Tom: Hotan (June 27)

Hotan (June 27) · Jul 1, 01:17 AM

These days I’m sleeping in late, till eight or nine Beijing time. I did it again today. This morning Katie met a couple of cyclists heading to Tibet and the sleeping Australian, Ida. She’s the poster I saw online yesterday. After she’s up she tells us about breakfast nearby — spicy vegetable wraps and standard Chinese fare down the street. We three, after breakfast, hire a driver to take us to the Melikawat ruins in the harsh windy desert beside the Jade Dragon Kashgar River where locals mine for pretty rocks they resell to tourists. One woman tried very hard to sell us, “yes jade”. The road out was dumpy and dusty, running out of town past a walled restricted military zone. Our driver had to stop a couple times for directions. He also had to ask direction to the Yotkan ruins. He also asked us for more money to take us there — 70 kuai. We paid. He drove us out to a small rural village outside Hotan, and stopped at a large, overgrown field. These were the ruins, he said. We walked around, avoiding the Garden of the Walnut King (or something similar, I don’t remember, except that it was a 10 RMB entrance fee). The main dirt avenue was covered with a grape vine trellis; the crop will be ripe in a few weeks, I think. We took some pictures, soaked in the feel of the place, and returned to town. Ida split off — Katie and I toured a loud industrial-revolution style silk factory and then didn’t buy anthing from the tourist shop, but we do have a few dried silk cocoons to take home.

We rendezvoused with Ida at 21:00 to stroll around Hotan’s sunday market. We all bought scarves. It’s a lively market, even on weekdays. I sat down for a bowl of crushed ice with yogurt and as a crowd built around us, Katie and Ida pulled out cameras. Children and old men enjoyed having portraits taken, especially when shown their image on the camera’s display. This is how we walked through the market — window shop, stop at an interesting scene to take pictures, photograph the gathering crowd, then break away with goodbyes to wander again. From a far edge of the market we hopped onto an open flatbed motor-tricycle taxi back to the entrance to return to downtown. On the way I stopped for noodles at the same place I had eaten yesterday. We found a second floor grocery store on Renmin Lu down from a crowd gathered to watch the World Cup on a large screen TV in front of an appliance store. We supplied for the two day trip to Cherchen, then returned to the room to chat.

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http://tom.spacing-guild.net/2006/07/05/cherchen-june-28

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