Kashgar is the true frontier city of China and was a significant hub of ancient Silk Road trade. Like nearly all centres in the far west of China, Kashgar is an oasis city located in the western Tarim basin also known as Kashgaria. Lonely Planet comments:

"Kashgar (Kashi) is the end of China's New Frontier, itself the end of China . The first intrepid Chinese traders must have envisioned themselves at the end of the earth as they approached this ready made oasis for the first time, millennia age. (Considering it’s 1,000km through a desert furnace and its varmint brigands from the site of modern Urumqi, they were brave souls). Its strategic crossroads location has seen it as an epicentre of cultural conflict and cooperation for over two millennia.

Today Kashgar is still a great trading hub and very famous for its Sunday Bazaar and camel and horse trading markets. Although it has only a population of 340,000, it is a surprisingly modern and busy centre dissected by the ancient clay and mud brick walls of the Old City and interspersed with beautiful mosques and more markets.

Sadly, the remains of this fascinating old city are being progressively destroyed by Chinese authorities for “safety reasons", the argument being that the area is highly earthquake prone . This is widely disputed by locals and other commentators who consider the demise of the old city as part of a much broader strategy to undermine the Uighur cultural stronghold that underpins the fight for independence of what they regard as their native East Turkestan. After all, these ancient buildings have withstood the wrath of many an earthquake during Kashgar’s long and tortuous history.

During our travels to far west China in 2007, we spent four wonderful days in this fascinating city. For us Kashgar is very special. Today, and despite the changes it still embraces the romance of a true frontier city with a long and colourful trading history and a melting pot of exotic peoples, faces and cultures. We found it was easy to lose ourselves in time as we explored the Old City and back lanes of this extraordinary city.

For us it was good to be back in the city we came to love so much.

Of course the bank at the first border check point was closed and so was the Bank of China in Kashgar when we finally arrived late in the afternoon . We then found out that our up market International Hotel did not exchange traveller’s cheques, nor did it allow payment for any additional expenses by way of credit card. It only accepted cash.

We thought that we may have had enough money for a room service snack for dinner but when we asked at the desk about room service no-one spoke English and we were not able to make ourselves understood. A flustered manager finally dashed down the stairs and exclaimed “I hear your room needs servicing!”

Not a good start. This was the International Hotel?

Having The Blacks is how we were feeling by then. But as most times we thought we were in deep despair, there was soon to be an up side.

Abdul bless him confirmed that he would help us with cashing some money at the Bank of China the next morning before our bus departed, and would help us purchase our bus fares . The hotel was centrally located near the Bank of China and our room was fine. The bathroom even had bathroom scales. After weeks of the dreaded Bukhara Belly, we were obviously very dehydrated but we were surprised at how much weight we had lost. Alan had lost nearly seven kilos and I had lost four. Looking at ourselves we suddenly saw a ridiculous side to our situation. Our skin was literally hanging off us; our arms and legs just bags of sagging folds of skin. Alan need not have described my neck as looking like a Galapagos tortoise though.

Looking at my blood shot eyes, dark eye sockets and my Galapagos neck in the mirror, I realised that I was indeed looking at no other than the real Bride of Frankenstein*

* Before we travelled to Central Asia we knew about the term coined Absurdistan and the associated tiresome and frustrating bureaucracy. And we were well aware also that on nearly every hotel or airport check in desk we would be greeted by a ferocious woman of Russian descent, equipped with dyed dark cherry red hair and curiously always called Svetlana . And apparently all Svetlanas come with "Bride of Frankenstein" personalities. We never did meet a truly ferocious Svetlana but….

Brightened up by the prospect of obtaining some money the next day, we decided to look for some shops where we could buy some bread and beer. Fortunately for our money supply, we were not feeling well enough to buy a meal. Finding a shop that sold beer was more difficult than we thought though. But just like our last visit the local Kashgar people were wonderfully helpful. The secret to finding someone who spoke a little English we found was to spot a young modern looking person using a mobile phone. Well, it worked three times… Armed not only with bread and beer, but also a bottle of Chinese Loulan red wine we dined in our hotel room on bread and our now famous Viola brand processed cheese, beer and wine. We had lost count of how many bread and cheese meals we had eaten. Saved by Viola again.