9. 11 August to 30 August 2011 - Xinjiang Province, China

We crossed into China and left the snow of the Torugart Pass behind us, but it wasn't long before we were at the official border crossing, having passports checked and stamped, vehicle chassis and engine numbers checked, and departure cards issued, and our meat and fruit handed over, not to be taken into China. All this with delays due to a passenger bus arriving at the same time, and every passenger having to be processed, and even their luggage checked. And Ping with us every moment, always helpful and smiling and professionally confident, conscientious and meticulous. We knew from the start we had a gem of a guide!

Finally here we were, really in China, driving our own vehicle in Xinjiang Province to our first Chinese city Kashgar. So much to observe and absorb along the way - we were following the bank of a massive dry riverbed through stark bare hills on a very good Chinese road, passing through mud brick villages with masses of white poplar trees, which we were soon to learn were everywhere, the branches and timber used for many different purposes.

Xinjiang Province is China's western frontier, often referred to as the 'New Frontier' and under China's ongoing 'Develop the West' campaign. It is the homeland of the Uighur (pronounced Weeger) people, where Central Asian culture is still very visible, and where Islam has been dominant since the 12th Century. Before the1950's Uighurs composed 90% of Xinjiang, but since the influx of the Han, the dominant ethnic group across China, the population of Uighurs is down to less than 50%. Here the people have similar features and dress to those we had seen in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, and speak Uighur, a language from the Turkik language family which also includes the Uzbek, Kazakh and Kyrgyz languages.

Kashgar is not a large city by Chinese standards, a mere 3.5 million! We camped for five nights in the carpark of the Kashgar Seman Hotel in the heart of the city. We enjoyed John's Cafe just metres away, with a reasonable Chinese and Western menu, and cold, cold beers. We lost two hours crossing into China, as the whole of China officially runs on Beijing time, however in Xinjiang most people set their clocks to the unofficial Xinjiang time. Government services run on Beijing time, which includes banks, post offices and most timetables, so it's interesting.

In Kashgar we had firstly to secure our Chinese car registration and driving licences. An excursion to the hospital was the order of the day - literally - for medical tests to ensure we were all fit enough to have a driving licence. The hospital, as with everything in China it seems, was busy, busy with staff and patients everywhere. Vehicles then had their medical at a police vehicle compound - a full range of tests with high-tech equipment followed by a plastering with red and white reflective stickers. Vehicles and drivers all made the grade, and just a weekend to wait before the paperwork could be secured.

Meanwhile, we had time to experience Kashgar. A hazy city heaving with people - pedestrians, buses, cars, trucks and taxis, all weaving in and out of each other and the constant road and building construction. And electric motor bikes and scooters everywhere, silent and efficient, often carrying up to three people and a child, women riding side-saddle hanging on to nothing, observing the passing parade as if they were sitting on a bus, and sometimes nursing babies or young children, passing them food, oblivious to the blasting horns and engine noise all around. Some electric bikes have a wagon attached and are overloaded with all manner of produce, even hugely overlapping lengths of pipe. And finally the roaming police wagons which patrol the streets, discouraging a repeat of the recent ethnic unrest in the city a couple of weeks before we arrived.

We found a good supermarket and we all stocked up for the desert crossings ahead. Flour and rice, which we needed, were only sold in 20kg bags, rather more than our store cupboard could handle. So Ping, having run around the supermarket for all of us, reading and interpreting labels non-stop, said she would take a taxi with the two of us to go to a shop that would sell manageable amounts. Taxi driver was told our request and off we set, through the city, past the Mao Statue, downtown through the old city, much of which is being bulldozed in the name of progress, and then into the 'suburbs' of mud brick houses and dusty back streets, and waves and questioning looks from those we engulfed in our dust. Ping was looking round at me quizzically now and then, and speaking to the driver as if to confirm we were on track. Eventually after a rough downhill rocky roadway we stopped in an open area with mounds of charcoal and the odd timber dwelling, and the taxi driver indicated where to make inquiries. Ping got out to investigate, walking back within minutes laughing and incredulous. Ping's native language is Mandarin spoken by Han Chinese people, the taxi driver's is Uighur. No more to say, except that all was lost in translation. Apparently the words for flour and cow are easily confused between the two languages, but it's certainly interesting to contemplate just what the driver thought two westerners would do with a cow and a taxi and.......??? But Ping and the taxi driver good naturedly pressed on, as Ping is like a terrier once she is on a mission. We were quite ready to do without flour and rice, but within the next 10 minutes we had a small bag of both, and were back at our camp.

The Sunday Market was a feast of new sights and sensations. Clothing, shoes, hats. brassware, kitchenware, hardware, meat, spices, nuts, fruit and vegetables, and barber shops and dentist 'shops', tempting the fearful with photos of perfect teeth. Acres of market crowded with push wagons, bikes of all sorts and trucks pushing through people in narrow alleyways.

After our few days in Kashgar, we set off as a group again, Ping travelling in rotation in one of the two overland trucks, as we made our way south-east to Hotan. We stopped at Yengisar on the way, well known for its history of knife making, and visited one of the workshops.

The following day, just before we reached the city of Hotan which is situated on the southern Silk Road, we visited a paper making workshop. We parked outside and in an instant we were surrounded by interested locals, who followed us through every step of the paper-making process, jostling with us for a better view as though they had never seen anything like it in their lives. Paper has been made in this traditional way for over 800 years. An old man, who was stripping the wood of the mulberry branches before they were hammered manually into pulp, was 98 years old and was actually flown to Washington some time back to share his expertise in paper making. When he was asked what he would most like to do at this stage of his life, he answered he would like to pray at Mecca, so they flew him there on the way back home!

In Hotan, friends of Ping found us a campsite in the centre of the city in a temporarily-closed street under reconstruction. We all had a wonderful local meal at an open air street cafe, followed by an evening walk around the city. The next morning on the way out we visited a jade workshop - jade was first mined in Hotan in the 12th Century and we saw many people still searching for it in the wide river bed of the Jade Dragon Kashgar River which runs through Hotan.

And lastly in the small town of Jiyaxiang, south-east of Hotan, we visited a traditional centre for silk making, and once again watched the whole process. One old man on a loom had been working at the workshop for 60 years, and had started there when he was 15. All seems very touristy, but at all times we were the only western tourists, and it was interesting to see these traditional methods still in use.

A huge drive 430kms north across the Taklamakan Desert, the name apparently means "go in, not come out". It's a vast landscape of sand dunes with very little vegetation, and occasional settlements. A very good road and the sand dunes next to the road have been reinforced by a squared chequered pattern of reeds dug into the sand to prevent the road from being submerged. An incredible feat for the whole distance, but as Ping says, when the government wants to do something, they just get the army in.

After the Taklamakan Desert we travelled on through more desert landscape and across wide gravelly dry river beds which must carry torrents of water at times from the Tian Shan Mountains. There were occasional basins of irrigated crops and better soil. It seems all the country is either built on, growing something or dug up for oil, re-directing water flow or for the endless supply of gravel for all the building construction, and we have seen acres of wind turbines - everything is busy, busy, busy.

We were on dual carriage ways with regular reasonable tolls as we drove further east to Kuche and then on to Turpan, the hottest place in China which lies just below sea level and is a fertile basin in the desert. Here the Grape Valley, a narrow fertile strip amongst barren hills, produces a huge grape harvest, and drying houses are dotted everywhere for the dried fruit market. There was a mini-festival as it was harvest time, and we watched some traditional Uigher dancing. We visited the ancient city ruins of Jiaohe from the 2nd Century BC, one of the world's largest, oldest and best-preserved ancient cities, and the Imin Minaret, a former mosque built in the 18th Century in the tapering Iranian style of architecture.

In the cities we have mainly stayed in reasonably priced hotels for longer showers and a break from camping, and enjoyed the markets and the fantastic evening meals in restaurants close by. The food is wonderful - very tasty and sometimes hot and spicy. We have found the people warm and friendly and helpful, and very inquisitive, not holding back on ceremony as they peer into our car or 'dom'. They are very interested in this convoy of westerners.

From Turpan we crossed the Gobe Desert, where we spent a howling windy night of gale-like proportions - the rocking motion felt like we were on a sleeper in a train, or being buffeted by an ocean storm in a little boat. In Hami we camped near a newly built but yet unused stadium. We visited the Mausoleum of the Hami Uighur Royal Family and on the way out bought one of the beautiful Hami melons, which are popular all over China.

Leaving Hami we were heading for our next province, Gansu, imagining we would get to Dunhuang late in the evening after a fairly big day. But before we turned off the major and only road to the east out of Hami, we were stopped in our tracks in a long line of trucks, which far outnumber any cars on this road. After crawling along for a few hours, we pulled off to camp the night, joining the queue again the next morning but it was another two days and another campsite before we reached Dunhuang. We moved only 20km in 12 hours the first day, and 40km in 8 hours the next. All in all it turned out to be a 100km traffic jam!! It was often dusty due to road works and we now have experienced the Chinese trucking industry first hand, observing and recording the multitude of interesting loads that can be carried across China. There was nothing for it but to sit it out - we couldn't turn back because it was jammed both ways, so we punctuated our days in the cab with food breaks, reading, computer work, always having to be ready to stay in the queue and crawl a few metres or kilometres forward. What an experience!! But we survived and couldn't believe the friendly and smiling truckies who would toot and wave to us as they crawled past.

We have so enjoyed Xinjuang Province - we have likened entering China here to entering Australia from perhaps Broken Hill, and then driving through the outback without seeing Sydney or Melbourne. Similarly we won't be visiting Beijing or Shanghai this trip..... maybe next time???