After a 13 hour journey today with two plane changes in Shenzhen and Urumqi, I arrived in Kashgar 喀什 tonight. It was still quite bright at 8pm and at first sight, Kashgar seems completely scrubbed and spotless - suspect it's because of the upcoming 18th Communist Party Congress. Lots of huge signs everywhere giving congratulatory well-wishes on the Congress. Because of the Congress, many Chinese airports hve implemented tighter security measures for this month, eg no wheelie cabin luggage even if they are below the maximum size.
After arriving at the hotel, my exhaustion was not helped by then spending two hours trying to figure out Internet connections. Finally successful but no idea why. My room is a bit awful as there is a huge billboard blocking two-thirds of my window and there are only about 4 lightbulbs in the entire room. Still, almost bearable once the television is turned on.
Interestingly, unlike other Xinjiang cities that I have visited, Kashgar does seem to prominently use "local time" which is two hours behind Beijing standard time and the Uighurs I have met so far seem to be more fluent in english than putongua.
I finally met up with the 10 people with whom I will spend the next 20 days - all english people who invariably asked me the question of whether Hong Kong has changed after the handover. Sigh. It seems people cannot think of any question except this one when it comes to Hong Kong. Dinner was at John's Cafe, a well-known backpacker Internet cafe and restaurant. It was quite pleasant (no doubt encouraged by the Sinkiang Beer) and reminded me of happy times in 1999 in Lhasa (Tibet) where I frequented a similar Internet Cafe near Jokhang Temple.
Tomorrow will be the cattle market and the Sunday Bazaar. I can't wait!
