Sunday, November 6, 2011

Kashgar!

Kashgar!
Volatile and beautiful and exotic and noisy and scary. Truly, it's as if we have arrived in another world.
We're greeted at the airport by police carrying AK-47s.
Actually, I wouldn't know an AK-47 from a Winchester rifle, but whatever - they were scary-looking machine guns.
picture from mwcnews.net . . . I did NOT want to be taking pictures of cops with guns!
Only a month before our visit, Kashgar was the site of rioting and violent attacks. There was - and is - ongoing unrest between the local Uighur and Han Chinese populations.
Here's a brief and simplified explanation of the situation.

So, upon our arrival, we were a little . . . unsure of what to expect. It was a very quiet ride from the airport to our hotel. I'm sure we were all wondering if this part of the journey was a good idea.


It was, indeed. 

Kashgar turned out to be one of my favorite parts of our 3 weeks in China.



More on that tomorrow!

No comments:

Post a Comment