The Chinese Silk Road Overland: From Xi’an to Kashgar
Islamic crossroads, China’s Turkic minorities, and secret police…
August 4, 2019
Western China:
Following the Silk Road, the same ancient routes upon which Marco Polo, Xuan Zhang, Kublai Khan, and Timur traipsed, has been the stuff of legend for centuries. One of the most historically important trade routes in the world, the majesty of the Central Asian deserts; the unnumbered ruins of forgotten cities and caravansaries; and the mind-boggling collision of cultures, faiths, cuisines, and languages make for the trip of a lifetime. Over the course of two-and-a-half months, I followed the Silk Road via buses, trains, boats, and hitched rides from Xi’an to Istanbul, traversing approximately one-fourth of the planet’s circumference. This article contains my memoirs from and tips for the Chinese section of this route.
Xi’an, located in central China’s Shanxi province, is one terminus of the Silk Road, while Kashgar stands as the other terminus, situated hundreds of miles to the east where China collides with Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. This area was known in the Middle Kingdom (a.k.a. Imperial China) as the last major trading post before unfathomable and dangerous stretches of barbarian wilds.
If you plan to enter the heart of the Silk Road—Central Asia—from Kashgar, you will inevitably traverse the province of Xinjiang, China’s Wild West. Xinjiang (tr. “The New Frontier”) is enormous and sparsely populated, but a land steeped in the Turkic culture of the Uighur as well as the stark beauty of the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts. As of June 2019, there is no direct train between Xi’an and Kashgar, but a hearty traveler can take a series of trains between smaller cities in Xinjiang and Gansu provinces. While I chose to arrive in Kashgar by leap-frogging through oases along the northern region of Xinjiang, there is an equally interesting route around the southern rim.
Travel in Western China is exhilarating—hiking sand mountains in the Gobi Desert, visiting ruined and living cities of the Uighur, and beholding stunning Buddhist cave art were just a handful of the many reasons that made this trek unforgettable. If you’re willing to go it without a tour group, travel in this region is cheap—probably on par with backpacking in SE Asia and certainly less expensive than major Chinese cities like Shanghai or Beijing. Speaking a bit of Mandarin will help—as does Russian once you get to the far western reaches—but with the aid of a smartphone and an offline translation app., the language barrier is by no means a deal-breaker. However, the police state that currently exists in Xinjiang and the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) undeniable human rights abuses and systematic dismantlement of Uighur culture are saddening to witness. Moreover, travel in Xinjiang is more complicated than other regions in China due to the fact that it is the most politically sensitive territory of the PRC outside of Tibet.
Numbering 10-15 million worldwide, the Uighur are China’s largest ethnic minority and the indigenous inhabitants of Xinjiang. Their origins are speculated to be a blend of an ancient Indo-European people, known as the Tocharians, and Turkic nomads, related to the Uzbeks, who arrived in Western China about a millennium ago from farther north. Genetic analysis reveals that Uighur DNA is on average about half European and half East Asian. They were the first Turkic tribe to transition from nomadism to city-building, their greatest settlement being Kashgar. Founders of the Karakhinid Khanate, the first Islamic Turkic Dynasty in Central Asia, at its peak their territory encompassed Samarkand and deep into Central Asia. Uighur poets, scientists, and theologians contributed disproportionately to Turkic culture across Asia, with Uighur thinkers such as Mahmud al-Kashgari, a polymath from Kashgar who compiled the first dictionary of Turkic languages, celebrated as far away as Istanbul. While the PRC points to the dominion of several ancient Chinese dynasties as justification for maintaining present-day control over Xinjiang—notably the most resource-rich territory in China—the Uighur see themselves as a separate people with a religion, history, ancestry, and culture that render them far-removed from the Han, the ethnicity that comprises the majority of China’s population of 1.4 billion.
Uighur resistance to Beijing’s rule perennially occurs within Xinjiang, but always to be brutally subdued, such as when Chinese soldiers massacred and arrested hundreds of Uighur student protestors in 2009 in Xinjiang’s capital of Urumqi. With Beijing’s recent appointment of a Chen Quanguo, who had previously overseen persecutions and oppression of Tibetans, as governor of Xinjiang, police presence in this province and government efforts to stamp out Uighur identity have increased. Uighur are currently forbidden to leave China and a series of ‘re-education camps’ have been constructed in which possible dissenters are detained indefinitely and forced to disavow their religion and culture while embracing mainstream Chinese values. Nobody seems to know what happens in the Uighur concentration camps, but Uighur detainees, including an internationally famous author, have died while in custody. Some Uighur refugees I met in Kyrgyzstan speculated, in full seriousness, that detainees are subjected to such humiliations as being forced to eat pork and drink alcohol in an effort to erode their Islamic faith. As the PRC exploits the resources of Xinjiang and increases its deliberate cultural genocide, freedom of speech and assembly remain utterly denied to the Uighur. Sadly, international support for this beleaguered culture and condemnation to the PRC’s human rights abuses have been impotent.
The PRC is aware that its actions sully China’s image in the eyes of the international community, and they are accordingly paranoid about what foreigners see and hear in Xinjiang. Foreigners can expect to get regularly stopped, questioned, and even followed by police (this happened to me for a day), whether it be leaving a train station or even merely walking down the streets. A passport must be handy at all times in this region, and you will have to present it multiple times a day to the authorities. Surveillance cameras are ubiquitous on the streets and in hotels, and the Uighur themselves are not allowed to host foreigners or even interact with them. Uighur who talk too much with foreigners risk getting questioned by police and possibly sent to the detainment camps. As a result, they are usually aloof or skittish when approached. In spite of these injustices, authentic Uighur culture—the haunting melodies of a dutar, the Uighur lute, or the voice of a muezzin calling the faithful to prayer ringing through a parched plaza; the rich aromas of cumin-spiced kebobs wafting through labyrinthine alleyways in neighborhoods older than memory or legend—still survives, but maybe not for much longer.
Tips for Train Travel in China:
Chinese train tickets are best booked online. It is wise to purchase them a few days in advance as seats sell out. Booking.com is a good app for train tickets in China, although I have heard that Chinese websites often have extra tickets that are not available on English websites. Both bullet and slow trains traverse China’s railways, and some routes have both options. The bullet trains are 2-3 times faster in general and about twice the price of the slow trains. A letter on your ticket of either ‘D’ or ‘T’ indicates that your train is a bullet train.
There are several classes of train travel, and overnight trains offer a sleeper option. Sleepers are divided into hard and soft options, the soft sleeper being the most expensive (~$10 USD more). In the hard sleeper, you will be placed in an open cabin, with 2-3 bunk-style beds stacked on top of each other (6 beds per cabin). The mattress is little more than a thick foam pad with a covering and an airline-style pillow. In the soft sleeper enclosed cabin (4 beds per cabin) there is a decent mattress and pillow, but although quieter the air inside can get unbearably rank in the middle of the night. Personally, if I have earplugs and an eye mask, the cheaper option of a better-ventilated hard sleeper cabin is preferable.
Train rides through the deserts of Western China can last up to 30 hours. The longest leg I traveled, from Xi’an to Dunhuang, took 22 hours. You can get decent meals in the food car for a couple of USD, and for snacks, smokes, and drinks, vendors go up and down the aisles selling swill known as bai-jiu, junk food, water, tea, cigarettes, and even trinkets and jewelry. It does get boring, monotonous, crowded, and dirty. The trains seem packed far beyond capacity, and the odors of smoke, toilets, and concentrated humanity dominate. The bathrooms are not for the faint of heart; on one journey the toilet actually overflowed into part of the cabin. If you’re sensitive to smoke, it will likewise make for a rough trip. Although it is technically illegal, hordes of smokers light up at all hours of the day and night. While it is a trial of constitution and patience, there are probably few more authentic ways to glimpse the lives of local people in Western China, both the Han transplants and the Uighur natives. I spent the waking hours reading, writing, and practicing Chinese. Uighur and Han families offered me food and conversation. While older Uighur, who had a shakier grasp on Mandarin, remained polite yet reticent, teenaged Uighur were enthused to practice bits and pieces of English, share music and pop-culture videos with me and ask questions about the US. With the aid of the Google Translate app, I was able to pass the time chatting in hybrid Mandarin and English with them.
While Uighur outside of China are well aware of and outspoken against China’s crimes against them, the adolescent Uighur with whom I chatted with on the train seemed oblivious to the repressive actions of their government. Uighur children are permitted to study only in Chinese-sanctioned schools; their traditional Islamic-based educational system now banned. As a result, these brainwashed teenagers had an undeniably rosy perception of China. The Uighur girl who offered me crisps and tea exclaimed several times how her dream was to visit Beijing and how fascinating she found Chinese culture.
With social media and new sources meticulously censored and fire-walled and the surveillance of phone calls and even private conversations within Uighur homes, these teenagers might not even have known about the massacre that occurred in their capital of Urumqi ten years prior. Such brainwashing seems unbelievable, but many Chinese also deny the Tiananmen Square Massacre, stating that the allegations are mere foreign propaganda to undermine China. Watching videos of Chinese pop stars with me, the youths referred to themselves as Chinese rather than Uighur; for example, one teenager offered me a hard-boiled egg with chili sauce and remarked, “We Chinese put chili sauce on everything.” One of the youths asked me if I planned to visit Tibet, which borders Xinjiang to the South.
“No,” I replied, “Unfortunately, it is very difficult for foreigners to visit Tibet.”
The teenagers seemed confused for a second and one of them asked, “Is it because of the weather? Is it too cold for foreigners?”
I decided it was safer to change the subject and asked about the Chinese music videos we had been previously watching.
Xi’an (西安):
The storied eastern terminus of the Silk Road, Xi’an was a buzzing, cosmopolitan Silk Road hub and the imperial capital of 13 Chinese Dynasties. From here, legions of camel caravans carrying silks, ceramics, jade, tea, and countless other goods, departed for the months-long—even years-long—treks through the deserts of Central Asia. Sogdians, an ancient Persian people who dominated Central Asian trade, would arrive in Xi’an to exchange glass, furs, exotic animals, and precious metals from as far away as the Mediterranean and Africa. It was only when the Mongolians, under the military leadership of Kublai Khan, grandson of the infamous Genghis Khan, conquered China that the dynastic throne was moved to Beijing. Home to countless classical poets, musicians, and philosophers, Xi’an is one of the most important cities for understanding Chinese culture, and its marvels go far beyond the well-known Terracotta Warriors. The Old City Walls, the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda, and the ancient Bell and Drum Towers. All of these are must-sees, as is the Hui neighborhood, the enclave of ancient Han Muslims who have resided in Xi’an for more than a millennium. Their chief Mosque, the Great Mosque of Xi’an, is a fascinating blend of classical Chinese and Muslim architecture and a testament to the confluence of cultures on the Silk Road.
Xian – Dunhuang (22hrs by slow train, ~$22 USD):
Note: The train station in Xi’an is located right outside of the city’s ancient walls, and public buses frequently arrive here from all parts of the city.
Dunhuang (敦煌):
Dunhuang is located in the Gansu Province in northwestern China. The Gansu Corridor is a long mountain pass that over the centuries has funneled Han pioneers to the West and nomadic raiders from the Steppe into China’s heartland. Dunhuang’s chief attraction lies in its Buddhist heritage, manifested in the city’s famous Mogao Caves and the Crescent Moon Monastery nestled among the towering sand dunes of the Gobi Desert. Traders passing through Dunhuang would donate to its monks in exchange for prayers and blessings for safe passage through the desert. These donations, along with imperial patronage from the Tang Dynasty, facilitated the construction over the course of several centuries of hundreds of painted grottoes, carved into the mountains and gorgeously illuminated with motifs taken not only from Buddhism but also Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Christianity, and Chinese folk religion, another testament to the confluence of cultures and peoples in this Silk Road oasis.
While ancient painted Buddhist grottoes are found all over Western China and Central Asia, Dunhuang’s are the most famous and well-studied in the world. Although heavily looted by American, British, Russian, and Japanese adventurers (their names live on in infamy in the museums and placards in Dunhuang), they remain the largest and among the most intact Buddhist grottoes in China (many such cave complexes farther west in Xinjiang were defaced after the arrival of Islam). The entrance fee is accordingly high (~$30 USD for foreigners). The Crescent Moon Monastery, located on an oasis right outside the city, is another beautiful example of ancient Chinese Buddhism and is located on a lake nestled in a valley among Himalayan-sized sand dunes.
Dunhuang to Turpan (~8hrs by train, $12 USD):
Turpan (吐魯番):
Leaving Gansu, Turpan was my first stop in Xinjiang. After a few hours on the train, a team of police officers with body armor and rifles boarded the train to check documents. Because I was obviously a foreigner, my travel through Xinjiang raised suspicions, and I was immediately singled out. As mentioned, the Chinese are painfully aware that many in the outside world condemn their actions in Xinjiang, and they were likely concerned that I was a journalist intent on exposing the recently erected Uighur gulags. A large, no-nonsense Han policeman thumbed through my passport for about 10 minutes, examining with seeming consternation old visas I had for Brazil and Papua New Guinea and the various stamps throughout the booklet.
After flitting his eyes from my passport to my face and back again several times, he proceeded to interrogate me via the translation app on his phone: What are you doing in Xinjiang? Where will you stay in Turpan? What is your profession in the USA? Why are you *really* here in Xinjiang? Before moving on, he snapped several photos of my face and my passport with his phone. This treatment would become the norm during my passage through Xinjiang. When traveling between cities, police interrogation would occur several times per day. For some travelers, usually those entering Xinjiang from Central Asia, rumor has it that the authorities use an app to scan phones and social media to determine if the person in question had ever written anything disparaging about China.
In Turpan, as in all towns in Xinjiang that permit foreign visitors, there are only one or two specifically designated places where tourists are legally permitted to lodge. Couchsurfing and homestays are illegal in Xinjiang, and Uighur who interact with foreigners can find themselves interrogated by police and perhaps even sent to “re-education camps,” disguised prisons that hold hundreds of thousands of Uighur against their will.
I witnessed a rare exception to the typical reticence and aloofness of the Uighur in my hotel in Turpan with a group of young students. They had never met an American, and I instantly became an object of fascination for the teenagers. After I introduced myself, they bantered in Uighur and one kept looking over and exclaiming “America! America!” as if in disbelief. The next morning at 5 a.m., there was a loud banging on my door. In a panic and slightly dazed from the rounds a group of Han tourists had bought me at a karaoke bar the night prior, I arose in a rush thinking that the police were looking for me. I had not done anything illegal, but I had heard of foreigners getting asked for identification at random hours in their hotel rooms. To my initial confusion, the Uighur youths, staring at me with their kaleidoscopic eyes of green, yellow, and gray hues, had gathered in a group outside of my door. After a second, one of them sheepishly offered a large loaf of nan bread, the staple food throughout Western China.
It is worth staying one or two days in Turpan, as it is still a living, relatively intact Uighur city whose culture has not been destroyed and repackaged like that of Kashgar. The Uighur cuisine in Turpan is delicious, something of a hybrid of Iranian cuisine—heavy with dill, yogurt, cumin, and saffron—with the characteristic spiciness and wok flavors of Chinese plates. Some of the best apricots, cherries, peaches, and other stone fruit in the world abound in the bazaars, as does fresh nan bread, pulled from special Central Asian-style ovens and sprinkled with cumin, caraway seeds, and garlic. Tea laced with saffron and spices dispensed into beautiful Uighur-style ceramic cups flows copiously with any meal or table-side conversation.
Hiring a taxi driver for the day, a fee that is high for an individual but manageable if split between four people (~$10USD per person), is worthwhile and can allow you to see several interesting ruins and living villages outside of the city. In the village of Tuyuk, about an hour’s drive from Turpan, traditional Uighur architecture and commerce have been preserved. Tuyuk’s mosques and shrines are considered deeply sacred, with the Uighur claiming that seven visits to Tuyuk equal one completion of the Hajj to Mecca. The village is touristic, and you do have to purchase tickets to enter. The entrance fee along with the military checkpoints throughout the village gives the impression of a human zoo; however, the local Uighur do appear to have the liberty to live and worship as they please. The holy section of the village can only be entered by Muslims, but you can view the mosques if you hike up a small mountain nearby. If you stay an extra day or two, visit the Buddhist caves, smaller but less touristy and expensive than in Dunhuang, and the ancient Han and Sogdian Astana Cemetery outside of Turpan.
Turpan to Kuqa (~10hrs by fast train)
Kuqa (库车镇):
Keep in mind that there are two train stations in Turpan, so make sure to check your ticket carefully. I made the mistake of going to the wrong station and was forced to purchase a new ticket to Kuqa, the next city west of Turpan, and wait eight hours in the station. You can go directly to Kashgar from Turpan, but the train journey is over 20hrs. I chose to visit Kuqa to halve the journey and experience more of the traditional Uighur culture.
Kuqa, another oasis in the Taklamakan, was famous during the Tang Dynasty era for its odd mix of Buddhist scholars, courtesans, and musicians. The city is divided into two distinct sections: the old Uighur Quarter, containing gorgeous examples of their traditional architecture in its mosques, houses, and markets, and a recently developed Chinese section, replete with modern high-rise apartment buildings and strip malls. The Uighur quarter begins with a military checkpoint, and it is even more heavily policed than Turpan. Billboards filled with propaganda demonstrating the boons that Beijing bestows—a police officer arresting a marauder in an old lady’s home, a Uighur businessman shaking hands with a Han businessman, and a group of children saluting the PRC flag, etc.—festoon the side of the road leading to the Uighur quarter.
The Uighur neighborhood takes about five hours to see. After the police checkpoint, tourists may walk up the main commercial street and a few side streets, such as the one leading to the Kuqa Mosque, the most beautiful mosque I visited in Western China. Tourists are forbidden to go deeper into the residential areas of Kuqa’s old town, and nearly all the streets branching off of the main street are guarded with police barricades. The Kuqa Palace, home to Kuqa’s sultans in centuries past, has been converted into an interesting museum, filled with ancient Silk Road artifacts. The streets contain beautiful colorful Uighur architecture—carved wooden doors and brick—that makes the city feel much more like Central Asia than China. Delicious food, purchased for $2-3 a plate, abounds: plov, mante, and traditional Central Asian dishes cooked up with a Uighur flair. As with Turpan, one or two days in Kuqa is sufficient to see most, if not all, of the interesting mosques and neighborhoods. If provided with more time, there are opportunities to trek and camp in the Gobi Desert.
There are hardly any Western tourists in Kuqa, but you will see the occasional Han tourist. As with all regions of Xinjiang, make sure to have your passport on you at all times in Kuqa. Police will frequently stop you on the street and demand identification. I got followed by an undercover cop for the entire time I was in the Uighur neighborhood, about five or six hours. The young man trailed me, always a few yards away and never acknowledging me, even when I entered a museum with an entrance fee. He was himself a Uighur and was probably about 25 years old. Although dressed in plain clothes, he had a radio partially hidden in a fanny pack slung across his chest. Before he had started trailing me, I had actually asked him for directions when I saw him standing near the police checkpoint and had noticed with fascination that he had yellow-hued, cat-like irises.
Getting stalked for hours is a weird and unsettling affair, even though I knew he was with the Chinese police. Walking out of a small market, I did not see him for about ten minutes and, sighing a breath of relief, assumed that he had moved on. Rounding a corner and to my horror, he reappeared within my vicinity. Getting more and more irrationally paranoid, I eventually went over to speak with him. He immediately turned tail to avoid my advance, but I forced the encounter, shouting in broken Chinese at his back that since he was already following me he may as well become my guide in Kuqa. When I managed to meet him face to face, I asked for a cigarette, to which he obliged, and tried to start a conversation. Clearly unwilling to talk with me, he mumbled no more than three or four words and quickly retreated to several yards behind me.
There is only one government-sanctioned hotel in Kuqa for tourists, and it was about twice the price of the designated hostel in Turpan. I believe the price was around $20 USD per night in the cheapest part of the hotel, a smaller and more modest building located rather clandestinely behind a much grander and more luxurious primary hotel. Staying in the cheapo section of the hotel does allow you get breakfast in the dining of the fancy hotel; it’s actually a veritable feast, complete with a buffet and a chef cooking up soups and baozi on demand.
Kuqa to Kashgar (~10hrs by fast train, ~$12 USD)
Kashgar (喀什):
The spiritual homeland of the Uighur, Kashgar was a crossroads of civilizations for centuries, with a bazaar that was vaguely known even as far away as ancient Greece. The state of affairs in Kashgar nowadays is hard to see, as the Chinese have eviscerated the Uighur culture and repackaged it in a plastic and sterilized version of itself to be sold to tourists. Walking into the Kashgar’s old city feels like walking into a theme park; the streets teem with kitschy souvenir stores, touristic restaurants, police stations, and poorly translated informational signs. Worse yet, the Old City was demolished within the last decade and rebuilt, the dual purpose being to do away with the labyrinthine ancient streets that could not be easily policed and to create a streamlined tourist destination. While the PRC did take pains to recreate the Uighur style of architecture, such as ornately carved brick and tile work, the new “Old City” comes across as whitewashed and sterilized even to an outsider. Even with the hoards of tourists from China’s eastern seaboard, the Uighur are carefully eyed by police and immediately questioned if seen conversing with foreigners.
On my last night in Kashgar, I inquired with a local Uighur man where a tasty dinner could be had, to which he walked me to a restaurant a few blocks away. Uncharacteristically, he made small-talk, telling me that he was working on a construction site down the street, and even sat with me at my table for a couple of minutes while I waited for the food. I explained in my severely limited Mandarin that I was traveling the Silk Road and had been all through Xinjiang prior to arriving in Kashgar. The conversation abruptly ended when we were eyed by a Chinese police officer. Like nearly all of the disproportionately high number of police in Kashgar, he was dressed in what appeared to be riot gear and toted an automatic rifle. The man sitting with me was summoned over to explain himself. I could not understand the dialogue that ensued, but when my friend returned, he wished me luck on my journey and informed me that he had to get going.
Kashgar left an unsavory taste in my mouth, but there are a handful of memorable and worthwhile sites to be seen. Check out the 100 Years Old Tea House in the Old City, one of the few ancient buildings that has been left intact, for authentic live Uighur music and good, although pricey, food and tea. The Mausoleum of the Fragrant Princess (below) contains the remains of several of Kashgar’s ancient royal families and is a gorgeous example of Central Asian Islamic architecture.
It will not be mentioned in the informational signs, but the remains of a Uighur hero who successfully resisted Han incursions centuries ago were recently disinterred and destroyed by the PRC. Out of a similar fear of the past inspiring uprising, the tombs of Uighur martyrs, centuries-old shrines scattered throughout villages surrounding Kashgar, are now closed off and guarded by police. The Id Kah Mosque, a symbol of Uighur identity located in the central plaza of the Old City, is beautiful from the outside—with the exception of the huge PRC flag brazenly planted on its roof (let the message be clear). The entrance fee for the Id Kah is not worth paying as there is nothing interesting to see inside. The Sunday Bazaar is a 20-minute walk from the Old City and becomes one of the largest markets in Central Asia. Although Sunday is the busiest day, attracting tens of thousands of people, there is plenty to see during all days of the week. Uighur handicrafts (embroidered shirts, jewelry, etc.), as well as any cheap Chinese plastic goods that you might require, can be procured here.
Onwards to Central Asia:
From Kashgar it takes about an entire day to get to Osh, the first major city in Southern Kyrgyzstan. To arrive in Osh, a journey that requires most of the day, take a taxi or bus to Kashgar’s bus station and then take a bus or van to the Kyrgyz border. Getting to the border takes about six hours from Kashgar (including long waits for the buses to leave), and about an hour to clear the border control and leave China. After the Chinese border, there is a no-man’s land section for about one mile. Once across the border in Kyrgyzstan, expect another six to eight hours to Osh by taxi or bus.
A note on entering Xinjiang from Central Asia: the customs process will be a nightmare (13 hours or more waiting at the border control office), and I have been told that the Chinese government requires foreigners entering Xinjiang as their first stop in China to have an official guide, a burden both tedious and exorbitantly expensive. As of 2019, if you enter Xinjiang from other parts of China (with the exception of Tibet), you are allowed to waive the official guide requirement.
