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I spent most of the day traveling. First, I took a three and a half hour flight from Beijing to Urumqi. That's about the same distance as flying from New York to California.
China 2001 - Part Three: Kashgar
Dougburnett2003-11-24 10:03:29
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I needed to go to bed - I was planning on getting up at dawn to visit the Sunday market. I inquired about our missing companion and was reassured that he was ok. It was then that I realized he might have drank too much. I made his friends promise to go find him. I then crossed the street to my hotel and went to bed.
Kashgar, Sunday, September 9
I got up while it was still dark and headed out to see the famous Sunday market. When I got there it was just getting light and still quite chilly. I wished I had worn a jacket, but knew it would soon warm up. The street was already full of donkey carts, bicycles, taxis, trucks and pedestrians. A few vendors were already set up, some selling firewood and others vegetables.
As I walked along several trucks loaded with ice passed me. I wondered where the ice might have come from. The dirty chunks were huge and looked more like they had been cut off a glacier than frozen locally - was that possible?
Down the road I stopped at a walled compound the size of a football field. At the entrance a man was charging a toll for the animals being herded in. Inside it was crowded with great wooly camels, long horned yaks, black restless donkeys and lines and lines of passive, bleating sheep. Meanwhile, men were unloading more sheep from a truck.
I had to watch every step - the ground was muddy and strewn with animal droppings. Also, I thought it best to avoid walking directly behind the larger animals. To add to the confusion, the tourist photographers were doing a delicate little dance trying to keep out of each other's way. Much to my surprise the locals were quite tolerant of the clicking fools and occasionally even posed for us.
Outside the compound I saw that more people were arriving all the time. The street café's were full of people having breakfast and the air was full of the smoke
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See photographs from:
China Gallery
