After a 20 hour train ride from Ürümqi we arrived in Kashgar, a truly ancient place and one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world. Located on the far western point of China close to the border with Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan, it has been a major trading hub of the Silk Road for millenia. It is a convergence point of widely varying cultures and empires, and has been under the rule of the Chinese, Turkic, Mongol and Tibetan empires.

In comparison to Ürümqi the population of Kashgar is mostly Muslim Uyghur people and other Central Asian demographics with only a small percentage of Chinese Han residents. As soon as we arrived we noticed how different it was to everywhere else we had been in China. It felt like we had already arrived in a new country in Central Asia. We also noticed a distinct increase in security, with surveillance everywhere and armed military vehicles patrolling the streets. We seemed to be a real novelty here and received a lot of stares. Some people on the street even tried taking sneaky pictures of us on their phones.

There is an “old town” in Kashgar which is supposedly how the city used to be. Sadly it feels like another case of China appropriating another culture and turning it into Disneyland. There are countless stores selling plastic knick-knacks, photography stores with Uyghur outfits, ice cream shops, and fancy cafés. Turns out a lot of this area was actually destroyed and rebuilt, so the majority of the buildings aren't even old!

We had a few things we wanted to do here. Firstly, we had a bunch of packages to collect with our new camping gear. We brought a cheap tent, sleeping bags, a cooker, and some other miscellaneous things from Taobao, a Chinese equivalent to Amazon. 

Secondly, there is a famous animal market in Kashgar on Sundays. This was an amazing experience seeing the local people selling their sheep, cows, goats, and horses. The sheep here have comically large butts and this was a highlight!

Lastly, we wanted to explore the Karakoram highway (the highway which crosses the Kunjerab pass into Pakistan). Unfortunately, we had some issues finding a driver and the timing didn't work out for us. We will have to come back one day and properly see this incredible part of the world along with Pakistan!