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China
Fly via Ürümqi from any major Chinese hub. Many passports now enter China visa-free for short stays.
A guesthouse in the old town alleys near the Id Kah mosque.
The great Silk Road crossroads: the Sunday livestock market where camels still change hands, Uyghur bread ovens, and the Karakoram Highway rising toward Pakistan.
Go to the Sunday animal market at dawn — it is one of the last true Silk Road spectacles on Earth.
May to June, September to October
Yaxshimusiz — how are you, in Uyghur.
Foreign Devils on the Silk Road by Peter Hopkirk — the archaeologist-raiders of these deserts.
Karakul lake up the Karakoram Highway, under 7,546-meter Muztagh Ata.
Expect heavy surveillance and checkpoints in Xinjiang — travel here has a political texture worth understanding before you go.