Yarkand’s bus station is one place that has not changed though it is much busier than nine years ago. Chaos also reigns – the formality of the new towns of Qiemo and Ruoqiang has broken down by here and there are rucks around all ticket windows and all manner of men and vehicles touting for business in competition with the buses as we walk in. In all ways, just like thousands of other out of the way, long distance bus stops. The obviously Han Chinese travellers get a much firmer sell from the minicabbers than anyone else.
There are at least 60 buses parked outside, mirror to mirror. It implies a very organised parking and dispatch system but the reality seems to be more like an ultra complicated version of one of those children’s puzzles, where there is one empty square and you move all the other squares around in order to reach the target pattern. The drivers appear very dexterous, undertaking the impossible task of moving their huge vehicles through tiny gaps.
Next to the station is the inevitable Transport Hotel. When passing through in 2004 I attempted to get a room here to be asked, firstly, whether I was Malaysian and on answering negatively, to see my passport. They then said I could not stay and could in fact only stay at the Shache Hotel. I have often wondered whether being Malaysian might have offered greater privileges or whether it was just a country they knew of, far away, that had a Moslem population and hence might conceivably be the source of funny looking visitors in these parts.
Thankfully the trip is only 170km and is completed, along this endless clean and largely empty highway, in three hours. The clever coded seating on the Chinese tickets also having been generally abandoned by the local community.
It is only on leaving Yarkand that it becomes clear who is moving into all these large tower blocks being built all over town, as in all the other oases through which we have passed. Large outlying sections of traditional housing have been razed and the inhabitants presumably moved. In this there is no difference with Beijing or any other Chinese town – though the motivation is probably less property development than creating something more systematic and easy to administer.
Entering into Kashgar starts to give a feel of the massive changes that have taken place here – no different to anywhere else, but better publicised. Vast arrays of new housing developments greet arrivals by car – some in mock Qing style others just in the bland modern vernacular of every city in China. The town has certainly spread and is a cluster of high rises now. Bits of old town exist but they are pocketed well out of town, for instance to the north beyond “Welcome Guest Avenue” (欢宾大道). The centre of town is where the destruction has most famously occurred – and again the comparison with the loss of the Hutongs in Beijing is an easy one. The replacement has, to the credit of the authorities, nowhere near as bad as it could be, but it is basically a Silk Road disneyland. Roads have been paved and widened and faced with fret-worked, khaki coloured low rises that might be sympathetic but en masse, having replaced the real thing, still seem to be a waste.
This all started some years ago – initially clearing a plaza in front of the Id Kah mosque and then working outwards. Nine years ago this had not breached Liberation Rd, running perpendicular to the mosque, but now there stand large shopping malls in similar islamic pastiche. The view of locals was that the authorities were not keen on sandy roads that were impassable at speed by vehicles and the creation of new roads through traditional areas seems to bear this out.
The “new” old town (described as 1000 year old street now) is still a nice enough place to walk around and no doubt the magic of Chinese construction will mean the buildings will look old well ahead of their time. Signs give directions in English, Chinese, Uyghur and also Russian. It will no doubt be a tourism hit and seems to already be attracting out of town Uyghurs (who are much more impressed by the presence of foreigners). There is at least one very nice restaurant, hidden behind trees and off the main pedestrian paths, that is populated solely by Uyghur men and does not offer Chinese food. It is a restful and cool place for noodles and nan.
Looming over the whole in the distance is a vast yellow tower whose red signage proclaims it to be the China Bagh Hotel – i.e. the hotel on the grounds of the old British Consulate. This too is new of course (though the consular grounds had long been ruined by other smaller edifices) but its size and apparent vanity, is at least as much of a surprise as any of the other more expected changes.
It is interesting to see some Pakistanis on the street too; heavily bearded and in shalweer kameez. There had been one or two in Yarkand but they lend credence to the continuing claims of Kashgar as a trading entrepôt.
Flashmen 