Visiting Karakul

The bus broke down after the Kunjerab pass at about 3,500m (11,500ft) in the snow. We did the only thing that you can do in that situation and had a snowball fight and built a snowman! Quite a surreal thing when you're in Asia in June!

We stopped at Karakul Lake for a night. We spent it wrapped up in a yurt (nomadic tent) with the 6 other backpackers we'd travelled to china with. Karakul continued the trend of spectacular scenery. I'm not even going to try to do justice to how beautiful all these places are. (That's why I take photos.) But the lake was a gorgeous shade of blue and there was an abundance of snowy peaks in the background. We walked around the lake and the water seemed to change colour.it looked like someone had airlifted it from Iceland - perhaps superman on one of his missions?

Jesus Caps

On this walk we stumbled upon a bizarre village. Well the village was pretty normal, but all the men were wearing 'I love Jesus' caps!!! Considering we were in the Muslim, Xingjian, province this was pretty weird. We complimented some of the men on their hats and one of them (who for some unknown reason could actually speak some English) said 'who is this Jesus?'...they had no idea. Probably thought he was a footballer, or ping pong player. We explained that he was a major figure of Christianity and our cap wearing friend looked horrified. Fortunately one of the guys we were with also knew that Jesus was an accepted prophet in Islam, so we told him that. He was relieved and everyone got to keep wearing their hats. Still, you wonder what kind of missionaries go around handing out such hats! Maybe the hats were just made in sweatshops in the area. Or perhaps it was those crazy kids from ' South Park '.

20p Bottles of Beer

After a beautiful sleep filled with sweet dreams, in the yurt by Karakul Lake - we hitched to Kashgar. Kashgar is the end of the Karakoram highway. It was a real shock arriving in a proper Chinese city. For most people travelling solely in china, Kashgar is a small town which offers an interesting look at central Asia . for us, having arrived from Pakistan, it felt like we'd stepped into Bill & Ted's time machine and jumped a few "totally bodacious" hundred years into the future. Well, not entirely bodacious, but it was a shock. High buildings made of cement, pavements, lines and road markings, traffic lights, women! Women in skirts, women in high-heels, women showing their shoulders, women in public, women talking to men, women working. It was a total girl power overload. And I was just so happy to be a recognised member of society again, having spent 6 weeks as ms invisible in Pakistan ! And of course there was also beer. Not that I got so excited about that. But everyone else we were travelling with had spent 6 very dry weeks in Pakistan . And as if the god of alcohol was rewarding them for their efforts, beer cost just 20p for a huge bottle. Needless to say we had a good time in Kashgar.