Today we went out to visit the Akbar Hoja tomb, one of Kashgar’s sites to visit. A guy in my room had told me the best way to get there was to take a photo of the place into town + get directions from there. This wasn’t particularly helpful advice – it was, in fact, entirely the wrong thing to do, but we only discovered this afterwards. So we walked the dusty road into town, the same one as we’d taken yesterday, but not recognisable as the same place, spent some time in an abortive search for the Post Office, + then started asking the way to the tomb. We had taken the liberty of “borrowing” a guide book from the man who’d given us the non-directions, but the picture either elicited no response or an erroneous one, + we found we fared much better with our faltering pronunciation of the name. We were disturbed, however, to find ourselves being directed back along in the general direction of the hotel. It was a hot + dusty walk, but gradually the peacefulness of the surrounding fields was able to pacify the disturbed waters of my equanimity – not being able to find the way, + not being able to ask are 2 of the biggest disadvantages of the place. We knew it was a sizeable walk when we asked one patriarch the way, + he made to call a pony cart for us. But we found the place eventually.
There were some locals sitting outside the locked gates, all clutching tickets. We didn’t want to buy tickets ourselves until we could be sure the gate would be opened. Especially since we had to pay 5 mao each (being foreign guests), so we sat down on a rickety bench outside the ticket office + waited. After about 10 minutes a young man did go off to unlock the gate, so we bought our tickets. The joke was on us, however, for the gatekeeper had re-locked the gate from the inside – we had to wait till all the others came out before we could go in. Not that we had to wait long, for there wasn’t very much to see. The tomb was a large single-roomed building with a vaulted roof, filled with a large number of stone coffins – once one had seen it, that was it.
We were debating whether to take a pony-cart back to town when our decision was made for us – there were none waiting. But we had barely begun walking when a lorry stopped + we were offered a ride. We scrambled up into the open back, which we shared with 4 men. They were somewhat disgusted upon discovering we could speak neither Chinese nor Uighur, were not much more impressed when I sang them a song, + only brightened up when Val took their picture. We asked to be dropped this side of town, + walked back from there along a back-route.
Xu-xie followed, a lazy time, tho’ I am rarely able to sleep. At about 6 we went for a walk along a couple of lanes running away from the hotel in the opposite direction to that which we usually take. Unspectacular, but pleasant – good to get a little exercise. It took us a little while, however, to realise one of the roads we passed looked familiar, + was, in fact, the road we had taken out to the Tomb. So we could have saved ourselves about 2 miles. One can only assume my room-mate had not realised this – his crime was stupidity rather than maliciousness.
Returned in time for a beer + then dinner, which, was, once again, a splendid meal. We chatted afterwards with some of our fellow-travellers, none of them striking me as particularly entertaining, + then went to a cultural show in another part of the hotel. There had evidently been some misunderstanding however, since it was more or less a private affair for some Japanese tourists, taking place in 2 connecting rooms. There was soon, however, quite a crowd gathered in the doorway – the music was excellent, but it was fearfully hot, so I soon gave up, Val joining me after a couple of minutes for a game of Frisbee. We were soon joined at that by some excitable kids, but built up enough of a sweat to enjoy the icily cold showers that they have here. I then returned to catch the end of the concert, which had thankfully moved outside. It was cool + pleasant – I wish it had been equally so inside; when I went to bed it was swelteringly hot.
A good day of exploring, finding what we were aiming for – always a surprising but pleasing development. And then some culture in the evening, even if we did have to eavesdrop.
