Month: July 2008

Categories
China India photo

Yarkand and India

The Silk Road city of Yarkand was our first stop out of Kashgar on the “Southern Silk Road” around the southern rim of the Taklamakan Desert. We did not stay long in Yarkand, a surprisingly colorful medium-sized Uyghur town, but did note some items that I thought might be worth a post.

Yarkand is not a major city now, but was historically important as the entry point into China from the Indian subcontinent, via the Karakoram Pass (not to be confused with the highway of the same name) located to the south of Yarkand. The city was in ancient and medieval times filled with Hindu traders and moneychangers.

More recent poor relations between China and India mean that there is no longer a border crossing at the Karakoram Pass, but I was surprised to see nevertheless in my short time in Yarkand what I believe to be residue of this ancient link, in the form of Indian influences not visible in Kashgar just a few hours away.

In both roasted lamb and dumplings in Yarkand a great deal of turmeric is used, giving a result like that of Indian curry.

One of the most famous sites of Yarkand, a 16th century mausoleum for a local princess, seemingly to me built in an Indian style.

Could this Yarkand man’s ancestors be Indian?

Historical continuity in Yarkand is visible in other areas as well. Yarkand, along with some other of the Southern Silk Road towns, was noted from long ago, including by Marco Polo, for gout. We saw on our visit people suffering from this disorder caused by the local water supply, which the Chinese government is trying to remedy with educational programs. Despite much economic and scientific progress, some physical/geographical realities remain from hundreds or even thousands of years ago.

Wandering around the old royal cemetery of Yarkand, we ran into a group of elderly men and women praying. (I’m not sure why these people were praying at royal tombs, but it is a relatively common sight in Islamic countries. Perhaps because in Islamic states rulers are portrayed as particularly pious and holy men?) What struck me was that the vocalization of the prayer–drone chant interrupted by occasional raised inflections/tones–was exactly the same as Buddhist prayer. Islam only arrived in the region in the 15th century; could it be possible that the rhythmic/melodic style of Buddhist worship persisted? After all, I have read that the repeated prostration that Muslims perform during their prayers is actually an ancient Christian form of worship still practiced in some Syrian churches.

While pondering this, I suddenly remembered that my Catholic grandmother prayed the same way–could it be that she was also praying, that most Christian Asians pray, in the way that her/their Buddhist ancestors did? The more things change…

Categories
faces Pakistan photo

Faces of Pakistan

We were in Pakistan fairly briefly, and only in the Northern Areas, but did have a chance to get some photographs of the friendly locals. The photos are in geographical order, from the Chinese border in the north to Gilgit, the capital of the Northern Areas, in the south.

Some photographs taken from Sost. Because Sost is an administrative and transit center, we think that these two individuals may not be true natives of the area, but they do have a typical northern appearance.


Heading south our first stop was Passu, which is located in the Wakhi area of the Northern Areas. Although they often consider themselves Hunza, and share the Ismaili faith (see post of 7.13), the Wakhi are ethnically and linguistically distinct, being from the Wakhan Valley shared by Tajikistan and Afghanistan (see post of 6.23). Their language (and likely their genetic ancestry) is related to that of Tajikistan and Iran, rather than the other languages of the Northern Areas.

A Wakhi boy

A Wakhi woman, in traditional dress quite similar to the Tajik Pamiris

Two Wakhi girls. Note how fair the second girl is, just like other Pamiris (see my posts of 6.23 and 6.29). Indeed, it is startling how different the ethnicities and cultures of the Northern Areas are from the rest of Pakistan.

The “heart” of the Northern Areas is the Hunza Valley, populated by a people that speak Burushaski, a language unrelated to any other in the world. The Hunza Valley is famous for its cultural distinctiveness, as well as for its beautiful mountains and healthy way of life.






Our young “guide” up to the Ultar Meadow

A common summer sight–girls and women carrying baskets for apricots

Women, sometimes with cover but often not, are a common site in the Hunza Valley, which is largely Ismaili. Heading further south into Pakistan, women were essentially nowhere to be seen–less so than anywhere else we have been.

Some pictures from Gilgit. Although Gilgit is in the Northern Areas, that it is a much bigger city and its more southern location mean that many different ethnic groups from Pakistan have settled there. For example, the second man below (who liked to smile but not for the camera) told us that he was a Pashtun from Peshawar. Gilgit was extremely tense, with a huge police/military presence trying to suppress ongoing sectarian violence, but the locals were for the large part very friendly. The most common joke, believe it or not, was men pointing at their bearded friends and telling us that they are Taliban. One man even pointed at another man’s large belly saying that it was actually a bomb and he a suicide bomber!






I believe these guys are Hunza, because they are wearing Hunza hats.

Rather intense eyes, don’t you think?

Categories
China Pakistan photo

Kashgar SideTrip: Karakoram Highway

Plotting out our time in China while in Kyrgyzstan, and trying to put together an itinerary for a couple friends who said that they might join us out in Xinjiang (although in the end they couldn’t make it), we decided on a week-long side trip to northern Pakistan on the Karakoram Highway, or KKH. In this post, I will cover not only our route and some of the highlights of our trip, but also some of our considerations in planning our time in Pakistan.

First, a key question: Is it safe? There have been many bombings in Pakistan recently, and the political situation has been uncertain for some time. Although it is tempting to say that a particular tourist’s odds of being near an explosion are quite low, we actually met a fellow tourist in Kyrgyzstan who said that he was within 100 meters of a bomb in Lahore, and was thrown against a wall by the concussion. While the risk is small, it is certainly greater than in many other destinations. In the end, we felt comfortable proceeding with the trip because we would be visiting only the Northern Areas, which has been safe despite more turbulent conditions to the south. We knew that the religion of most of the areas we would visit was Ismaili Islam, a peaceful and tolerant sect led by the Aga Khan (see post of 7.13), and that there was essentially no recent history of violence in Pakistan north of the city of Gilgit. As it turned out, we ended up spending one night in Gilgit, which was in quite a tense security situation, but as we figured the rest of the Northern Areas was completely at peace and totally safe.

Second, we had to figure out the visa situation. We were planning the Pakistan sidetrip early enough that we could have, if we had to, made a detour to the Pakistan embassy in Bishkek, but we had not really been planning on visiting Bishkek, much less staying the three or four days that would have been required. We learned from the internet that the government of Pakistan had recently started giving visas on arrival at the border with China. For U.S. citizens the fee is pretty steep at USD 150, but visa on arrival saved us a long detour. (The processing at the border ended up being tediously slow, but we imagine that will be resolved soon. I should also note that the Chinese authorities had no problem letting us continue to Pakistan without a Pakistan visa in our passports, a concern that has been expressed in the past.)

Preliminaries aside, our trip on the Karakoram Highway.

We started from Kashgar’s long-distance bus station on a morning bus for Karakul (Lake), a four hour ride, where we spent the night in a Kyrgyz yurt. Given the problems with the yurtstays (see post of 7.11), we would recommend for now that you not stay the night, just staying at the lake long enough to enjoy the view and fresh air and then continuing on to Tashkurgan, the last Chinese city on the Karakoram Highway.

Long-distance bus station, Kashgar

Karakul (Lake)


From Karakul to Tashkurgan, another couple hours, we hitchhiked with a truck driver, although buses pass by occasionally as well. We ended up staying almost 24 hours in Tashkurgan, perhaps longer than ideal, but it is not a city without interest. For one, Tashkurgan is a Tajik-ethnic city, an oddity even in Turkic Xinjiang. Second, Tashkurgan’s namesake “Stone Tower,” a mudbrick fort near the center of the city, is believed by some to be a key point on the Silk Road identified by the likes of Ptolemy, and is set on a beautiful site overlooking a green pasture dotted with Kyrgyz yurts.


To get from Tashkurgan into Pakistan, you need to find the bus that departed from Kashgar for Pakistan, which overnights in Tashkurgan. In our case, a friendly Tajik attendant at the bus station helped us locate the bus. The best place to find this bus is the customs office, which lies on the Karakoram Highway just south of its intersection with Tashkurgan’s “main street.” The bus will likely be at the customs office for an hour or two between 9 and 11, depending on how quickly it passes through all of the formalities.

KKH’s name in Chinese, Tashkurgan

From Tashkurgan up to the 4700 meter Khunjerab Pass is a fairly short drive amidst beautiful Pamiri/high plains scenery. On the Pakistani side, the road abruptly deteriorates but the views get even better, as the peaks sharpen and valleys deepen. After a few hours in no-man’s land, the bus pulled into Sost, where the Pakistani immigration and customs procedures took place. We had no serious problems with visa-on-arrival, although a couple procedural mistakes on the immigration officer’s part, and a poorly-timed power outage, ended up in an hours-long delay (causing us and our bus-mates much anxiety).

The bus from Tashkurgan into Pakistan, run by Pakistani NATCO, goes all the way through to Gilgit, but drops off passengers anywhere en route. Although we had purchased our tickets only to Sost, we ended up staying on the bus until Passu, an hour or two further down the road.

Passu is a very peaceful and quiet village in the shadow of a dramatic set of peaks known as the Cathedral on one side and mountain glaciers on the other. We stayed at the Passu Peak Inn, a basic but comfortable guesthouse run by a very friendly retired Pakistani army officer. The people of Passu are Wakhis, coming originally from the Wakhan Valley in Tajikistan and Afghanistan. Although they speak their own Iranian language of Wakhi, they are Ismaili and to a certain extent consider themselves related to the people of the (also Ismaili) Hunza Valley to the south. We greatly enjoyed the food at the Glacier Breeze Restaurant, run by charismatic but also somewhat puzzling Mr. Khan.

Wakhi woman

The number one “activity” in Passu, and one of the most famous short hikes off of the Karakoram Highway, is the “two bridges walk,” which goes from Passu over a couple of cable suspension bridges to the village of Husseini a bit further south on the KKH. The views while a bit different are perhaps no better than from Passu itself (which, frankly, would be hard to beat), but the bridge crossings are unforgettable.

The planks are so far apart that at times you are forced to walk on one of the cables as on a tightrope. At the bridges’ lowest points you can hear the river crackling below you, and the fast motion of the water creates the uncomfortable and dizzying illusion that the bridge itself is moving in the opposite direction. There are several cables, however, so actually falling through is very unlikely.

Trail created along cliffsides from stacking numerous pieces of flat rocks; we had seen these “overings” earlier along the Wakhan (see post of 6.23).

From Husseini, we hitched a ride (with a group of young men from Karachi and their armed guard) down to Karimabad, where we stayed at the wonderful World Roof Hotel. Karimabad is the quiet and well-touristed capital and heart of Hunza, which was a princely state in British India and has an identity quite independent from the rest of Pakistan. The Hunza are Ismaili, speak a
unique language unrelated to any other and are clearly visually different from their compatriots to the south. Thanks largely to the efforts of the Aga Khan, northern Pakistan enjoys higher levels of education and other social development than most of the rest of Pakistan. In some ways, it is unfortunate that northern Pakistan is suffering a downturn in tourism due to instability in the rest of the country, and some people in the north were quick to point out that we were in “Hunza, not Pakistan,” and totally safe.

Karimabad is located several hundred feet uphill from the Karakoram Highway, and enjoys a commanding view of the Hunza Valley, all the way across to Mt. Rakaposhi. Up “behind” Karimabad are yet more snowy peaks, while Karimabad itself is an Eden of terraced fields and orchards.

Truck driving up downtown Karimabad

View of Karimabad

View from Karimabad, afternoon

We enjoyed the wonderful climate and scenery of Karimabad not only from the perfectly placed balcony of our hotel room but also made a day hike up to Ultar Meadow, where we enjoyed tea with the local herders while hearing the occasional breaking of snow and ice from the nearby glacier. This hike is characterized as “easy” by the Lonely Planet, but we had difficulty finding the way until a very energetic 12 year old offered to act as our guide (for the usual $5 rate). Even if you knew the way, it would be a stretch to call the short hike “easy,” but it does offer incredible views of the nearby peaks, glacier and across the valley.

Glacier, Ultar Meadow

Trail up to Ultar Meadow. This section of the trail follows a man-made water channel, which directs snowmelt from the mountains into the lush irrigated fields of Hunza. But for these channels, the Hunza Valley, with little precipitation, would be a mountain desert.

One night, we hired a jeep up to Eagle’s Nest at Duiker viewpoint for dinner. The Eagle’s Nest is a comfortable hotel with a truly spectacular location that really merits a long stay–just you (and your loved one), the priceless view (like that from Karimabad but higher) and a pile of books. Food was tasy, and great value.

Terraces near Eagle’s Nest

The principal historical site of Hunza is Baltit Fort, beautifully refurbished by the cultural projects wing of the Aga Khan Foundation–perhaps the best such restoration job we’ve ever seen!

Baltit Fort

Old house restoration at Baltit Fort. Note the similarity to Pamiri homes from Tajikistan (see post of 6.23).

It being summer, there were apricots absolutely everywhere in the Hunza Valley, ripe for the picking. Dried apricots and apricot pits are used widely in Hunza cooking, including in the delicious apricot soup.

Ganish Village, downhill from Karimabad, also well-restored with the support of the Aga Khan Foundation. Ganish is Shiite Muslim, and not Ismaili like the rest of Hunza–they did not convert to Ismailism with the rest of Hunza in the nineteenth century.

We decided to catch the Kashgar bus from its origin in Gilgit, and so hired a car to take us down the night before. The couple hours’ drive was memorable for the views of the old vertiginous trails and roads heading southward from Hunza as well as Rakaposhi Viewpoint, where we enjoyed a simple but tasty meal.

Old roads/trails along the way

Rakoposhi Viewpoint

Gilgit itself came as something of a surprise. We were told that there has been some sectarian violence in Gilgit, but did not know that there had also been a very recent assassination attempt. There was extremely heavy police/military presence, including a sort of military bunker set up in the town center and pick-up trucks with armed soldiers cruising down the main road every several minutes. The somewhat rough crowd populating the town was nonetheless friendly, joking with us by pointing to their friends and saying that they were Taliban and suicide bombers. (Indeed, most of the people in Gilgit did fit the western Taliban stereotype, in terms of facial hair and dress.) [To avoid spending a night in Gilgit, you can easily pick up the bus to Kashgar as it passes through Karimabad. Or, if you want to fly into/out of Gilgit to start/finish your trip, it is perfectly possible to have a Karimabad hotel pick you up/drop you off to avoid an overnight stop in the town.]

The bus from Gilgit to Kashgar takes one long day, departing from Gilgit around 6 AM and arriving in Kashgar almost at midnight. Watch out for the Chinese border officials and their x-ray machine!

Our bus had some trouble starting!

Categories
Pakistan religion Tajikistan

Ismailis and the Aga Khan

[Please also refer to my posts of 5.20 and 5.28 for an introduction to the history of Islam.]

The Tajik Pamirs and northern Pakistan share not only mountainous terrain and certain ethnic/cultural links but also religion: Ismaili Islam. The Ismailis are Shiite Muslims who believe that the true seventh Imam was a man named Ismail rather than his younger brother Musa, as the Twelver Shiites (such as those of Iran) believe. While during certain periods, such as the Cairo-based Fatimid Empire, Ismailis were a powerful force, today they form a small minority of Muslims, often scattered in remote mountainous terrain.

The historical distinction between Ismailis and other Shiites may seem minor, but, over time, this simple succession dispute has led to a universe of divergence, as Ismailis have become among the most progressive of the Islamic sects, in stark contrast to the Shiites of Iran. Indeed, the distinction between Ismailis and other Muslims has grown so great that one (Sunni) Kyrgyz woman in Tajikistan told us that the Tajik Pamiris were not even Muslim. Of course, despite the strong lingering of pre-Islamic beliefs and traditions the Ismaili Pamiris are in fact Muslim, as are the Ismaili Hunzas of northern Pakistan, but it is true that the Ismaili worldview of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is clearly a world apart from some other sects of Islam, and, to this outsider, far more appealing.

This difference is perhaps no more apparent than in Pakistan. In the fabled lands of Hunza in northern Pakistan, the population is largely Ismaili, having converted in the 1830s, while the rest of the country is largely Sunni and, to a lesser extent, Twelver Shia. In Hunza areas, it is common to see local women out and about living their lives, and to interact with them on a socially equal basis, as in the West. Just a couple hours south, it is essentially impossible to even see a woman in public, because they live in seclusion, public life being the exclusive domain of men. The Hunza Valley is exceptionally safe, a haven of calm befitting the beautiful landscape; a couple hours south, sectarian violence necessitates battlefield levels of policing by armed soldiers. In the Tajik Pamirs, whenever a local person spoke of religion, he or she stressed the unity of humanity and faith, in sharp contrast to some religious who see people of other faiths as fundamentally misguided and dangerous.

Flag of the Ismailis, Hunza Valley, Pakistan

All of this is thanks, I believe, largely to the stewardship of the living Imam of the Ismaili faith, the Aga Khan. That’s right–while Twelver Shiites believe that the twelfth Imam was the last, the Ismailis believe in a line of succession that has survived to this day from Mohammed to Karim al-Hussainy, the forty-ninth Imam and the current leader of the Ismaili faith, generally referred to by his hereditary title, Aga Khan IV.

I do not know too much about the history of the Ismaili Imams, but as of the nineteenth century the Imam of the Ismaili faith already had some prominence in Iran, acting as a governor of some localities. The forty-sixth Imam was granted the title of “Aga Khan” (an Iranian-Turkic royal title) by the Shah of Iran. The family later moved to British India, where the 48th Imam, also known as Aga Khan III, played a significant role in the establishment of the Muslim League and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Aga Khan III also served as the President of the League of Nations, the pre-United Nations body that existed between the two world wars. His son acted as Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations.

Karim al-Hussayni (Aga Khan IV) was born in Switzerland in 1936, grew up in part in Kenya and attended Harvard, where he studied–get this–Islamic history. When it was time for his grandfather Aga Khan III, in accordance with Ismaili custom, to choose a successor from the family, he chose his grandson Karim rather than Karim’s father to be the 49th Imam because he believed that it was good for the Ismaili faith to have a younger Imam who had grown up in the atomic age. The Aga Khan currently lives in France carrying on his family’s distinguished history of public service with the work of the Aga Khan Foundation, one of the largest privately run development organizations in the world. I’ll discuss the Aga Khan Foundation a bit later, but first I wanted to convey a sense of the Aga Khan’s spiritual leadership of the Ismaili faith–the following excerpts from the website of the Aga Khan Development Network put it succinctly.

The Aga Khan has emphasised the view of Islam as a thinking, spiritual faith: one that teaches compassion and tolerance and that upholds the dignity of man, Allah’s noblest creation. In the Shia tradition of Islam, it is the mandate of the Imam of the time to safeguard the individual’s right to personal intellectual search and to give practical expression to the ethical vision of society that the Islamic message inspires. . . . [The] wisdom of Allah’s final Prophet in seeking new solutions for problems which could not be solved by traditional methods, provides the inspiration for Muslims to conceive a truly modern and dynamic society, without affecting the fundamental concepts of Islam.

The key to the dignified life that Islam espouses is an enlightened mind symbolised in the Quran’s metaphor of creation, including one’s self, as an object of rational quest. “My Lord! Increase me in knowledge,” is a cherished prayer that the Quran urges upon all believers, men and women alike. . . . This spark of divinity, which bestows individuality and true nobility on the human soul, also bonds individuals in a common humanity. Humankind, says the Quran, has been created from a single soul, as male and female, communities and nations, so that people may know one another. It invites people of all faiths, men and women, to strive for goodness.

The message is one that I find exceptionally sympathetic. The Aga Khan stresses compassion and tolerance, the opposite of the sectarian and other chauvinism and violence seemingly promoted by some Islamic sects. He stresses individual rights and freedom of conscience. He believes in the intellect and “new solutions” rather than stale dogma, which can cause many religions to turn cruelly reactionary and conservative. He recognizes that the religious message, the gift of the prophets, is meant to “inspire” and cannot necessarily by itself solve the world’s problems, and that the most important thing is to retain “fundamental concepts” and “goodness.” The worldview is overwhelmingly universalist, a belief in the brotherhood of man and not just Shiites or Muslims.

The Aga Khan’s religious message also goes to compassion for the weak, a message common to many religions but often paid only lip service.

At the heart of Islam’s social vision is the ethic of care of the weak and restraint in their sway by the rich and powerful. The pious are the socially conscious who recognise in their wealth, whether personal talent or material resources, an element of trust for the indigent and deprived.

Traveling in Ismaili areas has given me a great deal of respect for the Aga Khan precisely for his commitment to improving life of the poor. He recognizes that his flock, the Ismailis, live in remote circumstances at the edge of the Muslim/civilized world, and literally helps build bridges to connect them to each other and to the outside world. The Aga Khan works through partnerships with, and funding from, all sorts of other entities including multilateral organizations and governments, adding to the available pool of resources from the Aga Khan personally and private contributions (including those of wealthier Ismailis). The Aga Khan is sadly uncommon in being a world spiritual leader who also looks after his followers’ material well-being.


While areas of geographical focus are chosen based on the presence of local Ismaili populations, the Aga Khan Foundation provides all services on a non-discriminatory basis without regard for religious affiliation, ethnicity or gender. The mission of the Aga Khan is far broader.

[The] combined mandate [of the Aga Khan Development Network, or AKDN,] is to improve living conditions and opportunities, and to help relieve society of the burdens of ignorance, disease, and deprivation. . . . The impulses that underpin the Network are the Muslim ethic of compassion for the vulnerable in society and the duty, guided by the ethics of the Islam, to contribute to improving the quality of all human life. The pivotal notion in the ethical ideal of Islam is human dignity, and thus, the duty to respect and support God’s greatest creation, Man himself.

Not only is the Aga Khan’s (and his grandfather-predecessor’s) mission impressive, but the organizations have shown incredible results. For example, the Hunzas benefit from significantly higher levels of social development (such as health and education levels) than the rest of Pakistan. Everywhere you see Aga Khan projects–schools, clinics, dams and canals, restorations of historical sites, etc. To hear locals speak of the Aga Khan is moving. Doesn’t it seem unlikely that an eighth century schism could have such real world consequences in the twenty-first, and make Ismaili areas of Pakistan such havens of peace and prosperity while other parts of the country burn with religious strife? The Hunzas converted only in the 1830s–had they not, how different may life in northern Pakistan be today, without the leadership and development assistance of the Aga Khan?

The Aga Khan is, in one word, inspiring. What would it be like to be born and educated in Europe, to attend Harvard, and be a living Imam? A man of the twentieth century, and with the political burdens of public service, but also a descendent of Mohammed and a spiritual leader? I do not know as much as I would like to about the man, but could he have made any better use of his position?

Categories
China photo

Karakul Lake – Trouble in Paradise

Karakul (Lake), some four hours south of Kashgar in China’s Xinjiang Province, is quite simply one of the most beautiful places we have ever been.



Situated at 3600 meters, and hours from the nearest city, Karakul is isolated and pristine, yet easily accessible from Kashgar by regular bus service on the Karakoram Highway. Not only is it a place of natural beauty, but a visit to the lake offers ample opportunity to interact with the local Kyrgyz–in some ways it offers an even better experience (and certainly in a more beautiful setting) than similar destinations in the Kyrgyz homeland of Kyrgyzstan. It has all the makings of a world-class attraction.

Except that the current situation at the lake is totally fucked up.

It is well-established practice among travelers–has been for the last ten/twenty years at least and is described in every guidebook–to stay on the shores of Karakul in yurts set up by the local Kyrgyz. The yurts are there for tourists, and so it cannot be said to be a fully authentic yurtstay, but the Kyrgyz keepers are from the nearby village and the yurts themselves are authentically and well constructed. The Kyrgyz ask for RMB 40 (USD 6) per person for dinner, lodging and breakfast, which is frankly a very good deal, especially when compared to yurtstay rates in Kyrgyzstan which cost about three times as much. And all this in, again, a drop-dead spectacular setting.

After arriving at the lake by bus from Kashgar and dropping off our bags in a yurt, we were simply ecstatic. The weather and lake were gorgeous, the yurt beautiful and our Kyrgyz host terrific, offering a level of formal hospitality that was warm and sincere. We were to share the yurt with two young Frenchmen, a total of RMB 160 for the host which isn’t a bad take, either. After having some bread and tea, we set off for a walk and ended up hiring horses to go around the perimeter of the lake. Other than my horse choosing at one point to lay down (with me still on it), everything was perfect and according to plan.

The first sign of trouble came when a couple people came around with ticket books, trying to charge us RMB 50 (USD 7.50) each for being at the lake. We thought this ridiculous. Here we were, at a natural lake in the middle of nowhere. There is no way in which the lake has been “developed” nor is there any kind of fence or other barrier to the lake. Worse yet, the people charging the tickets were from the ugly hotel nearby–an eyesore if anything–with which we had had no contact, and frankly didn’t want any contact. Not even knowing whether the tickets were legitimate, we refused to pay, as did many of the other tourists present.

The ticket sellers backed down, but a few hours later proceeded to make a circuit of all the tourists in their yurts, forcing people to buy the tickets. Our host told us that it was in fact required (if you come within 10 kilometers of the lake), and that we could not stay at his yurt if we did not have the tickets. We were pissed off–if it were earlier in the day we would surely have just moved on south to Tashkurgan instead of staying at the lake, and we initially said that we would then just leave. But given the uncertainty of finding transportation at that hour, we finally relented and after some negotiation paid RMB 25 (around USD 4) for student tickets–it was simpler to just consider it part of the cost of the yurt (even at RMB 65 per person not a bad deal) and stay. We didn’t know that the situation was going to turn much worse, much uglier.

We had dinner in the yurt–freshly made laghman–and were settled in for sleep. Our host’s wife set up an impossible platform of quilts–real princess-and-the-pea stuff–in which the four of us were to sleep side-by-side, in what I thought was sort of 19th century style. We were already partially undressed and in bed, chatting, when our host suddenly came in. “Problem. Police are here, problem. You have to be very quiet for the next hour.” We of course had no idea what was going on, although we assumed that it had something to do with our host’s legal ability to take guests. We were, frankly, annoyed, but followed his instructions. Which didn’t deter what would happen next.

About 12:30 AM (although far out west in Xinjiang it did not feel so late), several men in military fatigues barged into our yurt with flashlights. Shining it in our faces, they counted “yi, er, san, si” and left. A few minutes later, they came back in with our host, who explained that we couldn’t sleep in the yurt, and had to go over to the hotel.

We were furious and refused. We had no idea that there was any legal situation involving yurtstays (given that every guidebook says that it is done, there are no signs warning people against it and there are actual yurts surrounding the lake whose sole purpose is to house tourists). We were foreign tourists who were already undressed and in bed. It was past midnight and military had barged into our room shining flashlights in our faces. After the ticket incident, we suspected that the hotel was responsible. It was simply an outrage, and we did not see why we should comply. Derek, standing in only his underwear, screamed as loudly as he could while alternately pressing his wrists together and pointing to the door, saying, “Arrest me or get the fuck out! Arrest me or get the fuck out!” Finally, our Kyrgyz host said that he would be fined a huge sum of money unless we left, and we reluctantly marched to the hotel. Outside were some 12-15 foreign tourists, groggy from having been woken from bed.

There was no way, however, that we would let this end so easily. Our instinct told us that this was the hotel’s doing. The greedy proprietors of the hotel were not only charing RMB 50 tickets for the lake, but pushing everyone to stay at their hotel instead of the local yurts. We walked into the hotel and found a few military officers sitting in one of the rooms along with the manager, in what was set up as a sort of a command post for the operation. Derek started yelling. The hotel people knew, from having collected money for tickets earlier in the day, that there were all these people in the yurts. The police station/military post was less than a kilometer away. If they wanted to enforce the law, or whatever it was, they could easily have done so earlier in the day (or put up signs preventing people from trying to stay in a yurt in the first place), but instead waited until we were all settled in, when there was no possibility of travel away from the lake, presumably so that we would all be forced to pay for rooms at the crummy hotel.

The manager’s attitude was infuriating. She said that she too had yurts (fake cement ones, that is), as if that was something that any of us desired. She lied and said that she had nothing to do with the military crackdown (confirmed as a lie not only from circumstance but by local residents the next morning). The officer said that the move was for our own safety, as if any tourist had ever been harmed by a Kyrgyz yurt-host, and offered some lame excuse about the Olympics, in what is probably the place in China most distant from Beijing.

Using the assistance of a domestic tourist who spoke English, we told the officer in charge that what he was doing was completely unjustifiable, and asked what he thought China’s reputation would be if it became widely known that the military had invaded the lodging rooms of dozens of overseas tourists, shining flashlights in their faces and evicting them in the middle of the night. We asked why, if actually illegal, the yurts have remained in place for ten/twenty years. We had decided that if our experience, our peace was robbed, we would make the night equally troublesome and memorable for the officers and the hotel man
ager. We persisted and, in fact, the officer had little to say to defend himself.

Derek proposed to end the conflict by having all of return to our yurts with a promise that our hosts would not be fined for having us as guests that night. The officers seemed relieved and accepted. The officer apologized and allowed all of us to return to our yurts, while providing sincere assurances that the Kyrgyz hosts would not be in any way penalized for taking us as guests. Derek was thanked by both local Kyrgyz (it seems that the Kyrgyz yurtkeepers are having something of an ongoing battle with the hotel, which is Han-Chinese run) and a fellow tourist, for taking a stand.

We don’t know what’s going on at the lake now. The last we heard, the enhanced security concerns during the Olympics were resulting in tourists being turned away at a checkpoint between Kashgar and the lake, told that they could not go any further toward Pakistan without an intent to cross the border. But we were told by our host that the military harassment was a frequent occurrence (which actually annoyed us, since this meant that the Kyrgyz were taking customers knowing full well that there was a good chance that the military would come to throw them out). Our guess is that the hotel manager wants to keep the yurts in place because they attract tourists–if the yurts were totally disassembled, and that information out, most people would probably visit the lake only on a daytrip from Kashgar. What should tourists do? I don’t know what the actual legalities are surrounding Karakul, but if the law actually does not permit the Kyrgyz to operate yurts and the law really requires tourists to pay RMB 50 to the hotel for doing absolutely nothing, I think the best answer is that you should visit the lake only for so long as you can get away without paying for admission, and then leave. Well-written letters to well-placed people may not hurt, either. In the end, it is a true tragedy that such a beautiful location with such potential is so wasted by what seems like extreme greed and petty, low-level corruption.

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China photo

Kashgar

“Just another Chinese city” is what we were expecting. Yes, the name is exotic; yes, it is in the furthest reaches of western China; yes, it is populated largely by Uyghurs and not Han Chinese. But we knew that we were arriving many years too late. We had heard that the Sunday market is nothing like it used to be, now housed in purpose-built buildings. We heard that the Chinese economic miracle had reached this far, and along with it settlement (colonization?) by Han Chinese. Our expectations were low–not that we have a low opinion of Chinese cities, but we’ve seen many before, and didn’t expect to see much that was new or exciting in Kashgar.

While Kashgar is definitely part of 21st century China, the city proved a much more colorful and interesting destination than we imagined.

Perhaps obviously, the greatest factor in making Kashgar so unique, so different from the rest of China, is its Uyghur population. The most obvious difference is simply visual–the Uyghurs don’t look Chinese. In fact, even though I knew that the Uyghurs were a Central Asian Turkic people, I was surprised at how un-Chinese, un-east Asian they look, especially compared to their western neighbors the Kyrgyz, who look for the most part Chinese/Mongol. Moving east from Kyrgyzstan to Xinjiang, it is jarring to see how un-Chinese, how “white” if you will, Uyghurs are in appearance. It is a constant reminder that you’re not in the China with which you are familiar. [Additional portraits to come in a post on faces of Muslim China.]


Of course, the distinctive Uyghur identity is not merely facial features, but culture and lifestyle. What is visible everywhere in the Uyghur parts of Kashgar is a vibrant Central Asian culture, similar to what you see in the most traditional parts of Uzbekistan or Tajikistan, and somewhat more traditional than what you see in the other Central Asian republics.

Men hang out in teahouses, drinking tea and chatting with friends.

Like in other parts of Central Asia, melons are everywhere. In Kashgar, they are conveniently sold by the slice.

Religious observance was suprisingly visible as well, here in Communist China. We saw women on the street in levels of cover greater than in the Stans, and numerous mosques and shrines.

Id Kah Mosque

Abakh Hoja Tomb

Tourism has supported crafts such that the art of Uyghur instrument production is clearly thriving, possibly to a greater extent than ever before.

Uyghur cuisine is essentially identical to that of the rest of Central Asia, although infinitely better prepared and tastier. (See post of 7.5.) The prints that appear on the local fabrics are identical to that seen in other parts of Central Asia. When we showed a local man pictures on our iPod, he clucked his tongue in appreciation just like the hosts of our Bukhara bed and breakfast. It almost makes you wonder–how did these people end up becoming Chinese?

Admittedly, much of Kashgar has been destroyed and rebuilt in recent years. The area immediately surrounding the Id Kah Mosque, for example, is a distastefully and sadly Disneyfied vision of Uyghur architecture. However, just a few blocks away lie genuinely old neighborhoods–if not ancient at least still in their traditional layout and form.


The center of the commercial part of the old town

The best preserved portions of the old city, now admission-charging tourist sites, but still real neighborhoods nonetheless

One thing that preserves the foreignness of Kashgar, I think, is the segregation between the Han and the Uyghurs. In the old town, there is often not a single Han Chinese in sight, while in the newer parts of town one sees few Uyghurs. The newer, Han areas of Kashgar do indeed look like “any other city in China.”


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Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan Uzbekistan

Ethnicity in Central Asia

Central Asia is a mishmash of ethnic and cultural groups–Turkmen, Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Tajik and others–and suffers from the same problem that many other parts of the previously colonized world suffer–poorly drawn boundaries. It likely wasn’t possible to draw the borders of Central Asia such that ethnic groups are entirely contained within one state–nor is it, I suppose, necessary to do so–but the Soviet Union deliberately delineated the various Central Asian republics as to divide and keep subdued. The boundaries are not only peculiar and irregular but also at times seemingly illogical and nonsensical, with disregard for not only natural features but the ethnic makeup of various regions.

At a purely geographical or cosmetic level, the epicenter of the odd boundaries is the largely Uzbek-ethnic Fergana Valley, which was carved up by the Russians among three countries, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrygzstan, in part due to the region’s reputation as a historical center of rebellion (apparently deserved–think 2005 Andijon massacre). Take a look at a map–the borders are comical. As if the general outlines were not strange enough, there are several enclaves/exclaves in the Fergana Valley resulting in little “islands” of Uzbekistan in Kyrgyzstan, and of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in Uzbekistan. Not having visited any of these exclaves, we are not quite sure how formalized the boundaries are, but given that the Central Asian states as a general rule do not have great relations with each other, we imagine that there are at least passport checks at each, clearly a great impediment not only to commerce but problematic for any who live in an exclave or have reason to visit one. On the other hand, from what I hear, the large number of Fergana Valley Uzbeks who ended up in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have not suffered greatly from their minority status, as both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have to some extent protected their cultural/linguistic identity.

In terms of history and present-day difficulties, I think that the Tajiks have the greatest complaint. Perhaps the two greatest cultural treasures of Central Asia and the Silk Road as a whole are the cities of Bukhara and Samarkand, which have been important centers of Tajik/Iranian culture, from Sogdian and Achaemenid through Samanid times (see my posts of 6.12 and 6.19). Even though in later periods most of Central Asia was overwhelmed by Turkic peoples, and became part of Turkic states, the centers of Bukhara and Samarkand themselves remained culturally Tajik cities populated by Tajiks. Nevertheless, they are now squarely within Uzbekistan. Given that Samarkand and Bukhara are probably the second and third largest cities in Uzbekistan, this means that a substantial portion of Uzbekistan as a whole is Tajik–I have heard estimates of up to 50%. Perhaps because they are so numerous as to be threatening to national identity, the Tajik minority in Uzbekistan seems to suffer the greatest mistreatment by the government of any Central Asian minority group. The Uzbek government, not known for being the most democratic or, shall we say, human rights-oriented regimes of Central Asia, deliberately suppresses Tajik language and cultural identity. We were repeatedly told, for example, that many ethnic Tajiks are identified as ethnic Uzbeks in their papers, artificially inflating the official count of the ethnic Uzbek population. Tajiks from Tajikistan complained that it is very difficult to obtain visas to visit Uzbekistan–the Uzbek government prefers to minimize contact between the ethnic Tajiks in Uzbekistan and Tajiks outside Uzbekistan.

The many pockets of minority-majority regions affect travelers’ experiences as well. One of the most colorful pockets of Uzbek culture that we encountered was not in Uzbekistan but in the Uzbek village of Arslanbob in western Tajikistan and the best Uzbek market in Central Asia is in Osh in Kyrgyzstan. By far our most memorable and culturally dense Kyrgyz experience will have been in the eastern Pamirs in Tajikistan, and not in Kyrgyzstan. And, as I mention above, the great centers of ancient Tajik culture are located not in Tajikistan but in Uzbekistan. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, it didn’t matter so much that the boundaries were so odd–the republics were all part of the greater whole anyway. Thankfully, while the republics have been forced to rebuild/reroute railroads, roads and other infrastructure that zig-zagged across national boundaries, the poorly drawn borders have not led to any full-blown wars since the independence of the Central Asian republics.

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Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan Turkmenistan Uzbekistan

The Stans: A Comparison

We’ve now visited, though some fairly briefly, four of the five “Stans,” the Central Asian republics that were once part of the Soviet Union, and I thought that it was worth doing a comparison, similar to my post of 5.7 on the states of the Persian Gulf.

Religion. All of the Stans are essentially entirely Islamic, but each having lived within the Soviet Union means that relatively few seem to take the religion and its proscriptions too seriously. Although we saw little pork being eaten (other than by resident Russians, Koreans and other “non-native” ethnic groups), alcohol flows freely, including especially vodka and beer. The most religiously conservative country is probably Uzbekistan, whose Fergana Valley is likely the most traditional region in the Stans, while as an ethnic group the Kyrgyz, often living in the wilderness, feel the least Islamicized. The only non-Sunni area, I believe, is the (Shiite) Ismaili Pamirs (post on Ismailis to come).

Crumbling infrastructure. The Stans were largely undeveloped in terms of modern infrastructure before the arrival of the Russians, and the departure of the Russians, who provided substantial financial support and investment in the region, has meant that the Stans have suffered greatly in maintenance of public works. Other than Turkmenistan and perhaps Kazakhstan, the Stans simply cannot afford to maintain themselves at the level of development and wealth that they enjoyed as part of the Soviet Union. This is most apparent in remote and rugged Tajikistan, which was the poorest republic of the Soviet Union. Because of the serious drop in living standards suffered at the time of independence, which was multiplied by a bloody civil war, many Tajiks, we were told, are nostalgic for the Soviet era. Western development assistance has played a role in supporting Tajikistan, but it has not been sufficient, as the electricity/fuel shortages of the previous winter showed. We found ourselves wondering whether the Tajik city of Murgab in the high Pamirs is even sustainable, now that it has lost its mission as a Russian military outpost–the setting is in so many ways inhospitable to human habitation, especially at such urban levels.

Police/Military presence. I found myself feeling sorry for Central Asians because of the omnipresence of the police and military. There is nothing about the region in particular that would suggest heavy-handed, corrupt, autocratic regimes–I think all the machinery was just inherited from the Soviet Union. We personally witnessed bribes in all the Stans that we visited except Turkmenistan (not that Turkmenistan is so clean–we later heard of tourists who had been ripped off by Turkmen customs officials). Of the Stans, Tajikistan felt the most like a police state, with numerous police checkpoints and a security force still referred to as the KGB. On the other hand, Tajik officials generally seemed quite polite and friendly, whereas the Uzbek government is infamous for human rights violations and corruption. Turkmenistan has the worst reputation as a police state, but during our short stay it really didn’t seem that bad to us–people seemed like they were quite freely going about their lives, even if under a paternalistic government and an 11 p.m. curfew. Kyrgyzstan is arguably the most “free” of the Stans we visited (hotels didn’t even ask for passports and registration of foreigners has been abolished), but this didn’t mean that the officials were any friendlier or less corrupt.

Food. The cuisine is essentially the same across the region, with the same dishes, both native and imported, found in each country. We did think that food in Kyrgyzstan was marginally better than in the other Stans that we visited. See post of 7.5.

Language. All of the major Central Asian ethnic groups are Turkic and speak Turkic languages, with the exception of Tajikistan, which speaks an Iranian language. Although Kazakh, Turkmen, Uzbek and Kyrgyz are distinct languages, it seemed to us that very many Central Asians professed to speak more than one–and so I believe that the languages are probably more similar to each other than, say, the Romance languages of Spanish, French and Italian. While Tajik is very similar to Farsi and not at all related to Turkic languages at a linguistic level, I thought that the inflection with which Tajiks speak sounded surprisingly Turkic–but this could have been in my mind. [Speaking of connections between Turkic and non-Turkic languages, it recently occurred to me that questions end with a “mi” in Turkish and a “ma” in Chinese, and that “water” is “su” in Turkish and “sui” in Chinese–if this is not a coincidence and there is a reason for this, please let me know!]

Wealth. I do not know how things were within the Soviet Union, but the Stans are diverging in terms of wealth. We did not visit Kazakhstan, but we were told by numerous travelers that things are seriously expensive there. It is unclear how wisely the gas revenues of Turkmenistan have been spent, but the extraordinarily cheap fares for the squeaky new sleeper train in Turkmenistan showed that the Turkmen are clearly benefiting in at least some ways from their country’s newfound money. Tajikistan was the poorest republic of the Soviet Union and remains poor–it is hard to see how the country could catch up given its serious disadvantages in location and terrain. Traveling from Uzbekistan into Tajikistan, or from Tajikistan into Kyrgyzstan, it is startlingly apparent how relatively modern and developed Tajikistan’s neighbors are. As one Kyrgyz woman living in the Tajik Pamirs put it, “life is hard” in Tajikistan, with scarce electricity and such basic pleasures as fruit.

Level of Russification. Ethnically, the Russians are most present in Kazakhstan, where they make up about a quarter of the population, and, while we have been to neither Kazkhstan nor Russia, it is likely Kazkhstan that is the most Russified in other respects as well. Among the Stans that we visited, however, Kyrgyzstan felt the most Russian, with the most Russian language in use, alcohol consumption at its highest, surly (or lack of) customer service and a general lack of apparent happiness in the urban population. Uzbekistan feels the least Russian, there having been something of a conscious campaign to make the country more Uzbek, including by abolishing the Cyrillic script that was used for the Uzbek language in Soviet times in favor of the Latin alphabet.

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Kyrgyzstan photo

Kyrgyz Cemeteries

Unfortunately, I have not been able to do any research on Kyrgyz burial practice, but Kyrgyz cemeteries, seen not only in Kyrgyzstan but also in Kyrgyz areas of Tajikistan and China, are among the most interesting we have ever seen. Located usually in an open scenic setting, each plot is built up with mudbrick into a structure that looks like anything from a mosque to a fort to sometimes a church. Some pictures: