Animal market After a day of attending to online matters and cleaning my shoes yesterday, I have what might be the highlight of my Kashgar visit this morning.  Being Sunday, I was keen to revisit the animal market to compare what might have changed since 1998. Coming along for the ride was Simon from Switzerland […]

Kashgar’s recreated old city Breakfast was served at the hostel at 0930, which is 0730 on the unofficial local time.  I headed out for a haircut and a walk back on the lively Azirete Rd where I got some fruit. A little after midday, I walked to the Kashgar’s old city, one of the oldest […]

Long-awaited opportunity Today, I start the next chapter of my trip, undertaking independent travel once again from Sary Tash in Kyrgyzstan to Kashgar in Xinjiang, western China. Entering China’s Muslim west from its Muslim neighbours may have caused suspicion when applying for a visa.  So, when visa-free travel was introduced late last year, I was […]

Internet connection; the enabler As my previous trip to China was 9 years ago, this is my first visit since the country went largely cashless.  I came prepared and everything worked like a dream.  I didn’t use any cash or my credit/debit cards for any travel-related expenses during my whole stay! An internet connection is […]

Above:  At the next massage table.  My turn next.   Massage and cupping Our flight back to New Zealand leaves at 0230 “tonight” (technically tomorrow morning) from Haikou.  We have the day to kill before taking the train from Sanya to Haikou airport before killing more time there. I opted to skip breakfast and take brunch […]

Today we had agreed on an excursion to Binglanggu (Betel nut valley) Li & Miao Cultural Heritage Park, about an hour out of town.  It is somewhat of a tourist trap but how bad can it be after yesterday?  At least here, we will get to learn about the native people of Hainan. I opted […]

Visiting Nanshan I woke at 0600 today and fell asleep till 0750.  I quickly messaged Swee and Chen to make arrangements for breakfast a few doors away, where I had a lean pork and century egg congee. Apart from the beaches, there’s not much to do in Sanya.  Many of the attractions are out of […]

Train to Sanya With an early afternoon train soon after check-out, I decided to skip breakfast and have some pastries instead.  The idea was to have brunch around 1045 then checkout and get a taxi to the railway station.   All went according to plan and we got to Haikou East high-speed rail station around […]