Author archive
13 August 2024
The 787 Dreamliner departed on time at 0100. The crew on board were most obliging, especially with the lady across the aisle from me: The lady across the aisle asked to check that her checked-in baggage had been loaded due to having been rebooked. Even just before doors closed, the crew took her boarding pass […]
12 August 2024
Above: Air China’s First Class lounge in Terminal 3E of Capital Airport. Flying to Bejing I woke up to an email advising of a one-hour reschedule to my flight from Urumqi to Bejing from 1440 to 1540. I had purposely chosen a 6h30 connection to Auckland at 0100 rather one 2h shorter or 4h shorter. […]
11 August 2024
Train to Urumqi I walked to Hami’s railway station around 0900 after breakfast in my room. I didn’t have to wait long before the queues formed for boarding the train to Urumqi. Departing at 1010, time went quickly as I attended to online chores on my phone. I chose to arrive at Urumqi South where […]
10 August 2024
Hami’s sights are concentrated all in one place in the south-west of the city which I reached by taxi. Kings’ Mansion I lined up to buy the ticket for the Mansion (or palace) of the Hami Kings just before it opened at 1000. Like my old guidebook said, it is a bad recreation of the […]
9 August 2024
Flying to Urumqi I had the alarm for 0445, time for a pre-arranged pick-up at 0530 by a taxi. It was a fixed rate arrangement, with probably a 50% premium, as I was worried that taxis may not be available at this ungodly time, especially when people consider 0530 to be 0330. Waiting on the […]
8 August 2024
What I’m not doing I’ve done most of the things I can do in Hotan. There were a couple that I decided against doing: Mazar of Imam Asim: This mausoleum lies out of town and Uyghurs used to pray here. More recent reports have suggested that the area is off-limits to foreigners. Yue Tu Gan […]
7 August 2024
Train to Hotan I took a taxi for Kargilik station at 0815 for my 0919 train to Hotan. At the security checkpoint for the station, they had trouble summoning a cop and I had to wait about 20 mins. When boarding came, I noticed they had trouble locating my train booking at the turnstiles. I […]
6 August 2024
Train to Kargilik After one night, I’m on the move by train again, this time to Kargilik (Yecheng). I left the hotel at 0715 by taxi for the 0819 train. This time it is only a 50 ride in the hard seat class. With locals observing a 2h unofficial time difference, this ride is bloody […]
5 August 2024
To Yarkant by train Today I do my first of five train trips that I’ve booked, the first of which is from Kashgar to Yarkant (Shache), a journey of 2h20 starting at 0950. I didn’t get to have the hotel breakfast with this early start, which is unofficially 0750 locally. In fact, it was the […]
4 August 2024
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 […]