Silk Road, China 絲綢之路 (18 Apr - 3 May 2003)

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The frozen Heavenly Lake near Urumqi.

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We arrived at Kashgar in the evening of 26 April at about 21:30.

As we step out of the plane, we were greeted by a majestic red and blue sky.

2nd picture is the colour version.

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We arranged to arrive in Kashgar in the weekend because we planned to see the famous Sunday market there.

This is a hotel near the Sunday market cater for the market traders.

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One of the stalls in the Kashgar Sunday market.

The market is big and very interesting to visit. From everyday stuff such as food, colour plastic sandals, rat traps, to minks, furs and silk.

According to the girls of our group, the workmanship of the fur shawls are not very good, but they are very cheap. So we bought a few anyway.

Later we learned that the animal sellers are now located somewhere else. My kids went there and seemed to had lots of fun.

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At the edge of the market is this juice seller.

I went to the knives sellers trying to find a Xinjiang style knife. After they learned that we were not interested in new, made-for-tourist knives, the sellers started to show us smelly knives wrapped in old newspaper.

In order to convince us that the knives are sharp and useful, two sellers started to cut their hairs on their legs with the knives.

When we were shopping for knives, we saw an old man sold his own knife to a stall.

Looking around, we saw lots of Uygur men carrting their knives (including our drivrer.) So knife making and trading is still a living trade driven by local demand instead of a pure tourism business.

(In our trip to Tibet in 2004, we found out the Tibetan knives are mainly made for tourist.)

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In the afternoon of 27 April, three of us split with the rest of the family to spend the night in the Kalakuli Lake.

The lake is situated in an altitude of 3500m by the side of Karakoram Highway to Pakistan.

During the 3 hours drive from Kashgar, we saw highway construction almost everywhere.

I was very disappointed at the tourism development of the lake. Especially after visiting the Chandra Taal lake in norther India. I think people who came this far to see a high altitude lake wants to see the lake at its natural beauty and enjoy the tranquality.

Setting up pool tables on the shore and water bikes in the lake is bad enough an idea. Letting the equipment rot after the failed business venture is even more unforgivable.

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We planned to setup our own tent for the night in Kalakuli Lake. But when we arrived, we found that the yurts are just opened for the coming season. So we were happy to be their first customers.

At night we went out of the tent to see the bright night sky.

The night was very very cold. Our drinking water were all frozen solid the next day.

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A cold but very nice morning at the Kalakuli Lake.