Change of plans

Saturday morning, as planned I was at the airport with my friend Betsy en route to Mongolia. We had already gone through customs and were waiting to get on our flight to Mongolia. Then we were told there was a snowstorm in Ulaan Bataar and it was delayed 12 hours. Rather than waiting all day in the Beijing airport and missing a day in Mongolia (which already felt rushed anyway for only 6 days in the vast country), we found out we were able to refund our tickets. We went backwards through customs and the next question was: where to go?

We were in the capital airport of China with all our money refunded. The options were endless, except that I have already been to many places in China. When Betsy said she wanted to go west, I said 'let's look for tickets to Xinjiang.'

We were here by Saturday evening. Xinjiang is the large province in the northwest of China, home to the Muslim Uighur population. Since I first came to China in 2001, this is the one place I have always wanted to visit, but never had the time to get here since its so far away.

I am now in Kashgar (Kashi in Chinese) now, a city in the far west of Xinjiang. We visited the big Sunday market/bazaar in town on Sunday and strolled through the old town. We spent the past 2 days driving through the mountains visiting Tajik and Krygy villages. We were really close to Afghanistan. We stayed in a Krygy (sp?) family's yurt at about 3,500 m high and then woke up and climbed a 4,200 m mountain (with the help of motorbikes) to see a glacier. We rented bikes today to get around the city. Heading back to Xinjiang's capital Urumqi soon, and then back to Harbin by Friday night (if all goes well).

Stay tuned for pictures of this amazing place. Its a completely different world from the Han Chinese (the majority) parts of China. Its definitely the refreshment away from China that I needed as I head into my last chunk of research time in Heilongjiang.