Now in Kashgar, having made it safely across the Torugart Pass from Kyrgyzstan. The total crossing time was 3 hours and 25 minutes - far less than the 16 hours one punter had bid for on the trcuk sweepstakes. Kashgar is our first official Chinese city, but in many ways it's not very Chinese at all. The population is mostly Uighar, with Kyrgyz and Tadjiks in the countryside outside the city. There are pockets of Han Chinese within the city, and it's fairly clear when you move from a Uighar area to a Chinese area. We spent the last two days in the Pamir mountains, travelling along the Karakoram Highway to Tashkurgan up in the mountains. We passed some big mountains (Kongur and Mustagata at 7700m and 7500m respectively), but the biggest beasts (K2, the Gasherbrums and Broad Peak) remained out of sight. Today was spent in the Sunday market, and tomorrow we head off around the southern edge of the Taklamakan Desert. "Taklamakan" means "if you go in, you won't come out". We're due to be crossing it in two days time. Hopefully we'll come out. If all goes according to plan we'll exit the desert at Turpan - the second lowest point on Earth (ironic, having just been suffering from a bought of altitude sickness). The weather forecast is predicting a balmy 40 celsius.