Sleeper Bus

There are several flights a day from Kashgar to the provincial capitol of Urumqi in the North. The flight is about 1 hour long and costs about $100. Looking back, it all seems so reasonable.

But, at the time, I had just finished reading two interesting books about crazy Westerners traveling around China by road (China Road by Rob Gifford and Country Driving by Peter Hessler). And after meeting all the other travelers in Kashgar, I was really gung ho about "traveling the Silk Road by land", whatever that means.

The first leg of my Silk Road journey would be a 26 hour bus ride to Urumqi.

I guess one week in Kashgar was long enough to make me forget how much I hated being cramped up in that stupid Land Cruiser.

In China, long distance bus routes are often serviced by "sleeper buses". Instead of seats, the buses are equipped with three rows of bunk beds. Each passenger is given a bunk to lay on for the duration of the trip.


I boarded in the afternoon and would be arriving in Urumqi the following afternoon. The other passengers were mostly Uygurs with a few Han Chinese mixed in. I was the only foreigner.


Part of the allure of bus travel in China, is that you are traveling among the common working class people, as opposed to an airplane full of Chinese yuppies. You get to see things you don't normally see back home... A big Chinese guy taking his shirt off and making himself comfortable in the bunk one over from you... Another Chinese guy asking to swap bunks with you for a bit, so he could smoke a cigarette by the bus window... Uygur children comfortably napping on the bus floor aisles...

One Uygur woman would periodically kneel up on her bed for her daily prayers.


We drove for many hours. Traveling along the northern edge of the Taklamakan Desert, one of the most inhospitable regions in the world, we passed through a variety of desert landscapes. Reddish mountains, desert sands, rocky crags...

Towns were few and far between, the only other vehicles on the road were trucks transporting goods to and from Kashgar. Every so often, we would stop in the middle of nowhere for a bathroom break or to grab a bite to eat.



Perhaps I was spoiled by the scenery in Tibet, but the scenery grew old after a few hours. I tried to pass the time by reading books on my Ipad and taking naps. The bed was comfortable enough and I got a full night's sleep. But even after 8 hours of sleep, there are still eighteen more hours of travel time to account for!

Before I knew it, my Ipad battery was drained and I lay on my bed listlessly staring out the window. At least I wasn't on a camel.

As afternoon approached, we passed oil refineries and vast wind farms. Soon we would be in the western metropolis of Urumqi, a Chinese boom town in the middle of the desert.

Kashgar

Having traveled around China for the past year, over time, the big Chinese cities start to blend together... The drab concrete architecture, the endless strips of convenience stores, diners, and cell phone shops, the sea of Chinese people going about their day-to-day business...

So getting to explore Kashgar for the first time, in all its diversity, was a breath of fresh air.


From the signage written in Arabic script, to the bulbous mosque rooftops, to the street side naan vendors, everything was new to me.

Most interesting were the people.

Xinjiang is home to 13 official ethnic minority groups. Besides the Uygurs, other prominent ethnic groups include the Kazakhs, the Tajiks, the Huis, the Kirgiz, and a bunch of others that I previously never knew existed.

In terms of appearance, they range from standard Han Chinese-looking, to Middle Eastern-looking, to never-seen-anyone-that-looks-like-that-before-looking. And everything in between.


Occasionally there would be an otherwise Chinese-looking person with bright green eyes or a cartoonishly husky beard. Or a Caucasian-looking person with red hair and rosy cheeks, but slightly Chinese-looking eyes.

People who, in other parts of China you would just assume were tourists, but here in Xinjiang were dressed as locals and conducting their day-to-day business in fluent Chinese. I had read that in Chinese cinema, particularly Caucasoid -featured Uygurs were often cast to play the white people roles, but had never been able to fully conceptualize it... until now.

I actually found it easier to communicate in Mandarin with the Uygurs than I have with actual Han Chinese people from other parts of China. Perhaps because they learn it as a second language and speak a more standard version of it, speaking in a slower more deliberate tone and with less of a local accent.

At the same time, the streets of Kashgar were typically Chinese in many respects, filled with people and bustling with commerce.


As I do in every new Chinese city, I tried all the local street foods I could find... lamb liver kabobs, lamb lung kabobs, lamb samosas, a popular cold noodle and lentil dish, and a variety of yogurt drinks. I tried "Big Plate Chicken" for the first time, a well-known chicken and potato dish local to Xinjiang.

I went to the Sunday Livestock Market, where ranchers from all over the region come to sell their livestock, like a swap meet for goats and cattle. Coming from a country where we get all our meet from a factory, it was an eye-opening experience to see a cute little goat get slaughtered for the first time.


I explored the alleys of "Old Town" Kashgar, currently being preserved and renovated, to be promoted as a tourist attraction.


Similar to Lhasa, there is also a growing Han Chinese part of town. I went to the mall there to replace the hard drive for my laptop, and it may as well have been any other city in China with nary a non-Han Chinese face to be found.

Kashgar was recently designated a "Special Economic Zone" by the Chinese government. Businesses there will be granted certain economic incentives, the hope being that it will expedite economic growth and industrialization. The ultimate vision of Kashgar from the government's point of view, is as a multicultural hub of commerce for all of Central Asia. Newsweek recently published an article about dubbing it "A New Shenzhen".

I imagine, over time, as investment flows into the city, the Han Chinese part of the city will grow and Kashgar will become more and more "Chinese".

I can't say that this is necessarily a bad thing, because as it stands Kashgar and its surrounding regions are among the poorest and least developed in all of China. It would be hypocritical of me to decry the industrialization of Kashgar, while at the same time enjoying the relative luxuries available there like fast internet access, hot showers, and getting my laptop fixed at the snap of a finger.

At the same time, I am glad I got the chance to experience Kashgar rather than some nameless Chinese city.

Crossroads

Our next stop was the city of Kashgar, an historical oasis town and a crossroads on the old Silk Road. Our journey through Tibet had drawn to a close and I was left with the decision of where to go next.

Kashgar is out in the middle of nowhere. It is surrounded by huge expanses of desert and mountains, bordering a few Central Asian nations that most Americans have probably never heard of. It's historical relevance dates back to a time before there were trains or airplanes, when Silk Road merchants and adventurers would stop here to rest their weary bones or restock their camel caravans for the long trek around the Taklamakan Desert.

We couldn't help but feel a bit of pride at having finally arrived, having just traveled one of the most remote and desolate regions of the world, by Land Cruiser no less. We were like modern incarnations of the Silk Road heroes from centuries past...

Imagine my surprise, after settling into our hostel in Old Town Kashgar, at seeing a familiar face... A Japanese girl that I had met in Chengdu that had also been planning to travel to Tibet and had, in fact, just traveled the same road we did!

Only she did it by herself... Traveling illegally without a tour group... Having hitchhiked most of the way!

Not only that, but the next day she would be catching a bus to Pakistan. Again by herself, all 5 foot, 100 pounds of her!

I asked her if she thought it would be dangerous? If she was worried about the Taliban? She just giggled at me.

In these parts of the world, hearty adventurers come in all shapes and sizes.

Later while dining at a western cafe, we came across a large group of German and Swedish travelers. They were comprised of five smaller groups that had originally corresponded through the internet. They had all traveled individually by car from Europe through the Middle East to India, where they had met up. Then traveled as a caravan through Nepal and Tibet before arriving in Kashgar.

They had made the journey over the course of months, sleeping out of their vehicles when necessary. They had required a police escort when traveling through Pakistan and a tour guide through Tibet. Currently, they were waiting for their permits to drive through Kyrgyzstan, from which they would head to who knows where.

A pair of 22 year old German kids, just out of the military, had made the journey in an enormous red Mercedes Benz firetruck with a giant yak skull affixed to the hood.


A Swedish couple in their 50's was traveling out of a modified Land Cruiser, with a state of the art trailer attached to the back. They had just sold their business and were living out their dream of driving around the world. After traveling through Central Asia, they planned to double back through Mongolia, drive south through China and Southeast Asia, and then have their truck shipped to Australia so they could drive around there.

"We'll look you up in America in about four years," said the Swedish man, smiling but only half joking.

Later in the hostel, I met yet another amazing traveler, a Canadian guy who had traveled to Kashgar all the way from southeast China in Shenzhen by bicycle! Equipped with only a couple small bags of luggage strapped to the back of his bike, he had been traveling for months. And he planned to follow the Silk Road all the way up to Europe.

I have often found, that when traveling off the beaten track, that the travelers you meet are just as inspirational as the locales. These certainly weren't the type of people you would meet with great frequency in Beijing or Shanghai, let alone Irvine.

When I had arrived in Kashgar, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do next. I was a bit travel weary, my group had disbanded, and my friend Naz was flying back to the US. The first world indoor plumbing and stable internet of Macau beckoned to me.

But the group of people I met in Kashgar helped make the decision for me. When was the next time I would be in this part of the world anyway?

After spending a bit of time in Kashgar recharging my batteries, I would head east along the old Silk Road toward the ancient Chinese capitol of Xi'an. I would do so alone and, in the spirit of the ancient Silk Road travelers, would do so by land.

Into the New Frontier

Emerging on the other side of the Kunlun Mountains, mountains gave way to desert and soon we found ourselves in Xinjiang.

Although a part of China, in much the same manner that Tibet is, Xinjiang shares more in common with Central Asia than with the rest of China.

In the southwest, Xinjiang borders the Central Asian countries of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The people there are primarily Uyghur. Their ethnic and cultural roots are Turkic rather than Chinese. Their script is Arabic, their customs and clothing heavily influenced by Islam.

I had seen Uyghurs throughout China before. They are often found in bigger cities, selling amazing lamb kabobs at street side food stands.

But arriving in Xinjiang for the first time felt like being in a whole new country. As we pulled into the first small village, my eyes were agape as my brain processed all the new sights and sounds. Donkeys pulling carts down the main road... Street vendors selling freshly baked naan... Women covered in burkas... Bearded old Uyghur men wearing western suits with stylish round Muslim caps...


We sat for lunch at a roadside eatery, Islamic music from the local mosque blaring in the background, dining on fresh hand pulled noodles and mutton. I've never been to Central Asia before, but in my mind, this is what I might have imagined.

Arriving in the first major town of Karghalik, our Tibetan tour group was thankfully disbanded. My friend, Naz, and I set about on our own to explore the city. We strolled around the local night market, sampling the street food and people watching.


Now Karghalik is quite a ways off the beaten tourist track. Far removed from any major tourist attractions, on the map it looks like just another non-descript town in the middle of nowhere. In fact, during our time there, we did not see any other tourists. What's more, the locals seemed so unaccustomed to foreigners, that they were just as amused with us as we were with them.

Naz, who is a second generation Afghan-American, was practically granted celebrity status. Every few minutes someone would approach and ask, with me acting as interpreter, where she was from and whether or not she was married. At one point, as we were eating kabobs and chatting with the locals, a random Uyghur man came up and handed her his baby.

Later that evening, a Uyghur kid invited us to dine at his family's restaurant. Before we knew it, another crowd had gathered around us. While Naz was given yet another baby to hold, I showed the children pictures from my Ipad. We stayed until late in the evening making smalltalk and joking around with the kids.


What on the map had looked like just another non-descript town in the middle of nowhere, ended up being one of the best nights of our trip.

Can you guess which one of us below is not Chinese? (Hint: it's the one with the hideously sunburned face)

The Xinjiang-Tibet Highway

The Xinjiang-Tibet Highway is the only road that links Tibet to Xinjiang, the province directly north of Tibet and the final destination of our itinerary. For days we had been hearing rumors that the road was being shut down for construction and they were not letting anyone through.

As we were leaving Guge Kingdom, we got confirmation from a group of tourists that had just come from the north that the road was indeed closed for construction at the border. They were only letting pedestrian traffic through on the 1st, the 11th, and the 21st of each month. Otherwise they were just letting military vehicles and oil rigs through. If we continued onward, it would take another two days of driving to reach the border, and we would be getting there on the 14th.

Waiting in Tibet until the 21st was not an option, as two of our group members had to leave the country before then.

Naturally we were quite upset, as we had paid an extra $400 each for the last leg of this trip and delivery into Xinjiang, and our tour agency didn't have the slightest clue as to what was going on.

I wanted to go back to Lhasa and just write it off as a sunk cost. There weren't any major attractions on the final leg of the journey and I could just fly to Xinjiang from Lhasa. Plus the thought of spending another two days in the Land Cruiser, being turned back, then having to spend another four days driving back to Lhasa was unbearable to me.

The other members of our group wanted to continue onward. We had already paid for the car and the driver anyway. Just go to the border and figure something out from there! What could possibly go wrong!

And so we drove on. After another full day of driving, we reached Ali, the last major city in Tibet. The government officials there told us the same thing, that we would be turned back at the border and that we would have to wait til the 21st if we wanted to pass by car. Let's keep going!

We set off early the next morning and drove all day before reaching the provincial border town of Duoma. As we had been told, the border was closed. Our tour guide talked with the border patrol there, but to no avail.

My backpacker friend, the organizer of the trip, got out and tried to reason with them. She went over every possible solution she could think of. At one point, we thought we would be cramming ourselves into the back of an oil rig to cross the border before that plan was eventually shot down.

Having no luck with the border patrol, she went to talk to the military police. As she left to go talk with them, our tour guide confided in me that we should get ready to start heading back to Lhasa. But after what seemed like forever, she came back with the good news that they were letting us drive through. I'm not sure if it had anything to do with it, but my backpacker friend is an attractive young Taiwanese girl, while the military police are all 20 year old Chinese dudes.

We jumped into the back of the Land Cruiser and set off before they could change their minds.

That evening we drove until nightfall, stopping for the night at a trucker dorm in the middle of nowhere. I went to sleep on a huge communal bed and awoke the next morning with a Chinese trucker sleeping right next to me.


We hit the road again. The road was, as advertised, in poor condition and undergoing massive construction. We were held up for three hours at one point, as construction crews repeatedly dynamited debris off the side of a mountain and then cleared it from the road. At other points, Tibetan laborers built fortifications along the side of the road.


Looking back, some of the scenery we saw was quite amazing, though I was in no mood to appreciate it at the time. We drove past salt lakes, deserts, snow flurries, frozen rivers, mountain ranges... you name it. We saw Tibetan antelopes running wild.


That evening, we spent the night in a small town called Hongliutan, where we saw wild camels feeding in the town garbage dump.


The next day, after another full day of driving through the Kunlun Mountains, we would be arriving in Xinjiang, which in Chinese means "The New Frontier".

Guge Kingdom

Earlier on our trip, while dining at a restaurant in Lhasa, we came upon some stunning photographs of a fortress perched atop a rocky cliff. In the background, an other-worldly landscape of canyons and mountains. It looked like something straight out of a Lord of the Rings movie. We were told they were pictures of the Guge Kingdom in southwestern Tibet, a short four hour drive from Mount Kailas.

Despite having just read several books on Tibet, I had never heard of the Guge Kingdom before, nor had my backpacker friend who had organized the trip. In fact, we had not even scheduled it on our itinerary or obtained the proper permits to go see it, even though we were passing right by it.

After a week of administrative finagling, we were able to obtain the permits and squeeze it into our schedule.

From Darchen, we drove through the valley of the Sutlej, passing vast canyons, mountains, and geological formations that I don't even know how to describe. Signs of civilization were few and far between, often driving for many miles without seeing another car on the road.


We arrived in the town of Zhada, near the border of India, where we would be spending the night. At first glance, the town seemed fairly developed, with rows of restaurants, hotels, internet bars, and even a post office. But on closer inspection, half of the businesses had long since been closed down. We got a kick out of the billboard above the abandoned music store that was promoting Tupac's latest album. At night, the streets were deserted like a strange Chinese ghost town, without another tourist to be found.

The next morning we drove out to the ruins of Tsaparang, the ancient capitol of the Guge Kingdom and the fortress whose pictures we had seen earlier.


The Guge Kingdom rose to prominence with Tsaparang as its capitol in the 10th century, shortly after the fall of the first Tibetan Empire. This was a period of unrest in Tibetan history, as warlords and politicians staked their claims on various regions of Tibet and the outlying territories. Despite centuries of military conflict, the fortress at Tsaparang would stand until the 17th century, when it was conquered by the Ladahkis from what is now Northern India, after which it would fall into oblivion.

Tsaparang, the second largest fortification in Tibet after the Potala Palace, was every bit as impressive in person as it was in pictures.


The views of the surrounding landscape were majestic. The Buddhist temples and artwork, for the most part unrestored for the past 400 years, were both eerie and breathtaking. The sights put to shame many of the other more prominent tourist attractions I had visited during my year in China.


And perhaps best of all, we practically had the entire fortress to ourselves. In our three hours there, we saw only one other small group of Chinese tourists.


How could such a scenic and historical site like this go unnoticed by tourists and by society at large? Certainly the fact that it is 1200 miles away or several days by car from the nearest major airport has something to do with it.

But moreover, having fallen into oblivion in the 17th century, it is a part of history deemed irrelevant by subsequent generations. No where in the Tibetan history book I had just read (which was written by a western scholar with significant input from the Dalai Lama) was the Guge Kingdom mentioned. The period after the fall of the Tibetan Empire is characterized only by chaos and war. The narrative only picks up again several centuries later with the rise of the Dalai Lamas in Central Tibet, emphasizing Tibet as a united and sovereign nation.

Thus what was once a powerful military state is now just a structure collecting dust in the middle of the desert and a historical footnote.

History is written by the victors. What will subsequent generations have to say about once sovereign nations such as Tibet and Xinjiang?

Mount Kailas

The next morning we would begin the three day, 32 mile long kora around Mount Kailas. I was a bit groggy and tired from the previous night's activities, but looking forward to the hike nonetheless. The scenery would surely be amazing and it would provide a much needed respite from being stuffed in the back of that Land Cruiser.

While I anticipated the hike to be strenuous, I wasn't too worried.

I've done my share of hiking in China... hiking for 12 hours straight at Tiger Leaping Gorge, scaling altitudes of 5000M+ at Yading, trekking through muddy rice fields in the rain at Longji. And I consider myself to be in decent shape fitness wise, working out on a regular basis and having completed a marathon just two years ago.

Furthermore, we wouldn't actually be climbing to the peak of Kailas, which has never been scaled. We would only be taking a nice leisurely walk around it.

If thousands of third world pilgrims from all over Tibet, Nepal, and India could make this trek every year, malnourished and frail, then how hard could it really be?


A couple hours into the first day, I knew I had grossly miscalculated my abilities.

My head throbbed and lungs gasped for every bit of oxygen it could find in the thin mountain air. Meanwhile "malnourished and frail" Tibetans were bounding along the trail effortlessly.

A Tibetan family, the mother carrying her baby... An elderly monk wearing nothing but robes in the cold mountain air... A small woman with a bag of rice seemingly bigger than she was strapped to her back... All passing us by as we tried to catch our breath.

Most impressive were the pilgrims that were prostrating themselves with every step - getting down on their hands and knees, prostrating themselves flat on the ground as a sign of devotion, crawling forward, and repeating with every step. It takes weeks to make the strenuous trek around Kailas this manner, but we saw dozens of pilgrims going about it undeterred, a testament to their religious faith. They were a bit flustered though when my travel mates started swarming around them and snapping pictures of them as if they were zoo animals.


We plodded along for hours. One of my travel mates, a chain smoker and the least physically fit among us, provided at least some entertainment for the day when she had a mental breakdown and started crying after she fell in the snow and couldn't get up for the umpteenth time. LOL!

We arrived at the guesthouse for the first night at 6 in the evening and collapsed into bed.

At night, the temperature plummeted. Our unheated shack provided little protection from the elements. Despite wearing practically every layer of clothing I had - a shirt and two fleeces, flannel boxers and three layers of pants, two pairs of hiking socks, and a wool beanie - in addition to two blankets, I was awoken by the cold in the middle of the night and could not get back to sleep. I went for a sip of bottled water only to discover it had frozen over.

Setting off early the next morning, we would ascend another 1000M to cross Dolma La Pass, the highest point of our journey at an altitude of over 5600M. Feet numb from the cold and our lungs heaving with each labored breath, we trudged up the icy mountainside at a snail's pace. At increasingly frequent intervals, we would find a comfortable rock to lay on and catch our breath, as our Tibetan guide watched on bemused.


Every so often, we would see a dejected hiker going in the opposite direction, unable to continue, making the "walk of shame" back to guesthouse, where they would take a truck back down to the bottom. Our chain smoking companion likewise did not last long on Day 2 and had to be escorted back to Darchen.

My travel companion, Naz, in her infinite wisdom had brought along her massive North Face backpack packed to the brim with (among other things) her sleeping bag, her makeup kit, and assorted food items to pass out as gifts to random Tibetans. To her credit, she did not complain once, and gallantly trudged her way up the mountainside.

After what seemed like an eternity, we reached the high point of the Dolma-La pass at 5630M (18,470ft). The Tibetans say that in crossing the Dolma-La Pass, you are reborn. That the Tibetan deity Dolma in her infinite compassion absolves you of a lifetime of sins.

I don't know about that, but I do know that walking down a mountain is a hell of a lot easier than walking up one. We continued onward for many hours, walking across rocky mountainsides, frozen lakes and streams, and frozen plains covered with grazing yaks.


As dusk approached, we came upon a Tibetan who had setup some tents along the side of the road for weary travelers. We got the bright idea of staying overnight in one of his tents, figuring they couldn't be any colder than the shack we had stayed at the previous night. This turned out to be an incorrect assumption.

The next day, in the morning cold, we plowed through the final three hours of the hike back to Darchen.

Physically, I was spent. My entire face was sunburned, except for two shockingly pale white patches around my eyes where I had been wearing my sunglasses.

But I was officially sin-free and my mind was at ease. We chowed down on cucumber salad and meat and potatoes at our favorite restaurant with smiles on our faces, as we prepared to hit the road again in a couple hours.