Kashgar
The day starts with a welcome dance of Chinese emperor visiting the city. The Uygur people dance traditionally, with the typical Chinese details of the emperor. it is a real theatre production just in front of the main door of the city and its walls. Very professional. The busy road where we are to see the show, is blocked for the cars for an hour, The show takes place twice daily so the road is also blocked by the police for two times a day. These things are only possible in China.
The Ancient City Kashi
The old city of Kashgar, Kashi, as the Chinese call it, is totally renovated.
The centre with its poor people and poor houses without electricity now live in renovated houses with the old look and feel. It is really stylish but it doesn’t feel real. The mosque is not interesting, all is empty and it is not used a lot anymore as it was in the old days. We hear that the old people do visit once a week to pray.
The ancient city with all its food and souvenir stalls is really made for tourists. I am a bit disappointed because an ancient city needs to be ancient in my opinion. According to our guide, the ancient real historical cities are in Xi’an with the terracotta warriors, and Beijing with its Forbidden city.
We buy some nice snacks on the night market. The food from Bishkek until now is kind of the same. But there are more Chinese influences here. The night markets never disappoint, nice food and friendly people.
The beautiful girls all dressed up are Chinese tourists. They love to wander around in ancient cities, and hire the traditional clothing for the minority of the city and they have an hour of fotoshoot. A fotographer will walk with them to the nice places in the ancient city. A dream of every girl to dress up, and it comes true here.
Real Market (not for tourists)
We go to the market where all the village people gather to sell and buy cows, sheep, we see old people mostly men dance and having fun on this Sunday. Or do the necessary things such as shaving their hair or beard. Some people are dressed up. It is their day to the big city.
It is really crowded in the animals section. And I am stuck in between cows, and I don’t feel comfortable. So I go back to the clothing section. The cows are as big as me, they are a bit stressed and they don’t care about me. Marloes wants to see all and goes into the crowd with her Birkenstocks. We see huge cinnamon sticks, traditional porcelain pots to buy and eat soup, big blocks of tea hanging on the wall, big woks with lams dishes..
