Xinjiang Oases And Old Kashgar – 7 Days

Start at the Xinjiang Museum, an excellent introduction to the region. Its galleries trace the cultures of the many peoples who live here, from traditional dress and musical instruments to finds from ancient Silk Road towns. The famous desert mummies, preserved by the dry climate for thousands of years, are among its most remarkable exhibits.

Drive south into the foothills to the Tianshan Grand Canyon, where red rock walls give way to spruce forest and alpine meadows. Walk along the valley at your own pace and watch for herders’ tents and grazing horses on the high pastures. The Tianshan range is listed by UNESCO for its natural beauty.

Return to the city and wander the International Grand Bazaar, a large market of carpets, spices, dried fruit, knives and musical instruments. It is lively and colourful, and a good place to pick up raisins or apricots for the road.

Leave Urumqi by private car for Turpan, crossing a landscape of wind farms and stony desert. The Turpan basin is one of the lowest and hottest places in China, yet its vineyards are famous across the country for their grapes and raisins.

Explore the Jiaohe Ruins, the remains of an ancient city built on a narrow island of land between two riverbeds. Its streets, temples and houses were carved downwards out of the earth rather than built up, and the site is part of the Silk Road routes listed by UNESCO. Then visit the Karez Irrigation Site, where a network of hand-dug underground channels carries snowmelt from the mountains to the oasis.

See the Emin Minaret, an elegant tower of patterned mud brick built in the eighteenth century, and pass the red, deeply furrowed slopes of the Flaming Mountains. End the day with a visit to a Uyghur family home, where you can sit in the shaded courtyard beneath the vines, share tea and fruit, and hear about daily life in the oasis.

After breakfast, your driver takes you back to Urumqi, about two and a half hours by road. The road runs back through the desert and past long lines of wind turbines, a reminder of how open and windswept this land is.

Take a flight of about two hours southwest to Kashgar. From the window, watch the vast Taklamakan Desert stretch away below, rimmed by mountain ranges.

Your Kashgar guide meets you at the airport and takes you to your hotel. The evening is at leisure. Kashgar has been an oasis and trading town on the Silk Road for some two thousand years, and you will feel that long history as soon as you step into its streets.

Visit the Apak Khoja Mausoleum, the resting place of a seventeenth-century religious and political leader and his family. Its green-tiled domes and walls in shades of blue and green are among the finest examples of Islamic architecture in the region.

Continue to the Id Kah Mosque, the main mosque of Kashgar and one of the largest in China, whose yellow facade faces the central square. Your guide explains its place in the life of the community. Then wander the lanes of the Old City, a maze of mud-brick houses, carved doors and small courtyards.

Explore the Artisans Street, where coppersmiths, knife makers and musical instrument craftsmen work in open-fronted shops, then end at a local bazaar among stalls of fruit, bread, fabrics and spices. Take your time, try a fresh pomegranate juice and enjoy the rhythm of the market.

Set off early by private car along the mountain highway towards the Pamirs. The road climbs through red canyons and across wide alpine plains, with glimpses of snow peaks ahead. Stop at Baisha Lake, the White Sand Lake, where pale dunes rise above still turquoise water.

Continue to Karakul Lake, a high-altitude lake beneath the snowy dome of Muztagh Ata, one of the great peaks of the Pamirs at well over seven thousand metres. On a clear day the mountain is reflected perfectly in the water, and grazing yaks and camels wander the shore.

Visit a Kyrgyz family who live on these pastures, share tea and bread in their home, and learn about herding life at altitude. Then drive back down to Kashgar for the evening.

Enjoy a final breakfast and some time at leisure, depending on your flight.

Your driver takes you to Kashgar airport for your onward flight, to other parts of China or on to Central Asia.