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Travel to Kashgar – The Ancient Oasis of West Xinjiang

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Travel to Kashgar

What brought me to Kashgar, in Xinjiang, was the desire to experience the culture, cuisine and architecture of this part of China, which has few resemblances with East China.

Forget chopsticks, red lanterns and ideograms.

In Xinjiang half of the population belongs to the Muslim Uyghur minority. Also, there are other ethnic groups as the Kazakh, the Kyrgyz and the Tajik. Here the Han people – that is the ethnic group that constitutes 92% of China’s population, – are the real minority and Mandarin is the second language (the first is the Uyghur).

Kashgar, an ancient oasis located between the Taklamakan desert and the Karakorum mountain range, was one of the busiest stops along the Silk Road. The European, Arab and Asian dealers of silk and spices used to meet here and exchange their goods. Today the Silk Road is gone but the markets are still there.

Get lost into the Old Town

September is the best month to come to Kashgar: you’ll get to see the hami gua (the green melon typical of Xinjiang) sellers, the figs dealers and the bakers that prepare the naan on their portable ovens. [Read more…]

The Kanas National Nature Reserve, in Xinjiang (Photo Essays)

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The Kanas National Nature Reserve

Note: at the end of the article you’ll find a photo gallery of 20 photographs taken of the Reserve.

The Kanas National Nature Reserve is found in the heart of the Altai Mountains, in Xinjiang, at the border with Kazakhstan, Russia and Mongolia, and owes its fame to Lake Kanas and its alpine scenery.

An entrance ticket to the Reserve costs 240 Yuan a person and is valid for two days. The price includes entrance to the park and unlimited use of buses for getting around its interior (uses of buses is necessary since the Reserve is quite vast).

You can also take a boat ride on the Kanas River, the ticket costs 120 Yuan.

Lake Kanas is located at an altitude of 1,325 meters wile Friendship Peak, which marks the border with Russia and Kazakhstan, is at an altitude of 4,374 meters.

The best times for visiting the Reserve are in June, when the trees are in bloom, and in September when the landscape takes on the typical colors of autumn foliage (the photos in this article were taken at the end of September).

I don’t recommend coming in winter, which in these parts is extremely rough.

How to get to the Kanas National Nature Reserve

[Read more…]

How to get poisoned and die of asphyxia in Xinjiang

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poisoned in xinjiangThe eggs and tomatoes we ate in Kashgar, Xinjiang.

“I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night,” Galileo Galilei.

I wake up, jump from the bed and try to open the door of the hotel room. But it’s blocked. I panic and destroy the lock of the door with an elegant kick. I run to the small bathroom at the end of the courtyard, open the door and…

…diarrhea.

I watch the sky. The sunrise cannot be too far.

But let’s start from the beginning. [Read more…]

Review of the e-Book “Xinjiang: A Travelers’ Guide to Far West China”

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This article is a review of the travel guide “Xinjiang : A Traveler’s Guide to Far West China“, written by Josh Summer, the soul of Far West China, notoriously my favorite website of my favorite Chinese province: Xinjiang.

Here at SDC we rarely review travel guides. The reason is, for the most part we don’t like them. Today we make an exception because, in my opinion, Josh’s guide is… an exception.

Why? There are two reasons:

  • The first is that Xinjiang is one of the most difficult Chinese provinces to explore, especially if you don’t speak Mandarin: there are very few guides or web sites that cover the province (for some areas the only resource in English is Far West China, besides which there are only sites in Mandarin, almost all of which are terrible); tourism is, compared to other places in China, less developed, just like the infrastructure. This last point is the main problem when you consider that we’re talking about a province that alone covers a sixth of China’s surface area.
  • The second reason is that Josh, the guide’s author, lives in Xinjiang since 2006, has explored every corner of it, and most of all has an unbridled love for this region. This love shows in the effort he put into writing this guide and what he’s been putting on his website for years.

[Read more…]

The Best Hotels in Urumqi and Kashgar, Xinjiang

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Xinjiang is one of the most impressive provinces in China, but finding decent hotels to stay isn’t easy at all. Most hotels in Xinjiang can’t host foreigners and/or the quality is quite poor. Here you’ll find a selection of the best hotels in the two most important cities of the province, Urumqi and Kashgar. The hotels we selected cover a wide range of prices, this way you’ll be able to find one that suits your budget.

If you need a general overview about the best way of booking hotels in China, you can click here to read our tips.

Reviews of hotels in Urumqi

Sheraton Urumqi Hotel


The Sheraton Urumqi Hotel is located in the Shayibak District of Urumqi and features 398 well-equipped rooms with facilities for a comfortable stay. In addition to clean and spacious rooms, it has five restaurants serving Chinese and international cuisine, an indoor pool, a nightclub, salon, business center, health club, spa, and executive floor. The hotel’s staff speaks fluent English to understand and respond better to non-Chinese speaking guests. While the hotel does not provide free Wi-Fi in its rooms, you can still have free access to internet in the lobby. It also offers free parking and valet parking. The hotel is a short walk away from Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Museum and only 2.2 km away from the Hongshan Park. Xianjiang International Grand Bazaar is about 6.6 km away from the hotel.

[Read more…]

Day Trip to Turpan – in Xinjiang – on High Speed Rail

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day trip to turpan

This article was written by Josh Summers, the founder of FarWestChina.

I remember years ago taking a trip to Turpan, a quiet but once important stop on the ancient Silk Road. I woke up early in the morning to catch a bus from the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi where I spent over three hours sitting in a chair whose padding had long ago been worn down to nothing.

It’s funny to think about that now as I write this from the comfort of my first-class seat on Xinjiang’s new high speed train. The grueling three-hour bus ride is now reduced to less than an hour on the train, and the cost of my ticket was the same.

You see, here in Xinjiang, China’s largest administrative region by land area, the idea of a “day trip” is almost laughable. Unless you’re willing to fly everywhere you want to go, most travelers have to budget whole days for transit between different parts of Xinjiang.

Now that the new high-speed train has begun operational, however, a day trip to Turpan is not only possible, it’s actually quite enjoyable. [Read more…]

Living in Xinjiang: Interview with Josh, founder of FarWestChina

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Farwest China

Today we’re going to talk with Josh Summers, the founder of Far West China, as far as I know the best website dedicated to Xinjiang, one of less known and most beautiful provinces of China.

Josh, thank you for accepting to answer to some questions for SDC. You arrived in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, in 2006. How did you end up there?

My pleasure! I’m honored to chat. Our arrival in Xinjiang back in 2006 is a long story that can be summed up in pretty much one word: “accident”. Seriously, who in their right mind travels halfway across the world to a place they can barely find on a map, much less properly pronounce? People who don’t know what they’re getting into, that’s who.

That’s not even the craziest part. Once we arrived in Urumqi in 2006 we only stayed there for two days. Our ultimate destination was Karamay, an even smaller and more remote town about four hours deep in the desert. We did it party out of a sense of adventure but mostly because a trusted friend convinced us it was a good idea. Ha! [Read more…]

Food from Xinjiang, the Chinese muslim province (Photo Essays)

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Xinjiang Food

When I talk about “Xinjiang food” I refer to the traditional Uyghur cuisine. The reason is that here about half of the population belongs to the Uyghur minority, a Muslim ethnic group that has its own language and culture.

Even if Xinjiang is part of China, its food shares much more characteristics with the Turkish and Central Asia food. So, every time I need a break from Chinese cuisine, I go to a Xinjiang restaurant (they are all around China). [Read more…]

The Karakorum Highway (Photo Essay)

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Karakorum Highway

The Karakoram Highway follows the old Silk Road route between China’s Xinjiang Province and Pakistan’s Gilgit–Baltistan region across the Karakorum. It’s the highest paved international road in the world as the Khunjerab Pass reaches an altitude of 4,693 meters.

In September we rented a taxi in Kashgar (I was there with my girl and we found two other travelers to share the cost of the car, 1,400 RMB for two days) and drove along the Karakorum Highway till Tashkurgan, a town close to the border with Tagikistan and Pakistan.

This article is the photo story of our trip. Enjoy! [Read more…]

Kashgar old town – A glance at the Silk Road (Photo Essay)

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Kashgar, old town

Kashgar, which was one of the most important oasis along the Silk Road, is situated at the extreme West of Xinjiang Province, between the Taklamakan Desert and the border with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Even if today has about 400,000 people and its newest neighborhoods are similar to many other Chinese cities, Kashgar features one the best-preserved traditional Islamic city of Central Asia.

With this photo essay I hope to introduce you to the atmosphere of a town that, in my opinion, has the same charm of another “Chinese” city soaked of history and mystery, Lhasa. [Read more…]