Rather sorry to leave the lovely Seman Hotel which was £21 a night and was the old Russian embassy from when Kashgar was an independent fiefdom in the 19th century and the centre of intrigue between Britain and Russia during the Great Game. The compound in which the hotel was located had a central garden of pomegranate trees and a statue of the Laughing Fool sitting on a donkey, identical to the one we had seen at the Hauz Laubi in Bukhara.
In the morning we went to see the Id Kah mosque which, after passing through an ornate frontal building, is a huge space with a covered area on one side. It has dozens of green wooden columns. Built in 1442 it holds 20,000 people during the annual Qurban Bairam celebrations. The old town has been mostly bulldozed although the local people have tried to recreate the atmosphere among the modern buildings with stalls selling pies, carpets and household goods as well as tourist tat.
We filled with diesel before leaving Kashgar about 3 pm. Anti-terrorist measures meant that cars were allowed into the filling station one at a time through a police post where passport, drivers licence and Chinese number plate were checked and the passenger had to get out to walk round to the other side of the filling station.
There were a number of Police check posts on th motorway including one where the lights for the first two letters had bust, So it became a “lice check”. “You’re lucky to have passed that one David” said Mr Wintour. I was too tired to think of a reply.
The motorway from Kashgar to Aksu was grindingly boring through semi-desert similar to the Ust Yurt Plateau in Uzbekistan. The only hotel with permits to take international visitors was a 15-storey tower block with absolutely no atmosphere. Aksu was a tiny desert oasis town of mud brick houses 80 years ago. Now its a city of 600,000, all glass and concrete with flashing neon lights. Impressive but horrible.
