Bazar. The range of produce at this market was as diverse as any Bazar around the world. Alim said your can buy anything at this market other then Roosters Milk! I guess that a Chinese expression.