Our Adventures in Xin Jiang Province - Yak Tea, Altitude Sicknes and Camels

While in China, one holiday we went on a trip to Xin Jiang Province, which is in the extreme north west of China, bordering on Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Mongolia (see map below).

Map of China in which Xin Jiang is the ochre bit at the top left of China.

Lotty had gone a week earlier than I could, as her work schedule was different to mine.  She had been on a long walk in the mountains in the east of Xin Jiang, and I joined her and the others of her walking group in Kashgar.

I flew from Beijing to Kashgar a day after I stopped work, and went to the hotel where the other members of the small group we were going to be with for a few days were staying, and left my mobile in the taxi too, damn it! Never got it back either, rotten taxi driver!!!!!!!

The next morning, bright and early we climbed into a small bus and headed out to the Karakorum Highway, an amazing piece of recent civil engineering that joins China to Pakistan over the heights of the Karakorum mountain range. This road winds its way along a river valley, slowly climbing and passing the most wonderful scenery as it goes.

A river bed in the Karakorums, typical shallow, gravelly river bed of Central Asia

After some hours, we arrived at the point from which we would be walking, at about 3000 meters above sea level. This turned out to be a rather flat area surrounded by high mountains, capped with snow. We headed off to a small village we could see in the distance where we were going to pass the night.

Believe it or not, this is a village, where we sent our first night on the walk

We were met by a very friendly small family who seemed to be the only people living in the village, and sorted ourselves out. We were to sleep either in our tents or in an adobe house, whichever we preferred - Lotty and I opted for the house option and duly set out our sleeping bags on the sleeping platform in the house.I then discovered the first bit of rural life, no bogs in the village, one simply wandered off into the distance and made a small hole and that was that. Given that the area was completely flat, with no sort of cover or place to hide behind, this was something of a shock to me.... but I overcame the shock and happily conformed to local tradition in this respect quite quickly - needs must.

We arrive in the first village

Lavatories may well figure largely in this series of accounts of our Xin Jiang trip, as Chinese lavatories are rather curious..... more on this as we go along, you have been warned!

Our friendly Tadzhik cameleers arrive

The following morning our baggage camels arrived, and off we went. A pleasant gentle walk over a slightly upwards sloping plain,which to begin with was fine, but as we slowly got higher and higher, I began to feel the effects of altitude sickness, and by the time we had got to some 4000 meters, I was having problems.   It got to the point that I was slowly walking about 10 meters and then having to sit down for 10 minutes to get my puff back again.

Me suffering from altitude sickness at about 4000 meters up

In this slow and slightly "Old Mannish" manner I masterfully managed the final 500 meters increase in height to our destination at 4500 meters above sea level, where there was a rough and ready base camp for mountaineers who wanted to climb the glacier above the camp or the mountain there (7500 meters). Neither of these options appealed to me you may be surprised to hear.

The glacier above the camp.... at about 5500 meters high

My sensible action on achieving the base camp... just above 4000 meters up.

The following morning, still groggy from the altitude sickness - in spite of swallowing of Asprin tablets (the recommended treatment) - I still wasn't exactly full of beans, so with Lotty and another member of our group who was much more effected by the altitude than I was, we decided to go down about 1000 meters to another small village and wait there for the others. However, before the camel herders would allow us to descend, they insisted that the sicker member of the group come and sit in a Yurt and drink Yak milk tea and relax for a while - They were frightened she would fall off her camel, and claimed that Yak milk tea was the best possible medicine for altitude sickness. So this is what we did. Yak milk tea is not nice!

Me and Tadzhik cameleer dancing Tadzhik folk dance... is there no end to my skills?

While we were supping this drink, the chief camel guy decided to show us how to dance in their way, so while one of his men played happy music on a sort of guitar thing, he and I danced happily together, me wearing a rather foolish felt hat that I was given once they discovered that I was a Grandfather.  apparently hats in Tajikistan (where they came from) indicate things like marital status and so on.  After a bit of this sort of cheerful stuff, he declared our sick friend was ready to get onto a camel and go down to the village. So with enormous care and patience, they helped the poor soul onto her camel, and off we went in my favourite direction - down.  This turned out to be a very pleasant stroll downhill, and after about an hour and a half we arrived at the village. This village was a collection of yurts and adobe houses, teeming with children yaks and yak calves. Lotty and I set up our tent on the edge of the village, and settled down to enjoy ourselves, whilst the rest of our party staggered up to the glacier, and then in due time down to our little village. Same lavatory arrangements here as in the other village, the only difference being that here there were no end of large rocks to hide behind. This was only slightly spoilt by the fact that the village women were spread out all over the place, chiefly on high vantage points , looking out for their yaks. Oh well...... when in Rome..........

Where we spent that night.

All these yaks wandering about the place worried me not a little, as I had been told that they were known to casually gore people, and most of these had calves too... So I did my best to avoid getting between any mothers and their offspring. In fairness, I have to say that none of them took the remotest interest in me, and seemed perfectly happy to simply mooch about the place peacefully.

In the evening the others wandered into the village, and we settled down for the night. As was the case everywhere we went with this group, all the villagers set about trying to sell us all manner of "Traditional" handicrafts, which I found rather tedious, but the others in the group had a splendid time bargaining away for carpets, bags, hats and so forth.The next morning, after a pleasant night's sleep under the stars, we packed up, loaded the camels and set off down to the road and our waiting bus. This walk was good, gentle and beautiful. Going down one had time to admire the astounding scenery up there. I have no words to describe it... but I am very glad that I have been lucky enough to see such country up there some 20 km from the nearest town.  Our trusty bus was there for us, and we drove back to Kashgar , only to be told that the hotel we were booked into was no longer allowed to accept visitors with passports (!?) Something to do with the Olympics we were told.  So another hotel was rapidly found, and we checked in. 

A pretty awful hotel it was too... nothing much worked, all the bathroom fittings were falling off the walls, damaged tiles and all the sort of things we later discovered to be quite normal in most Chinese hotels. But the beds were clean, so we at least could sleep well.The next morning, the others set off back to Beijing, and Lotty and I moved to a much better hotel in the centre of Kashgar, and our own part of this holiday began, which I shall write about in following installments.... Watch this space!