Today is Sunday and one of our most anticipated days of the entire Silk Road trip; it's livestock market day in Kashgar! Villagers from near and far come to find a goat, sheep, donkey, cow, horse or camel at a bargain price but the market doesn't get into full flow until reasonably late in the morning so first we headed to the Tomb of Apak Hoja, located at Ezret Village some 3 miles northeast of the city.. The tomb was built in 1640 and houses the tomb of Apak ...

I didn't need the alarm clock as I was woken this morning by the annoying and incessant chirp, chirp, chirp of the bird nesting in the wall of our room. The very same bird that was supposed to have been removed yesterday. Seriously, if the noise that creature was making is a mating call then the poor b*****d is gonna be a bachelor for life! Thhttp://www.offexploring.com/journal/edit/edit_postcard.phpat is, of course, if I don't ring its bloody neck first. The sou...

We were up at 0530 as we were departing in an hour's time for the border crossing to china and onward journey to Kashgar. I went to the dining room to find that Mr Mirabek had already set up breakfast for us and he popped in a little later to give us 2 fried eggs each. Not that I'm keeping tabs on the condition of my arteries but I make that 5 fired eggs in two days! These eggs, however, were lightly salted and, in the words of Maria, 'were the best I've ever t...

A leisurely start to the day with a breakfast at 1000 consisting of 3 eggs each, bread, cheese, butter and jam. When the fried, soft yoked eggs arrived Maria looked at me concerned and asked 'How do you catch Semolina?'. We took a short drive at 1100 to start our visit to Solomon's Throne, a holy place on top of a local mountain. A steep initial climb cross country took us to the concreted and railed path that lead us past the museum and on to Babur's Shrine...

Bit of an easy start this morning as we decided not to do the museum or silk factory tours, preferring instead to have a lie-in and later departure. Breakfast was served by the same delightfully friendly crew who looked after us so well during dinner last night and we set off at 1000 for the border crossing to country number 6 on our mammoth journey, Kyrgyzstan. We stopped for an early lunch at Andijon, birthplace of Babur, the kahn who settled in India and sta...