We’ve touched on Kashgar already, but there is a lot to see in Kashgar. So, we find ourselves back here again to explore another market. This time, I will be taking you through the “Sunday Market”, which is more formally known as the Central Asia International Grand Bazaar… This is a gargantuan market – said … Continue reading
As something of a companion piece to the last post, I must include the Oytagh Red Mountains… The sharp-eyed and quick-witted readers of The Velvet Rocket will likely not find the mental strain of deducing where the “Red Mountains” in their name derives from to be particularly taxing in this instance: The Oytagh Red Mountains … Continue reading
In the buildup to the post in which I intend to examine the conflict in Xinjiang, I have been focusing on many of the highlights of the region. In general, I think it helps one better understand events in the present if they are aware of the cultural depth and history of a society. When … Continue reading
As promised in the most recent post on the Karakoram Highway – part of the Karakoram Highway experience includes Karakul Lake and the Kyrgyz people, both nomads and permanent residents, that live in the region. Karakul, whose crystalline waters beautifully reflect the surrounding glacier-capped peaks, is surprisingly unspoiled, with almost no development along its shores. … Continue reading
Stretching more than 800 miles from Kashgar in China’s western Xinjiang region to Abbottabad in Pakistan, the Karakoram Highway is the world’s highest transnational roadway and a testament to modern China’s determination to shape and contain nature’s most daunting obstacles. Completed in 1979, the roadway’s official objective was to foster trade between Beijing and Karachi, … Continue reading
This scene report may be a thousand years too late, but this is the action in Jiaohe right now… Said to be the largest, oldest and best-preserved earthen city in the world, the remains of the ancient city of Jiaohe are incorporated into an island in the middle of the confluence of two rivers near … Continue reading
Found deep within a canyon in the Flaming Mountains, the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves are a complex of Buddhist niches and caves that date back to the 5th century… Long-time readers will, I believe, find that the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves remind them very much of the Buddhist caves (and former site of the giant … Continue reading
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