Kashgar’s animal market

Animal market

After a day of attending to online matters and cleaning my shoes yesterday, I have what might be the highlight of my Kashgar visit this morning.  Being Sunday, I was keen to revisit the animal market to compare what might have changed since 1998.

Coming along for the ride was Simon from Switzerland and Karl from Germany.  Simon had cycled the Pamir Highway and like the Spanish/French couple I had met, was also very affable despite being a superhuman in my eyes.

We departed around 1050 after our hostel breakfast, with Uyghur nan instead of their usual bagel.  The Didi ride was about 30 mins out of town beyond the airport.

As soon as we alighted from the car, it started raining and we had to take cover for a while.  Once the rain cleared, I found the sign to the animal market (in Chinese it is literally cow and sheep market).

We visited the sheep shed first where we noticed they’re of the fat-tailed variety.  Apparently, the fat tastes really good.  We watched people at work creating small pens within pens to choose the ones they wish to purchase.  And there was also a truck unloading more sheep.  This is the place to be if you have insomnia and want to count some sheep. It was similar to 26 years ago except that there’s a roof over our head.

Over at the cow section, things were more sedate.  But most of the cows were huge and very healthy-looking.  There were also some horses in a different shed.

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Other parts of the market

After a while, the animal lover amongst us had had enough and we returned to the non-livestock portion of the market selling dried fruits, nuts and freshly cooked food.

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Despite the breakfast at the hotel, Simon was hungry again.  I stand up to his shoulder and he’s been cycling the Pamir, so it’s understandable that he ordered a large piece of fish, followed by another.

And when it came to buying a pair of trackpants, I was surprised they had something in his size, which was 7XL.

After a couple of hours, we found a Didi to take us back, despite the remote location.

As I paid for the transport both ways on the app, the others took me out for lunch afterwards.

Id Kah Mosque

I washed my sandals after the animal market and left them to dry on the rooftop where it was now sunny.  I met a mature French couple and got chatting.  They said that the Id Kah mosque is now a ticketed attraction and no longer a place of worship.  That seemed consistent with the sign I had seen calling it the “Id Kah Folklore Cultural Attraction.

But I was keen to find out first hand.  When the weather cooled a little, around 1830, I took a car to the mosque and found that it was closed for Asr prayers.  It would open at 1930, I was told by the guard.

A few minutes before the advised time, a few old men came out of the mosque entrance.  The guard walked away and people filed into the ticket counter in the foyer for the pricey tickets of CNY30.

I had no trouble entering in shorts and women weren’t required to cover their hair.

Past the turnstiles was a large open area of garden and courtyard.  Beyond that was the actual mosque with a proper indoor area plus a semi-open area (roof but no walls on one side) for overflow.  I understood that the courtyard is acts as an additional overflow area.

Overall, I’d say the situation isn’t as bad as what the French had thought.

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New Uyghur dish

Wandering out again later to find dinner, I met the French couple dining in the open air.  Their meal looked delicious and I invited myself to join them and ordered the same dish.  It was “nang kao rou” or bread with grilled meat.  It looked like the whole mixture had been fried together with spices and tasted awesome.  It’s so good but so bad for you.  Once in a while, it’s fine.

I found little pastries filled with dried fruit and nuts for dessert for us to share on the walk back.

They had been to Kashgar over 10 years ago and were quite disappointed with the changes.  I showed them my photos from 26 years ago just to emphasise how much it had change.