After a freezing cold night in Tashkorgan we woke up and found a really surprise outside: Snow. Not only a little bit snowing what you could expect in the middle of June, no a real snow storm.
Somehow it seems that we're really lucky with the weather. During the breakfast we're discussing with Tudajim and Akba, how to organize the day. We need to go back to Kashgar which is a 8 hours drive - without snow. After a couple of teas, cereals with chop sticks and a choice of marmalade we decided not to visit the green (or better: white) grasslands. Wouldn't be fun without the suitable clothing and shoes. And the Tadschiks have most probable better plans than showing some stupid tourists around in the snow.
After passing the highest point of the road the snow went less and stopped at some point completely. The animals were pretty happy about this, because they're already changing from the winter fur to the summer fur. Sure, with temperatures over 0°C you need some convenient fur ;-)
We stopped by an kirgisian family to have a look into a typical hut. Well, to make a long story short, it's not very big, only one room has heating and this heating is fired by yak pooh. We'll not describe the nice aroma inside....
One child policy is not mandatory for the minorities, as we already stated in our Yunnan travel report. All minorities are allowed for two children, if they are farming even three. That's at least the maximum amount of kids in one family you see. The story says, that they live from farming and get some money additionally from the gouvernment. Well, seems to be a pretty tough life anyway.
The way back to Kashgar was exactly the same street as the day before. There is only one. Unfortunately the view wasn't better today.
Well, not exact the same view as the day before. A little bit improvement we could find. But it wasn't nice anyway, now we could imagine even more, what we missed. Conjunctive, how we could hate this form of grammar.....
At the border crossing - have we mentioned it, that you need to pass a border control to get to the Tashkorgan area? I don't think so. Ok, to get into the border area you need some special permission from the government and about 80 kilometers before the real border there is the chinese internal border check. Everybody who is not getting the permission stays out - well, better in China. And where is a border there is a big chance to make business.
The traders are making good business due to the fact, that the street leads to the iron and copper mines and a lot of trucks are passing by. Checking the permission all time, there is a traffic jam from time to time. Talking about copper and iron, Xinjiang is the richest province of China. Not only Iron and copper, also gold and coal is in the mountains, not to forget the biggest oil occurrence in whole China. We were only wondering, where all the money is going to.....
Back in the civilization we had a very large lunch in a uygurian street restaurant with real fresh mutton.
For sure, a organized tour can not miss a tourist selling with original, handmade products from the region. And definitely with the best prices in the whole province. E.g. the Mahjong Set made of jade for only 550US$. A real occasion.
In the hotel in Kashgar we wanted to rest a little while, or should we say: we tried to rest. The whole time there was load music passing by. So we found out that Saturday is the traditional day for weddings. And wedding in Kashgar means to tell everybody that there is a wedding. To tell everybody, the put some musicians on a truck and the whole wedding party is driving through the city. By the way, it wasn't only one wedding this Saturday.
Ok, no rest, so lets go for a walk in the park next to the hotel.
The people here really enjoy the fitness machines in the public. Some smaller uygurs prefer the movement in a more passive way....
On the way back we saw a childrens dance performance. Some people were watching it and also some friendly guys from Beijing enjoyed....
After that we went to sleep quite fast. But the real busy day will be tomorrow. Starting at the tombs, to the animal market to the handicraft street to the mosque to the Sunday market. Wow, this sounds like another story.......
fire ranges...
....are very popular around here, not only for the kids.....
