China's Wild West

Richard S. Ehrlich

As the ancient crossroads of central Asia, Kashgar's ancient tombs, desert ruins, beautiful Mosques, and Markets are hark back the Silk Road 1,000 years ago.

Kashgar is also a thriving modern city with a mix of cultures as Xinjiang is the traditional home of the Uighur people, Muslims who speak a language related to Turkish. The Han Chinese are a minority in this province and, although Chinese presence has ebbed and flowed for millennia, China has always exerted some sort of influence here - exactly how much is hotly debated between the Chinese and Uighurs.