The Hotan white jade used to make imperial seals in ancient times, carved into ornaments in the shape of Buddha’s and mythical wild animals to protect the wearer from misfortune. The “mutton fat white jade” was used as a centerpiece for the 2008 Beijing Olympic medals. An antique white jade seal sold for over US$12 million at Christie’s Hong Kong in 2010 for a piece the size of a regular carved chop.

Xinjiang produces some 250-300 tons of Hotan jade annually, 20 percent of which is pure white nephrite. A kg of the jade is usually priced over 100,000 yuan. But the prices have kept surging in recent years due to a steep decline in output.
Lured by get-rich-quick tales, jade hunters from all over the country swarm around the river during summer before it freezes over in autumn. And the rampant excavation is taking its toll on the environment.

Officials in a northwest China’s desert oasis region have been banned from abusing their power to profit from the “jade rush”, in which excessive mining has almost exhausted reserves of the precious stone. The government has installed cameras and deployed inspectors at key road sections to keep tabs on heavy machinery in the area. Cash incentives ranging from 5,000 ($793) to 10,000 yuan are promised to informants in the crackdown, according to the circular. The government of Hotan prefecture, has issued a circular that threatens officials with penalties including Party expulsion if caught profiting from the jade business. Under particular scrutiny will be their roles in excavation, protecting illegal jade diggers, investing in jade businesses, and bribery, local officials said on Monday.

Source: China Daily

The agreement between China Southern Airlines and Kashgar local government signed the agreement on last Friday. It reported that the flight duration between two cities will be six hours and forty minutes with a stopover in Urumqi.

Kashgar is a prefecture and known as Kashi in Chinese. It borders with Pakistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and India. It is also the important passway to Central Asia, Western Asia, Southern Asia and Europe.

Source: China Daily

Uyghurs regards Nowruz one of their major festivals. It is a traditional festival rather than religious festival. Some sources confirms that Nowruz certain to have been celebrated pre-islamic times and afterwards. Here we are not going to focus much about it is historical background since most of the information regarding to Nowruz is found on Wikipedia and other internet sites. Here we direct our attention on what do Uyghur’s do on this special occasion.

We used to have Nowruz food on the day of Nowruz on 21^st of March. The Nowruz food is a special kind of food prepared by various cereals. It is usually celebrated by community based or village based. During this time, people visit each other in a community. People gather in a cool places and celebrated the festival with various leisure activities. It is various from place to places. It is usually from morning till evening or extended to few days.

During Nowruz, people celebrates the festival by various epic oral tales, wrestling on horseback for a goat’s carcass, wrestling, tightrope walking, various poem competitions,  and other various leisure actitivities, these activities various from towns to towns.

Since Uyghur culture and custom is so close to the people in Central Asia especially Uzbeks. I found this Uzbek owned website in English about Nowruz quite useful for your expanding your understanding about Nowruz, click here

According to recent information revealed by Kashgar Local Government officials visit to Singapore, they reveal to TTG Asia that they are promoting Kashgar tourism to Singaporeans. They appointed the firm in Singapore for marketing of Kashgar to those regions. The firm revealed that there will be 7 five star hotel properties by the end of 2012 owned by local government and managed by international brands at the same time, there will be weekly chartered flights between Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai and Paris which is under negotiation. The connection flight to Singapore and Hong Kong Tentatively scheduled to start this summer.

So far, there is a one Singaporean Chinese owned Café in the city of Kashgar and hotel in Tashkurgan at Pamir Plateau who came to Kashgar few years back. We at Kashgar Guide and Xinjiang Travel team hope to see positive benefit of government development projects to local peoples live and culture. Developments always have both positive and negative effect but we want to see more positive benefit than negative for Kashgarians.

Recent years, we are receiving more enquires and tourist about Xinjiang Tour and Travel packages from Singaporeans and Malaysians. The possible direct flight connection to Xinjiang might bring more tourist to Xinjiang and encourage more people to visit Xinjiang and understand about the Uyghurs and other minorities.

Source: TTG Asia

There are three famous mountains in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. They are, Kunlun Mountain, Tianshan Mountain and Altay Mountain.  Among which, Tianshan Mountain (Heavenly Mountain in English) divides Xinjiang into Southern and Northern Xinjiang. The whole length of the mountain is 2,500 km, and borders with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. The length of the Mountain in Xinjiang is 1,700 km or 2/3 of entire range. The average width of the mountain is 100 km to 400 km with average elevation of 4,000 meters above the sea level.

According to recent information revealed by Tianchi Administration Committee of Xinjiang to Xinhua News Agency. Local government recently submitted application to include Tianshan Mountains to U.N.’s World Heritage list due to its spectacular glaciers and diverse wildlife. The mountain is home to 15,953 glaciers, and 66% of 2500 endangered snow leopards.  You can get complete information regarding to the minerals and wild life in Tianshan mountain from the UNESCO site. You can access to the article from this link. http://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5534/

(Source is Xinhua)

Due to its coldness in winter, best time to travel in Xinjiang is from April to Oct. High season for tourism is from June to first week of Oct. But, generally speaking, tourist comes to Xinjiang all year around but less during winter. Tourism in the region starts from beginning of March and ends beginning of Nov. We hope this quick post will help to those who are planning to visit Xinjiang in the future to better plan their holiday.

There are various options for travelers to exchange money in Kashgar.

In order to solve this problem, Ministry of Railway launched it is online booking system end of 2011 which allows people to book their train tickets online. In order to avoid ticket scalpers to take advantage of these special occasions, China’s Railway system will carry out an online ticket booking system and a real name ticket purchasing system, which requires passengers to provide their ID numbers when buying tickets during peak travel seasons. The tickets can be bought by the Ministry’s online booking system. Here is their website: www.12306.cn

If one needs to buy train ticket in Kashgar, they can buy it from city or from Railway Station of Kashgar. The one in the city situated at the lobby of Kashgar Prefecture Bus Station.

Availabilities and affordability of flights from Xinjiang to various surrounding countries and regions are important in order to boost the Xinjiang’s local tourism.  Most recent initiative taken by China Hainan Airlines and China Southern Airlines were to open direct flight route between Urumqi and Istanbul of Turkey. Because,  we Uyghur’s are closely related to our brothers and sisters in Turkey. We have so much in common in our, language,  culture and custom. The direct flight routes between Urumqi and Istanbul will make it available and affordable for two countries citizens to visit each other.

China Hainan Airlines offered the direct linking Shanghai with Urumqi and the Istanbul of Turkey on 11^th July 2011. There will be two weekly flights from Shanghai Pudung International Airport to Istanbul with layover for the flights in Urumqi. It is considered fourth biggest airline in the county. (source: People’s Daily Online)

China Southern Airlines offered direct flight service linking Beijing with Urumqi and Istanbul of Turkey on 22^nd Nov 2011. There will be three flights each week on every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. The Urumqi International Airport will act as a stop – over for the journey. (source: Xinhua )

Turkish Airlines have direct non-stop flight service to Beijing from Istanbul. We wish that the direct flight between Turkey to Urumqi will benefit both sides by promote the cultural exchange and economic benefit for both sides.

(References: People’s Daily Online, and Xinhua)

Welcome to Tashkorgan… peaceful, calm, green, fresh, clean, and relaxing small town. These are some of the words that come first to your mind when you get to this really nice scenery.

It feels so nice to arrive at this amazing place after a few hours trip from Kashgar. Actually, it can take anywhere from 6 to more than 10 hours whether the road is destroyed by the rain or not!! But to tell the truth it is worth all the pain in the world!

Only spend a few hours and you will begin to forget what city noise is. It is like an another world. When you get there feel free to walk around and explore (or get lost in) this amazing country side. If you want to enjoy it to the fullest, you’d better buy some goulashes before hand. That way you can enjoy the freedom as the local cows do in the grasslands.

Feel free also so to take a walk into the fields not far from Tashkurgan village and stop a little while to chat with the local farmers. They are shy but really welcoming!
If you go by car you can even go there and be back to Kashgar in a day. But to rush it would be a huge shame since the place is so amazing…especially if you get up early and enjoy the scenery under the morning light.

You can find very cheap motels in Tashkorgan. For example the traffic hotel is the cheapest. You can get a bed for 15 yuan a night. It is Chinese standard, this is the place where most of the drivers stay for the night. It is ok clean and comfortable enough but there is no bathroom in the room…actually there is just one restroom shared by everybody else renting the cheap beds (they also have more expensive rooms with bathroom included!).