Back when we were putting together this whole trip, a few people were surprised our first stop would be Vietnam. We’re sure many people growing up in the 60s and 70s would never have dreamed of traveling to Hanoi, Saigon, or Phnom Penh. For us today, the cities of Central Asia possess that same forbidden draw—we desperately want to go to Kabul and Islamabad. But while we hope that someday we won’t think twice about packing our bags for Afghanistan or Pakistan, for now we will have to settle for getting tantalizingly close, just across the border in the Chinese province of Xinjiang.

Urumqi—the capital of Xinjiang—has made it into the international news lately (The New York Times is, oddly, not blocked by China’s firewall) because of riots that have broken out between the Uighurs—who have called Xinjiang home since before Kublai Khan—and the newly arrived Han Chinese—who are bussed in by the thousands and are generally viewed as an occupying force. When we finally made it to Kashgar, the reality of the situation in Xinjiang became clear: Every few hours, green army tanks would roll through the streets filled with glaring Han soldiers and their assault rifles, while men driving ox- and donkey-carts followed at a safe distance. When the trucks passed, additional troupes of soldiers would march by and Uighur men would stop and stare apprehensively, probably knowing that dozens of men and children have disappeared from Xinjiang in the last few months. But they only know what trickles through by word-of-mouth. There is no internet in Xinjiang, we were told: the government shut it off months ago.

Indeed, the Party’s enforcement of its world view is absolute in Xinjiang. For example, Beijing’s single timezone policy extends to all its borders, even to Kashgar 4000 kilometers from the capital. And the government has had some success taming the clouds lately, they can’t move the sun; 9 a.m. in Kashgar is still as black as midnight.

The Karakoram Highway شاہراہ قراقرم 中巴公路

China is often baffling, infuriating, and frustrating, but it is also fascinating in it utter vastness. Growing tired of all things Han Chinese (military procession, propaganda posters, internet firewalls, false benevolence) we decided to get as far away from it all as we could while still remaining within China’s borders. So on our first full day in Kashgar we hired a taxi to take us 200 km over the Pamir Plateau on the Karakoram Highway, heading toward Pakistan and some of the most desolate and stunning landscapes we have ever seen.

This piece of Earth is just unbelievably, jaw-droppingly beautiful. We often wondered if we had somehow landed on the moon as we gazed over rocky terrain, sand dunes, and sky high craggy peaks. If you had told us this was the Sea of Tranquility rather than the Karakorams, we might have believed you until we passed the earth and rock homes that dotted the roadside, looking like they had been ripped from newspaper photographs of some war-torn Central Asian country.

About four hours after leaving Kashgar, we finally made it to our destination: Karakul Lake, a shimmering alpine lake at the foot of 7,546-meter-high Muztagh Ata. We spent the late afternoon and early evening hiking around the lake’s clear, icy waters before camping out with a Kyrgyz family who filled our stomachs with yak milk tea and then buried us beneath a mountain of blankets.

All those blankets it turned out, were entirely necessary, as the yak dung burned out in the stove and the temperature plummeted. But there were about a million stars outside our window and the cold made everything still—so quiet and peaceful.

At dawn (10 a.m. Beijing time), we awoke to the rising sun and the sounds of mountain life stirring: rooster crows, yak growls, and people beginning the business of the day. Emerging from the yurt, we were greeted with a scene that was even more beautiful than we remembered from the day before, as if that was possible. The sun, still low in the sky, bathed everything in a warm yellow glow while a fresh layer of snow and ice glittered on the peaks above us.

After breakfast (more yak milk tea and frozen bread), we said our goodbyes and climbed back in our little green taxi. It was bittersweet, leaving. We were dirty, exhausted and freezing cold, but we felt alive and so thankful to have seen this place. Perhaps only a few times in an entire life does one get to experience something like this, something so monumental, so spectacular that it touches your soul: evidence of work by the hand of God.

Kashgar قەشقەر 喀什

Returning to Kashgar, it was easy to imagine how Marco Polo passed through here on his way down the silk roads. In some places it probably doesn’t look, feel, taste, or smell much different than it did 800 years ago. People still live in earthen homes or ger tents, they make their living shepherding sheep, goats and yaks, and—yes— many still travel the region on the backs of camels. This is a place that I thought only existed in my imagination, the mysterious nothingness of Central Asia, and yet here it was: the end of the earth, except that it really is the center.

Unfortunately, like elsewhere in China, the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) has done its very best to demolish the culture of the Uighurs. Old homes, markets, and mosques are often labeled “cultural relics”, a linguistic maneuver that dismisses the living history of these places and buries them (literally) beneath the “progress” of a unified China.

Yet the CCP has not been entirely successful in its attempts, often violent, to enforce conformity. For now, there is a fragile peace within which the Central Asian culture of Xinjiang still flourishes. Here, the people hold fast to their way of life and especially their languages: Uighur, Kazakh, Tajik, and Kyrgyz. Stepping into the old neighborhoods can feel like stepping into a page from Aladdin and the Forty Thieves and the livestock and sunday markets still teem with humanity buying everything under the sun—from carpets to cows—just as they have for a thousand years.

Perhaps we are just trying to rationalize our own invasion of these places (camera in hand), but we hope that for all its flaws, tourism might save Kashgar and other cities like it from the bulldozers and the bullets. But if not, we are grateful to have seen it while we could.

The Karakoram Highway

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Kashgar

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