Another view of China

(written Sunday, June 10)
It is quite possible that this is the most remote place in the world I have ever been! We had a good flight - 1.5 hours from Urumqi to Kashgar. The airport in Kashgar is pretty basic - no ramps - just up and down the stairs in and out of the plane with a walk across the tarmac. It was a 90-minute drive from the Kashgar airport to Yengisar - a good portion of it on really bumpy - though fortunately paved - roads. Kashgar has about 400,000 people and Yengisar is a much smaller - about 15,000; it is a more remote city, surrounded by barren desert-like land with occasional trees and farmland adjacent to irrigation canals. I have noticed that there is a sameness to the cities I have seen in China in terms of layout, as they all have wide roads - the roads are the same in Yengisar, Kashgar, Urumqi, Nanchang and even Beijing (though Beijing also has expressways). On the main roads
going through each city, there are four lanes (2 on each side) plus two lanes (one on each side) for bicycles, people walking, donkey carts, tricycles carrying heavy loads, and any other mode of transportation one can imagine. I should also mention that people and bikes often wander outside their designated lane, just as sometimes in the bigger cities, taxis in particular magically form a third lane. So while there are many fewer people in Yengisar, the roads seem really wide and in Beijing everything is so crowded. Another similarity I've observed is that all the housing looks about the same on the outside, especially those built around the same time. It is all housing built by the government and many of the buildings are six stories high - the limit for buildings which do not have to have an elevator. If a building is 7 stories or more, there must be an elevator I was told. So many of the housing units (except for Beijing) are six stories and one gets lots of exercise going up and down them - a challenge when it is really hot. Speaking of hot, it is extremely hot here; there is no way to measure the temperature or know what the weather will bring, but it feels like it is between 95 and 100 during most of the day, though it is a very dry heat. Since there is no air conditioning, I am thankful for the fan in my bedroom. It cools down a bit in the evening - probably around 70 with a breeze at times, but it is not advised to leave the windows open all the time, as the ever-present dust and sand easily makes its way inside. I am staying in a guest apartment on the 4th floor - one floor above my friend's apartment. I had a funny experience the first morning I was here - I could not open my door to get out of the apartment as the doors are unlike anything I have seen. They had showed me how to use it but it did not open and I tried and pushed and tried to maneuver the handle in every way I could. There was no phone but fortunately I have access to their wireless so I sent Carolyn an email that I couldn't get out. Eventually she got the email and came and opened the door from the outside. Then she came in to show me how it was done but the door got stuck again and she had not brought her cell phone with her so now the two of us were stuck inside. So she emailed another team member who lives a couple stairwells over in the same building and fortunately she saw her email before going to pick up her kids from morning school. So she came over just as Carolyn gave a hard judo kick to successfully open the door! It was funny, though before Carolyn came, I kept thinking... I am a prisoner in this Communist building and I can't get out! :) Thankfully, the door has worked fine since the judo kick and I do have a temporary cell phone in case anything else comes up! There was no water the first morning and the power has been out twice (including now as I write this!), but
the bed is the best one I've had in China so I am sleeping well. We went to Kashgar
yesterday and visited the largest mosque in China and a famous tomb of an Islamic family with connections to the Chinese dynastic line (the granddaughter was a concubine of one of the Chinese emperors). We also heard some Uyghur music in another restaurant and I also got some help in finding some recordings of Uyghur music. Then today, after meeting together with the four team members and resting a bit, we went to the Sunday open air market; Central Asia is known for its markets. There were many, many people selling tons of stuff from vegetables to metal trash cans, shoes, purses, clothing, knives, tools - you name it - it is there. The experience in this large market included lots of sounds (horses, donkeys and motorcycles pulling carts, as well as the sound of taxis honking endlessly trying to get through hordes of people) and then there were the many different smells, which cannot be adequately described in words! I saw my first camel cart (a camel
pulling a cart full of stuff), although I saw two camels in Kashgar just resting in the plaza in front of the mosque. Donkey carts are common here; I was told that the ride from Yengisar to Kashgar can be accomplished in three days on a donkey cart (the donkey needs to rest). I was glad we got there in just over an hour in a truck! Donkey carts seem to be used mostly to haul goods or people within the town or between Yengisar and some of the smaller outposts around Yengisar. So now you have a brief picture of this part of China - so very different from my other experiences in China. There is not a lot to do here so it has been nice to have some time to visit, write and enjoy a little down time.