Sightseeing and believing

As soon as you step off the train you know there's something different. And, indeed, many Chinese people had warned me not to go to Xinjiang at all so alien was this region to them. They said that it’d be too cold– down to about minus twenty in mid January. They also explained that the people there were different – “barbarians”, no less – and I’d probably be attacked and robbed.

You don’t take advice like this lightly. But I’ve learnt that most Chinese people have barely travelled beyond the boundaries of their own province let alone to the further reaches of their vast country so their knowledge of faraway places is based on little more than hearsay and rumour. Strange too: I heard the “barbarian” description from several different people as though it’s something they’ve actually been taught.

Well they were right about the cold: it virtually froze your face off. But I didn’t get robbed, attacked or even threatened. In fact I had quite a nice time really.

Xinjiang is an ‘Autonomous Region’ similar to its southern neighbour, Tibet. China’s largest, driest and coldest province, it’s about the size of western Europe and shares borders with Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. Its people are ‘Uighurs’, racially and culturally more Turkish than Chinese.

Since 1949, ‘Han Chinese’ – the majority ethnic grouping in China – have migrated to the region to balance the Uighurs. But, despite the official language being Mandarin, every sign is written in both Chinese and Arabic script; all traders speak both languages but seemed pretty reluctant to use Mandarin whenever I tried to strike up a conversation.

Language is one thing that sets Xinjiang apart from “mainland China” (as a tour guide described it to me). The other thing is religion. Uighurs are all Muslim to a man and wherever you go you’re never far from a mosque of some description. The Kashgar Idgah Mosque can hold 20,000 and throughout the old town you stumble across many many more tiny mud coloured ones tucked round every corner.

Strange though it is to see religion so overtly practised in China, don’t get the idea that this is some enclave of total religious freedom. A travellers’ café set up by some Americans a couple of years ago was shut down very suddenly when it emerged that the owners were Christian evangelists. Talking to a local, it was explained to me that tolerating Islam is one thing but that doesn’t mean a carte blanche for other religions. Tolerating one religion is do-able but having the potential for competition between different ones is not something the authorities want to get into.

The evangelists are everywhere though. In fact, many of the English teachers I know here are Christians who make little secret of their faith. And, to be fair, many Chinese students are desperate to find out more about Christianity. This, of course, seems odd to me. Personally, I think freedom means questioning religion and rejecting mystical mumbo jumbo; but new-found freedom for the Chinese means enthusiastically embracing it as something completely new.

Funnily enough I was on the receiving end of evangelism in the Pakistan Café next to my hotel. I have to admit that bespectacled, bearded and baggy trousered Aljammet initially made me feel uneasy (talk about stereotypes...) but we ended up having a good chat about the meaning of life and Islam over a chapatti and fried egg washed down with delicious sweet milky tea. I was converted to chapattis for breakfast but not much more.

Food was probably the highlight of my trip to Xinjiang. Unfortunately because of the ice and snow many of the places I wanted to visit – like the lakes of Tian Chi and Karakul – were inaccessible so I only got to see the three cities of Urumqi, Kashgar and Yarkand. Well, “see” is actually an exaggeration. The capital – Wulumuqi or ‘beautiful pastures’ in Chinese – was submerged in a smoggy soup so that you couldn’t see a bloody thing.



Talking of 'pastures', it’s said that those around Kashgar are unusually dry and salty which means that the sheep and goats which graze there effectively season themselves before they’re slaughtered. So, while there isn’t a great variety to the food available, the unique taste of Kashgar meat jammed onto huge metal skewers more than makes up for it. It even made me feel sorry for vegetarians. Silly arses.

It took 24 hours to get to Kashgar from Urumqi (that following a 48 hour train journey from Chengdu to the capital – and you thought everything was big in Texas). Historically a key point on the old Silk Road, Kashgar is still a heady mixture of nationalities long after the camel trains stopped passing through. But mid winter is probably not the best time to do the sights here.

Described in the guide books as a “riot of colour” and the “must-see attraction in the whole of Xinjiang”, the Kashgar Sunday Bazaar was a bit of a let down in the snow and the smoke and the slush of a chilly January day. Dogs and cats shivered miserably as they were haggled over, tails resolutely between their legs; donkeys stood stoic as icicles formed from the drool of their mouths; and people huddled together more for warmth than to jostle for position in front of the open stalls selling huge hunks of meat or semi-frozen sweet potatoes.

In Yarkand – a four hour drive along a treacherously icy highway littered with upturned minibuses and SUVs that had taken one risk too many – I swapped snow for desert (though the cold was just as bitter) to get a tiny feel of what the Silk Road trek must have been like all those years ago. But to be honest I just felt like a complete plonker. This poor camel had to be dragged kicking from its stall as it screamed in Camelese "But it's off-season!" before being mounted (is that the term?) by a rather self conscious English tourist and led around for fifteen minutes by an equally grumpy camel owner. Boy, you should see the photos: this one is of some sand, this one is of some more sand and, oh, this one is of... you get the picture.

My guide then took me to the Cemetery of Kings in the centre of Yarkand. Many religious sects and schisms have grown up over the centuries and some pray to the remains of previous rulers although this is considered pure idolatry by the mainstream. As everywhere in old Kashgar there was a kind of Dickensian mist hovering everywhere, a smoky fog in an uniformly earth-brown landscape. Buildings, trees, people, everything was burnt umber. Through the fog we passed fantastically old men crouched among the tombstones, faces scoured and eroded by time, beards all gone to seed. One carried a dead chicken to be offered to some spirit or other while another raved mystical predictions about my tour guide's past, present and future. And about his father's. All in all, it was an insight into Xinjiang's medieval past I'd not been expecting.


There was so much more I wanted to see and do in Xinjiang but time was against me. With Spring Festival approaching the whole of China was about to mobilise as everyone returned to their hometown. Even so, I still managed to leave things too late: all trains out of Urumqi were booked up for three weeks solid so I had to fly back to Chengdu (on a ticket costing three times more than it had a week before). It was one of those holidays where you find yourself lying when someone asks you "How was your holiday?" and you feel obliged to say "Yeah, it was great!". You could say it was "an experience" and an interesting one to be sure. But I think next time I'll come in the summer.

More pics at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=88432&l=2db4c&id=589175623