Tomorrow Kelly and I are catching a flight to Xi'an (for a one day stop-over) then to Xinjiang province. Xinjiang is in the very far west of China, where it borders Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan. Xinjiang is said to be more like a central Asian state than a Chinese territory, and in fact there is a low level Uyghur (pronounced Wee-gyer) uprising in aid of forming the country of East Turkistan. The Chinese military seem to have it under control (at least that is what the state media are saying) so there won't be any danger, but it will be fascinating to travel along the old Silk Road.
We are starting in the capital of Urumqi, the city that is closest to the Continental Pole of Inaccessibility (the furthest place in the world from the sea) then heading to the old city of Kashgar. Kelly can only take 2 weeks off uni, so after that she flies back to Shanghai and I will try to get back overland across china, hopefully checking out Tibet on the way. Well, enough gratuitous wikipedia linkage, Perhaps I will be able to put up a post on the road (although my current reputation in this regard is somewhat poor.)
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