Entry 4

I’m just getting back in the Hotel. Austin got here this morning. Kashgar’s location has always been significant: it is the Silk Road hub that connects China with Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan via two high altitude mountain passes. Kashgar seems somewhat dependent on the Silk Road and/or tourists. It's Sunday, and from every district, from hundreds of farms lying on the city's outskirts, and from dozens of satellite villages, come the clip-clop hooves of earnest little donkeys. They are pulling carts heaped high with farmers' bounty: melons, grapes, vegetables, meat, flour, wool, lumber and more. Kashgar is most famous for its Sunday market. It’s a magnet which brings thousands of Central Asians together every week to buy or sell just about anything imaginable. Man it was kind of crowded. Just a mass of people walking around, Try to buy, trying to sell, people judging all of the vendors and services. The variety of ethnic groups at the market is amazing, just the mass of involvement in this market is crazy. I see what all the hype is about. Austin and I have learned a lot. The vendors try and get the highest bid on their merchandise by just adding little things, sprucing up the goats and the house ware. It’s cool. Austin and I haven’t sold much of anything here. I saw another weapons vendor, I looked at the things he was selling, they were not better than mine so I’m not worried.