It's been a stressful rollercoaster of a few days in the sticks and hence why the updates have been non-existant. We headed for Kashgar by plane to save us a few days of tiring journey. The trains and buses were all booked out days in advance and since our time is limited and since I was keen to get back on the Silk Road and continue our journey I felt that it was time to cheat slightly and whilst we weren't on the SIlk Road at least use modern transport to get me back to where we left off.

Arriving in Kashgar, we were met by my friend Nick who'd managed to organise for us to use a hotel where some of the film crew were staying. It was supposedly the nicest hotel in town and free, though the first description was questionalble. It was the sort of place that might once have been grand but had been left to decay and gently go into dissaray.

Our main purpose for visiting Kashgar was the infamous SUnday Market that has been in existence since th Silk Road days. I woke up on Sunday feeling ill, with a cold and a temperature. Still I dragged mydelf out of bed to at least catch a glimpse of the organised chaos that is the market and nearby livestock market. Something like 50,000 people descend upon the market each weekend and the town was buzzing as a consequence. Stalls selling almost anything you could want were present and all enveloped in a grey smoke coming from the numerous food stalls replenishing the hungry shoppers.

I spent the rest of the day in bed feeling miserable and trying desperately to get well enough for us to make the trip to Tashkurgan near the Pakistan, Afghan and Tajik border and where a Tajik community lives. We'd organised to share a jeep with a couple of Canadians, one of whom spoke Chinese thereby making the whole trip far far easier. The faces and dress changed dramattically, though the neat two-piece suits and round hats that the Tajik women wore did make it see like we'd arrived in an air hostess community!

Actually we'd arrived in a major Army town and the Soldiers outnumbered the few residents of the town. This was once a Silk Road staging point and even though the old town lies in ruins, an impressive administrative fort over 1500 years old still remains partially intact. We spent the rest of the afetrnoon wandering round town, being the only foreigners there and it was nice to be away from the inumerable Chinese tourists. We had supper and played pool with some bemused locals before the sun set and it was time for bed.

The next day we returned to Kashgar and spent most of the afternoon trying to understand how to get money from the bank which was doing everything to make it impossible for us. After 2 hours of waiting, trying to explain what we wanted and generally feeling pissed off and angry we succeeded, by which time it was time for supper and bed.

We said goodbye to Nick who was flying to Shanghai in an effort to get some sort of relaxing holiday and Wednesday morning was spent enjoying a good lazy breakfast and organising our trip to Turpan. We went with the Canadians to look at the old town and bumped into a friend of theirs, Elvis, who showed us a few of the local sights. One of these was an old man who claimed to be 95 and who took one look at me and decided that I needed medicine for my cold and that I shouldn't eat beef, spices or drink Beer or Coffee if I wanted to live to his grand old age. I explained that those were all the things I liked and that if I couldn't do them then whilst I may reach 95 I'd be very bored and depressed. He looked puzzled and carried on his medication prescription which basically consited of rose petal and cinnamon candy mushed together for a few quay. I took it and promised to look after myself.

Lunch was an amusing affair at the Bazaar where we had some noodles and nan. The owner decided that he'd crash our table and start chatting to us in local language even though we didnt understand. Still we made as much conversation as we could with my smattering of Turkish, Kyrgyz and Russian and ended up eating watermelon with him and his friends. He was called Ranouja and insidted on giving me his telephone number so that I should call him next time I was in Kashgar. I still am not sure that he realises it may be a bit difficult for me to communicate with him, but I took it still and thanking him for the meal we left, headed for Urumqi.