5 Days in Kashgar

Gate-opening ceremony at the east gate around 10:00-10:30 Beijing Time — local life runs two hours behind the phone. Then the pottery and copper-work lanes and the teahouse balcony.

1. Kashgar Old City
2. kashgar old teahouse

The mosque, founded in 1442, welcomes visitors outside the five daily prayer times with modest dress. Around it, watch coppersmiths hammer and potters turn the city's famous unglazed bowls.

1. kashgar id kah mosque
2. kashgar craft lanes

The 17th-century tiled domes of the Abakh Hoja family tomb, 5 km northeast, carry the Fragrant Concubine legends (entry around CNY 30); afternoon bargaining among carpets, knives and dried fruit at the trade market, fullest on Sundays.

1. kashgar xiangfei garden
2. kashgar grand bazaar

The loess terraces above the Tuman River for old-style housing, then out to the livestock bazaar on the city edge — held on Sundays, where sheep, goats, horses and donkeys change hands in a whirl of dust and tea.

1. kashgar gaotai minju
2. kashgar sunday livestock bazaar

Up the G314 about 190 km to Karakul at 3,600 m, with 7,546-m Muztagh Ata across the water; stop at White Sand Lake's dunes on the way. Kirgiz yurts pour tea by the shore. Return to Kashgar the same evening and sleep low.

1. kashgar white sand lake
2. kashgar karakul lake