A Clamour Like You've Never Seen
"Posh, posh!" That's the sound of the Kashgar Sunday bazaar. The translation is a simple one: "Get out of the way!" Ignore this simple warning and you risk being run over by a donkey cart.
This may sound as if the bazaar is a dangerous experience and for those hard of hearing that may well be the case but you will quickly learn that the incessant posh posh is not only preferable to the incessant horn honking of China's metropoli but a herald to discovery.
"Posh, posh!" Look behind you. Here comes a donkey pulling a load of brooms. "Posh, posh!" Here is another laden with Hami melon. Another brimming with freshly felled logs of white poplar. "Posh, posh" Watch out now. This driver's pulling a human payload, wide-eyed and fascinated by the visitor from afar. Yet another, and this must be a butcher carting camel flesh, unmistakable by its peculiar shape and dark red meat.
"Posh, posh" The next is neither a donkey or a cart but a herd of goats and it's hard to tell who's in control. Watch out, donŐt jump to your left. Too late ... "POSH, POSH!"
They drive on the right hand side in China. It pays to remember that when you hear the posh posh from behind you.
It's not like this all the time you are there, of course; only when you are strolling the main thoroughfares. For the most part, the bazaar is either an alleyway lined with stalls and trafficked only by pedestrians or so crammed with buyers and traders - such as at the livestock market - that the pace is restricted to a shuffle. Still, always be on your guard. In the livestock market, for instance, the crowd may suddenly and almost frantically part like the Red Sea before Moses as a horse trainer shows off his skill.
Kashgar's Sunday bazaar is as intriguing an experience as you could hope to expect from a city with such a pivotal location on the famed Silk Road trade route. For centuries, Kashgar has seen traders from the Middle East, from the Mediterranean, from Russia, Africa and Europe.
The Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, of which Urumqi is the capital and Kashgar lies near its western border, touches the edges of eight countries including Mongolia, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. On a 1:3,500,000 scale map, the 7649m Mt Kongur is two finger widths away. The dust in the winds whipped up over the Taklimakan Desert - the "desert of death" - is much closer.
It was in Kashgar where China is said to have taken its first taste of Buddhism with the Indian influence prevalent as early as the 2nd century AD. There are now many religions in the region - Taoism, Shamanism, Christianity and Buddhism, while Islam is the most apparent. And on Sunday, the myriad influences that have shaped Kashgar, its people, its lifestyle, come together into a cultural mortar, pestled together by a common need - to trade goods, to make money, to meet the needs of everyday life.
A livestock trader at the Kashgar Bazaar
"You will feel surrounded by an almost medieval way of life as you wander through Kashgar's famed Sunday market ..." or so read our itinerary and for once it smacked entirely of the truth of it - here, you will certainly feel far removed from the 21st century.
The breadth of goods on offer is staggering, as is the size of the market. An accurate estimate of the area was hard to determine, but you can be sure that to comprehensively cover it on foot would be a difficult and exhausting task. And going by the sound of it so far, the bazaar must be a cacophonous experience. Not necessarily so. While there are many sections of the bazaar supporting a bustling pace, there are many that do not; some even which are almost hypnotic. In a section given to silk trading, brilliant red awnings filtering a harsh sun bathe stall holders in a glorious crimson glow. You may even be privy to some serious deals.
At a carpet seller's showroom, I watched a Belgian buyer casting a critical eye over the quality of the weavings on offer. The to-ing and fro-ing of the deal, witnessed from close quarters but to no concern of those conducting the business, presented a fascinating, time-honoured ritual.
Rolls and rolls of carpets were shuffled around, laid out, flipped over, tested between thumb and finger, and then slowly buried under a barrage of intricate designs as the buyer searched for the perfect style to suit his European market. "He's got 30,000 US dollars to spend," I overheard the negotiatior whispering to the business owner who, with a major sale in sight, proferred an almost imperceptible gesture clearly delineating that a measured pace would secure the best sale.
I shall never forget the impassive expression on his face and hope never to meet him in a game of poker. Sight and sound are not the only senses to be put to the test. Among the stalls reserved for spice traders, for example, the aromas are intoxicating. You may well end up feeling giddy from the wonder of it all. But not for too long.
Wander away from these restful enclaves and you can be certain of a good posh-poshing to wrench you from your stupor. The bazaar is easily the greatest ace in Kashgar's hand, and one certainly worth travelling far to experience, but by no means is it the only one. A tour of Kashgar in the company of a guide will take in a walking visit to the Old City, where the architectural stylings have remained unchanged for centuries.
Our guide took us to the Id Kah Mosque, an important fixture in Kashgar, and led us into the prayer area where we enjoyed an insight into the Islam way of life. Before and after the Mosque were sights you could only expect to see at a cultural crossroads - an elderly man powering a knife sharpener's grinder with nought but elbow grease and a leather strap; a locksmith perched on a pavement unguardedly plying his trade; a tricycle with a bolted-on barbecue; women selling eggs by the roadside, their fragile stock placed perilously close to passing traffic.
Everywhere there are knife sellers, all unable to reconcile the attention they receive from tourists with the notion that something called a customs officer prevents the possibility of a transaction.
You will likely visit the Tomb of the Fragrant Concubine. There is a great legend associated with this concubine, too complex to retell here, but part of it relates that 300 men took their turn at carrying her coffin to its resting place (which may not even be in Kashgar, but that's another story). She was an Uygur woman, this fragrant concubine, and having been surrounded by Uygurs for the day preceding and following the Sunday in Kashgar, I have every confidence she had enough beauty to share among 300 men.
There are two things in Kashgar, however, which you would hesitate to attach the word beautiful to. One is the Seman Hotel, which is the only place tostay as far as tourists go. It is quite basic, although comfortable enough, and has an interesting history having been built around the former Russian embassy. It is not a beautiful hotel, paling by comparison to those further east in China, yet the standard of the Seman somehow fits comfortably within the antiquity of the city which surrounds it.
In any case, you are not likely to spend much time in the hotel. Flights in and out of Kashgar, especially on weekends, are prone to delays, so you may arrive late. You may only be in Kashgar on the Sunday for the bazaar and a tour of the town. The tour will probably start early which means there is little time for pre-occupations with the comfort of your room. I would recommend that you find your way to the bazaar very early in the morning, ahead of and independent of an organised tour (aim for sunrise) as at this time you can observe traders readying for market. In the early morning light this is quite an experience.
A taxi from the Seman to the centre of the bazaar will cost about five yuan (A$1). Coming back to the hotel for breakfast to power up for the rest of the day, I took a ride on a donkey cart which is also recommended as it affords a quite different perspective on the bazaar. Fix your price before you commence the ride, however. The young teamster who transported myself and a colleague maybe three blocks managed to get 15 yuan out of us. I'm sure he's still telling the story to his friends and enjoying a laugh at our expense. Nevertheless, three dollars was a tiny price to pay for what in the end was just one ingredient in a truly extraordinary day in far western China.