Sunday August 24: Kashgar

First thing in the morning we went to the Apak Hoja Mazaar, or the ‘Tomb of the fragrant concubine’ which these days is really an Uighur cultural centre. The area is very quiet and peaceful with lots of trees and shady areas, and contains many tombs, a mosque with many wooden columns and the eponymous tomb/mausoleum. We arrived before the majority of tourists so we got an idea of the calm and the peace of the place.

From there we went to what you really go to Kashgar for – the Kashgar Sunday Market. The market is famous throughout the world and visited by people from hundreds of miles around, including traders from Pakistan. There are in fact two markets, the Bazaar which is actually open every day, but for which Sunday is by far the largest and most important, and the livestock market.

The livestock market is held on the outskirts of town, and for several miles before you get there you see people going to it in all manner of vehicles and carts (see earlier) and flocks of animals being driven to market. Animals generally come from a radius of 30-40km for sale, and whilst many arrive before dawn, they keep on arriving all day. The animal market is absolutely amazing with hundreds of people – farmers (sellers, buyers, and those just ‘kicking tyres’), local sightseers, foreign tourists – and hundreds of animals. Farmers buy and sell pretty much all kinds of animals – chicken, geese, ducks, sheep, goats, cattle and horses. Often camels are sold too, but there were none on the day we were there, when sheep were the most common livestock. No one takes any of the animals for granted; they are lifted, squeezed, their moths looked into, their feet checked and horses are usually taken for a ‘trial ride’, then the deal is done. The air is full of the sounds of animals bleating and baa-ing and mooing, people arguing/bargaining over prices, and horns blowing as trucks arrive or depart with animals. We got an idea of prices: goats 2-300 Yuan, sheep 6-800 Yuan, cattle 5-8000 Yuan (more for a ‘prize’ bull). You can buy as few as one animal, or all the flock/herd that the farmer is selling. All deals are done for cash, and I strongly doubt that anything vaguely resembling tax is paid on any profits. It’s also a good place to get your sheep sheared, though whether the seller or the buyer of the sheep organises this is not entirely clear. Shearing is done, not as in Australia by a man with fancy electric shears who takes about 90 seconds per sheep, but by a man with a pair of scissors who takes about 15 minutes and who charges 20 Yuan – he’ll never get rich! Goodness alone knows what the EU gestapo would have make of animal welfare or hygiene. It was dusty, noisy and smelly and absolutely fascinating. Obviously there are lots of Kashgar-type ‘fast food’ stalls too selling kebabs, soup, tea, milk curd (looks disgusting, but the locals were buying lots) and yoghurt. There were enormous piles of Kashgar melons for sale just outside the ‘entrance’ to the market.

We decided we were eating too much so for lunch we had another ‘breakfast’ with more real coffee at the Karakoram Café.

After lunch we went to the Sunday Bazaar which was absolutely packed with people. Most of the bazaar is under cover, but on a Sunday it spills out into the surrounding streets. The market sells all the sorts of things you see in this sort of market – spices, nuts, dried fruit, herbs and herbal remedies, gourds, skins (and they’re not afraid of telling you the skin is dog or cat or wolf or bear or whatever), crystallised sugar, material, hats, clothes, musical instruments ….. Most of the stalls appear to have goods of reasonable quality, but some are serious tat. Round about were the obligatory food stalls – we really felt pretty tempted by the chunks of barbequed meat or the figs, but then remembered all the warnings about food hygiene and abstained.

Actually, at dinner time Margaret was feeling a bit sick so she did not have any food – which was a shame as the mutton pulau, yoghurt, lamb kebabs and stewed tomato/garlic/aubergine was superb. We analysed the ‘feeling sick’ syndrome and decided that the problem was the Palludrine we were taking against Malaria. We decided that getting bitten by a malarial mosquito was very remote so we stopped taking the Palludrine from then on.

We spent ages in the hotel gift shop. Now normally, we never buy anything from such shops, but we did purchase a superb antique carved Buddha head – we negotiated, and as tourism was well down they were willing to sell it for a very reasonable price. We didn’t want to cart it around Pakistan so we agreed to having it posted to us – we were rather dubious about this, but figured that we had protection as we had purchased it on a credit card. The shop promised us a certificate of posting but the post office would not be open till 09.00 the next morning when we were due to leave. Sure enough, just before we left Kashgar in the morning the certificate arrived, and indeed, the undamaged Buddha head arrived in the post the day we got home.