More from Rick...

Aslaama alaykum. (Islaamic greetings from the Uyghur capitol of Kashgar).

This should be the last installment, before my flight back to shanghai, and then home.

Yesterday, something strange happened.
Strangely, it was not the usual snake-drink in a jar, nor the random sheep-head with intestine dish, nor even the constellations of chaos going on all around me. Seems I've gotten used to all that.

That something strange was silence.

Let me explain.
Yesterday, traveling by taxi to the outskirts of of the backwater town of Yarkand, our taxi bashed its oil pan at 50 mph, and leaked its life-blood all over the road.
Stranded nearly 50 miles from nowhere near a village in the great Taklimakan desert, I left Christina, Alex ( A swiss traveling with us) and the driver and our dead VW Santana.
While I walked along a distant country road the grey-orange sun slipped towards the horizon, softening farmers, their sheep and their lush-green fields.

I walked for some time into towards a group of people surrounding a donkey cart full of tomatoes til someone spotted me out of the corner of their eye.
I might well have landed in a 50's sci-fi spacecraft and spacesuit from their response.
An elderly woman walked up and reached out her hand as if to touch my skin, then stopped just short. They looked at me the way some people watch tv or stare at an animal at the zoo...

When I returned to the car, Christina was gatherins children around her like the pied piper....only she was using digital camera. Children were literally coming out of the wood work as they begged christina to shoot and show them more, mindlessly stepping in globs of fresh cowshit in their bare-feet.
When Christina was not wowwing them with simple technology, Alex was performing magic tricks leaving them begging for more.

When our driver's help arrived we were quite releived. We shouldnt have been.
The driver pulled out a 2 dollar peice of house hold rope about a finger thick.

Then, for the next 3 hours, one volkswagen towed the other breaking the rope countless times as we crossed potholes, rock fields, and terrain that would have given four wheel drive trouble. At times we had half a village pushing and pulling through mud up to our ankles or over random piles of gravel rising 4 feet high, randomly placed across the entire road. Meanwhile bicycles, motorcycles and even donkey-carts were passing us by.

We made it back to Yarkant at 2am had a meal and went to bed. Christina said, "Its like having two volkswagon during the stone-age.

On a lighter note, I feel like I have really gotten closer to the Han Chinese in this community....literally.
This morning on a 3 hour bus ride back to kashgar, the young chinese man sitting next to me began to get sleepy...
As the ride progressed his head seemed to somehow disconnect from his body, swinging violently at the neck. Before long he dropped like a narcoleptic with the enitirety of his body against me, and his head on my shoulder....
Togetherness...
(shortly after that the bus broke down and we were stranded again..)

Anyway,
We have experienced most of what Kashgar has to offer in a continous and varied assault the senses.
During the Sunday market the town swelled with 50.000 vistors in an explosions of sights, sounds and smells simmered in the 100 degree heat.
Uyghur women dressed in flashing reds and satins, peered mysteriously through eye-slits in their Hajibs. Muslim men in colofully embroidered pill box hats, with impossible wrinkles from the Taklimakan desert sun made them look a thousand years old...
When the weren't haggling over sheep, or grain, or intricately carved knives, (a kashgar trademark), they gathered in groups, sitting in outdoor barber chairs and recieved a good shave.
There were dried snakes, frogs, magic elixers and exotic teas. Iranian Saffron, fragrant cayenne, corriander, anise, and herbal teas. All in all, an 8 roll day.

Today marks a week in Kashgar, perhaps a day too long.
Although the people have been remarkably kind, the desert heat, the lack of basic infrastructure, and consumption of mutton for breakfast has left us hankering.
For what you might ask?

Cheese, Starbucks, pizza, bread, croissants, fresh tapwater, poop-free walkways, people who where deodorant, and the smiles of friends and loved ones.

And my little buddy..(tucson)

see you soon

Rick