Hotan, Exhaustion (2/5)
The “express” bus from Kashgar to Hotan takes seven and a half long, winding hours – without break (It was a good thing I didn’t have coffee this morning).
We stopped three times for ID inspection – every time we went over a county bounty: Yarkand, Kargilik, and Hotan (apparently Guma/Pishan is too small to warrant a stop). But no restrooms, no small shops for water and food.
The towns of southern Xinjiang are a thing of themselves. Unlike Kashgar. Very Uighur, very old, tradition seeping from the very trees. The donkey cart to taxi ratio in the outskirts of Kargilik was about 2:1. Donkeys, horses, street stalls full of smoked meat, pilaf and fruit piling over dusty streets in the brown-black of early evening. We drove through Karghilik at dusk, as little boys of six or seven were driving herds of sheep home for the night along the two lane highway.
After Kargilik it was dark, a long three hours of hurdling through the desert in the black night, occasional shops and stops lit up by the road.
After Kargilik it was dark, a long three hours of hurdling through the desert in the black night, occasional shops and stops lit up by the road.
On driving – drivers in southern Xinjiang really don’t seem to understand lanes. When the highway broadened to four lanes, slower drivers did not move to the right lane. In fact, most people just drove in the middle, in both right and left lanes. And thus our bus passed through the night very slowly.
Hotan – I don’t know what my first impression is. It’s hard to find a hotel here that takes foreigners. The traffic hotel, which is usually a reliable (though insalubrious) standby had a problem with their computer system, and thus wasn’t accepting foreigners. Another hotel they directed me to was nowhere to be found, and none of the other dozen on the street around the bus station seemed very receptive. Until – I found the Hotan Fortune Hotel (幸福宾馆), a disastrously under-kept collection of rooms in an old Uighur courtyard not far from the bus station. One hundred a night for a tiny room with walls that need reprinting and a bathroom that smells like septic (thanks to my cold the smell isn’t too strong), but they have a certificate from the Hotan Security Bureau to take foreigners.
Dinner was a walk out on the streets to look at closing restaurants and watching the police van go up and down with an officer yelling into a megaphone in Uighur, presumably telling everyone to close up shop. A bit of a night snack market was still open, so I had cold sheep intestines with peppers – better than it sounds, though not as good as Kashgar’s. And now it’s time for sleep.
My dumpy little “Happiness Hotel”
Xinjiangaggins 