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KJTI Itinerary: Tour of Kashgar
Experience
the cultural diversity of Central Asia, Kashgar in China,
after crossing one of the highest border in the world between Pakistan and China and see the Pamirs, the fourth
highest mountain range!
Kashgar or Kashi is an oasis city with approximately 350,000 residents in
the western part of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the
People's Republic of
China
.
Kashgar is the administrative centre of Kashgar Prefecture which has an area of 162,000 km² and
a population of approximately 3.5 million
The
city covers an area of 15 km². The altitude averages 1,289.5
m/4,282 ft. above sea level. The annual mean temperature is 11.7°C, with
a low of -24.4° in January and up to 40.1° in July. The frost-free period
averages 215 days.
Kashgar
is sited west of the Taklamakan Desert at the feet of the Tian Shan
mountain range, south of Argu
Tagh mountain range. It is situated at the junction of routes from
the valley of the Oxus, from Khokand and Samarkand, Almati, Aksu, and Khotan,
the last two leading from China and Pakistan, Kashgar has been noted from
ancient times as a political and commercial centre.
The
Kashgar oasis is where both the northern and southern routes from
China
around the Taklamakan Desert converge. It is also almost directly north
of Tashkurgan through which traffic passed from the ancient Buddhist kingdom
of Gandhara, in what
is now Pakistan, and Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan.
About
200 km west of the present city, just past the present border with
Kyrgyzstan
, the main Silk Road crossed
into the head of the
Alay
Valley
from where relatively easy routes led
southwest to
Balkh
or northwest to Ferghana. The present main road now travels northwest through
the Torugart pass.
The
South Xinjiang branch of the Lanxin Railway reached Kashgar in December 1999,
making it
China
’s
westernmost railway station. The investigation work of a further extension of
the railway line to Pakistan has
already begun. Proposals for a rail connection to
Osh
in
Kyrgyzstan
have also been discussed at various levels since at least 1996.
In
November 2009,
Pakistan
and
China
agreed to set up
a joint venture to do a feasibility study of the proposed rail link via the Khunjerab Pass.
The
Karakorum
highway (KKH) links Islamabad,
Pakistan
with Kashgar over the Khunjerab Pass.
Bus routes exist for passenger travel south into
Pakistan
. Kyrgyzstan is also
accessible from Kashgar, via the Torugart Pass and Irkeshtam Pass; as of
summer 2007, daily bus service connects Kashgar with Bishkek’s Western Bus
Terminal.
In
the 8th century came the Arab rule from the west, and find Kashgar and
Turkestan lending assistance to the reigning queen of
Bokhara
,
to enable her to repel the enemy. The Muslim religion from the very
commencement sustained checks, and made its weight felt upon the independent
states of
Turkestan
to the north and east,
and thus acquired a steadily growing influence. In the 10th century Islam was
established at Kashgar, under the Uyghur kingdom.
The Uyghurs
Modern
Uyghurs are the
descendants of ancient Turkic
tribes including Uyghurs and ancient Caucasian inhabitants of Tarim basin. Sultan Satuq Bughra Khan, the most celebrated
prince of this line, converted to Islam late in the 10th century and the
Uyghur kingdom lasted until 1120 but was distracted by complicated dynastic
struggles. The Uyghurs employed an alphabet based upon the Syriac and
borrowed from the Nestorian missionaries, but after converting to Islam
widely used also an Arabic script. They spoke a dialect of Turkish preserved
in the Kudatku Bilik, a moral
treatise composed in 1065.
Kashgar’s
Old
City
has been called ‘the best-preserved example of a traditional Islamic city to
be found anywhere in Central
Asia, but it is now being razed by the Chinese government which
plans to replace the old buildings with new.’ The demolition of swaths of the
Old
Town
of Kashgar is being carried out
in the name of modernisation and safety. The famed trading hub on the Silk
Road, on which caravans carrying silk and jade from
China
crossed with merchants from
Central Asia
bringing furs and spices, will effectively
disappear. A small area visited by tourists seeking a flavour of Kashgar’s
rich history will be preserved. At present, it is estimated to attract more
than one million tourist
visitors annually.
- The huge Id Kah Mosque,
the largest mosque in
China
,
is located in the heart of the city.
- An 18-m (59 ft) high statue of former
Chinese leader Mao Zedong in Kashgar is one of the few large-scale
statues of Mao remaining in
China
.
- The tomb of Abakh Khoja
in Kashgar is considered the holiest Muslim site
in Xinjiang. Built in the 17th century, the tiled mausoleum 5 km
(3.1 mi) northeast of the city centre also contains the tombs of
five generations of his family. Abakh was a powerful ruler, controlling
Khotan, Yarkand, Korla, Kucha and Aksu as well as Kashgar.
(Some information
and links sourced from Wikipedia)
Full itinerary of KJTI Tour
Adventure Travel in
North Pakistan
http://www.kjti.co.uk/
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