nothing new from me here for a while. Sorry about that! I’ll try to make up with a lot of bragging in this.

…

Well, there was the walk this summer.

I started in Usu (乌苏) in the early morning of August 8th, and reached Khorgas (霍尔果斯) almost one month later, in the afternoon of September 6th.

This means I am now only a few feet away from the border to Kazakhstan (the distance I walked this time extends between the two icons on the left, roughly about 500km):

So exciting, can’t wait to continue!

…

I roamed around China for a while, taking pictures and videos.

This was probably the one I liked best

Upon returning to Germany, I moved back home to prepare my master thesis. We’ll see how that goes.

…

Oh, and I started obsessing about getting a new site. I made this video looking for web designers:

Eventually I decided on a crew from Austria. I’ll keep you updated on our progress.

…

What else?

Well, I made this TLW-page on Facebook:

Should have done that years ago actually.

Trying to keep the page clean though while doing most of my posting from my own page:

If you don’t mind me rambling, then add me – better yet: drop me a line!

Then there’s my account over at Twitter:

Not much happening here. I ingeniously linked it to Facebook so it gets its status updates from there.

And guess which place is the most fun on the Internet (except for various porn sites of course):

Yes, I do love my account over at Weibo! So much interaction!

…

My channel on YouTube is doing okay:

Still uploading new videos every once in a while.

And I got me this “Author Central” thing on Amazon:

No idea if people ever click on that, but you never know, right?

Oh, and then there’s one thing sorta did move me a bit:

Some kind soul came up with a Wikipedia article about TLW! Isn’t that awesome?

Okay, enough with all the bragging, I have to go back to my stupid thesis paper in a bit!

…

This is what I actually came here to say: THANK YOU!

To all of you who have been with me during these last 5 years, to all the ones who have liked the photos, the videos, the blog, the ramblings on various social networks – or the books:

THANK YOU!!

Here’s a collage made up of pictures I have been receiving lately:

The good life. :)

Greetings from 2012.
And all the best for 2013!

PS: Oh, I almost forgot to tell you: remember I used to talk about travel books I was reading every now and then on my blog? I called it “TLW Literature”, and in the process I found out that I loved Seume as much as I hated Coelho, that Columbus was interesting while Kerouac really wasn’t. I removed all that stuff from my blog and started a new one that is entirely dedicated to literature. I called it: www.bookslap.com (a bookslap is when you slap someone in the face with a book, duh). Anyway, I just added a post about Mühlenweg’s fantastic Gobi crossing in the 20s, and I’ll try to make more updates in the future. Later dudes!

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Today was our last day in this beautiful part of the world.

We got on a plane:

And flew over the desert and the mountains. Parts of the land looked like the ones I had walked through before:

Then we reached 乌鲁木齐 (Ürümqi).

We came in low over the city:

And we crossed the exact same road that I had walked down two years ago:

It had been a good summer that year.

And this year?

Maybe even better.

Soundtrack: Manowar – “Mountains”

-total: 5510,9km

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The city wall of 和田 (Hotan) wasn’t very old:

Only some parts of it were:

It was weird to think that maybe this statue was older than the main gate of the city wall:

(Note how tall the man on the right is compared to the other guy, lol.)

One of the local specialties of this place is 烤包子 (kaobaozi – baked lamb meat bun), but it is bigger here than in the places where I’d tried it before.

Much bigger:

You don’t just eat it like a bun, but you crack it open first:

It was a messy ordeal.

…

We took a cab out to the ruins of 玛利克瓦提 (Melikawat), some 20km South of the city:

What had been a local center of Buddhism lay now completely in ruins, much like 交河 (Jiaohe) and 高昌 (Gaochang) in Northern Xinjiang.

We weren’t really able to appreciate the ruins themselves:

But we liked the lizards:

And another thing about the ruins was interesting: they were right next to the 玉龙喀什河 (Yurungkash, or 白玉河 – “White Jade River”), one of the most renown places of jade production in China.

And still, people were trying to find the precious stones.

Large scale:

And small scale:

I told our taxi driver that I wanted to go dig out some jade of my own, but he told me to forget it. I would have to be a pro. Or extremely patient. Or extremely lucky.

…

Then there was the 核桃王 (hetaowang) – the “King of Walnuts”:

A very old and massive walnut tree.

We hung out in the grove for a while:

Then we went to into the desert:

The 塔克拉玛干 (Taklamakan) was right outside of the city:

So we walked around in it for a little while:

Squinting:

Shooting:

Those of you who have been with me all these years probably know how much I enjoy being in the desert.

And this one was particularly nice:

We had fun in the dunes:

And we filmed all of it – the sand, the wind and ourselves:

It was good.

Good to be here.

Good to have a friend with me.

…

Then we checked out the bazaar. It seemed a bit more interesting than that of 喀什 (Kashgar):

More messy:

More classy:

We went back to the night market while the other people were carrying home their goods:

And there, at the night market, we had one last epic meal.

Our last one in Xinjiang.

Soundtrack: Manowar – “Manowar”

-total: 5510,9km

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Yes, I know it’s a tacky title.

Anyway…

We took a train ride along the Southern rim of the Taklamakan desert today.

From 喀什 (Kashgar) to 和田 (Hotan) in a bit more than 9 hours:

Cup noodles in the hard sleeper compartment of a train:

Excellent!

When we reached 和田, it was already late:

People were dancing and playing ball on a public square:

Others were playing video games:

While others were having food:

We went for some more noodles:

Got some sort of walnut cake:

And then there was the SINGLE BEST dessert ever:

They just called it 粽子 (zongzi – a typical Chinese dish made of glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo leaves). But this one was different from all the other 粽子: the Uyghurs added a Chinese red date to it and some sort of yoghurt, then they topped it off with honey:

OMG I have no way of describing to just how TASTY this was!!

I had five servings.

Then we went home.

I could hardly walk.

Soundtrack: Nine Inch Nails – “14 Ghosts II”

-total: 5510,9km

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There’s a livestock market here every sunday.
Ok, some cows, some sheep, maybe a camel. No big deal, you would think.
But certain travel guides have it listed as one of the BEST things to see in ALL of China.

So we went to check it out:

There were old dudes…

…making money:

Cows…

…in different forms:

Sheep…

…and tasty vegetables:

Some dudes looked like they were grumpy over their business…

…while I was having a great time taking pictures of it all:

(also note the look on the cow’s face)

Here’s a video of a tough kid, of some sheep, and of some dudes trying to get a cow on a truck:

…

Then we went back to the city to look at the mausoleum of Abakh Khoja:

17th century. Nice.

We didn’t stay long.

Instead, we went even further downtown:

The bazaar was calling:

We were trying to do everything in one day. So we just rushed through the bazaar:

…

Remember I told you about the reconstruction of Kashgar’s old town?

Well, here’s some of the more original structure:

And some of it was even more original:

There wasn’t much of this old stuff left though:

Construction everywhere:

Up above…

…and down below:

Some of the new buildings looked rather nice though:

At least they were decorated:

But that’s not what I liked best about 喀什 (Kashgar).

Those of you who have read my books (or been to my presentations) already know what I am going to say:

The one thing that I liked best about this place were the children.

They were everywhere.

Riding their bikes:

Digging in the dirt:

Leaving their handprints:

Running around:

Coming in and out of doors:

Playing with their friends:

Saying hi to us:

Or having fun with our cameras:

…

I could show you so many more photographs.

Pictures of melons:

Pictures of love:

Pictures of work:

Pictures of religious men:

Pictures of new “old” city walls:

And pictures of refrigerators:

I took pictures of things that people buy:

…like shoes:

…or pillow cases:

…or purses:

Some of the pictures contained warnings:

“预防艾滋病，健康全家人” – “Prevent Aids, for a happy family!”

Others seemed a bit ironic:

“你我大家同参与，建设和谐新家园” – “Let’s all work together to build a harmonious new home.”

…

We wandered around the place until it was late at night:

Then we found our favorite restaurant and had a good serving of noodles:

We were going to leave this city tomorrow.

And we both knew we were going to miss it.

A lot.

Soundtrack: Manowar – “Kill With Power”

-total: 5510,9km

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Ever heard of Karakul – the “black lake” in the Pamir Mountains?

We figured we were pretty close to it, so we hopped into a cab, stopped to buy some food and got on our way:

It was about 200 km down Southwest on the Karakorum Highway:

We passed red rocks:

…tiny settlements:

…high mountains:

…and a checkpoint of the border patrol:

Then we arrived at a lake:

But it wasn’t the black lake. It was 白沙湖, the “white sand lake”:

We decided to take goofy pictures of ourselves:

…bouncing around:

…while other people were super serious and super busy taking pictures:

Then we got back into the cab.

Our driver, a Uyghur dude called Nejad (“you know, like Ahmadinejad”) wasn’t very fluent in Chinese, but he was very good at driving, and he sure as hell liked to tell stories:

He told us stories about the mountains:

…about the Kirgiz mountain folks:

…about their yaks:

…about the construction crews who had come here from the interior provinces, mostly from 四川 (Sichuan):

…and most of all about the dangers of driving on these roads:

People kept dying out here every month, either by falling into the river or by getting crushed by rocks. I think that’s what he said.

All the while, we kept honking like crazy:

It took us a while to figure out that the green button was the horn.

…

Then we reached the lake:

There were hardly any people around. Just a few Kirgiz who were either herding yaks or operating yurts for us tourists to stay in:

Oh, and there was a small group of Germans who kept saying things like
“have you been to Pakistan/Tibet/Nepal?”
or
“do you have any idea how much more interesting China used to be in the eighties?”
or
“why are there so many tourists everywhere?”

We were reminded of two French travelers whom we had run into a while ago in 乌鲁木齐 (Ürümqi). They had strongly advised us not to visit a certain attraction because it was apparently too “disney” – and because there were too many Chinese tourists there. We had smiled politely, thinking to ourselves: seriously, too many Chinese tourists in China? WTF??

“why do you put up your tripod so close to the edge of the rock?” the Germans kept asking.

We told them that we didn’t plan on going to any other countries, that in fact we were intending to travel everywhere by plane, and that we regretted that this particular lake didn’t have an airport or at least a runway.

And that we didn’t give a fuck about cameras.

They eventually left, taking their advice with them.

And we had the place to ourselves:

Some yaks were having fun at the shore:

And we were having fun taking pictures of clouds, while the sky was playing with the mountains, while the lake became ruffled and then calm again.

A lot of what we were doing was just standing there, waiting around:

Here is what we had shot that day, a video cut to a soundtrack of Nine Inch Nails:

We both agreed that it had been a perfect day.

Even without an airfield.

Soundtrack: Nine Inch Nails – “28 Ghosts IV”

-total: 5510,9km

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Today we left 乌鲁木齐 (Ürümqi) and hopped on an airplane:

It was going to take us here:

View Kashgar in a larger map

喀什，喀什噶尔，Kashgar, Kashgaria, Kasia, Kaxgar, 疏勒, Shule.

One of the most important oasis towns of the old Silk Roads, a gem under the skies of Central Asia, a city predominantly inhabited by Uyghurs, a place of many names.

The first thing I photographed was this though:

“No parking.”

Then there were the Uyghurs:

And the streets of the old town:

The bustling streets:

Kashgar is changing.

There is construction everywhere:

The old town is being torn down and replaced with new structures. To make the place safe in case of an earth quake, the administration says. To make it easier for the police to control, critics say.

I don’t know where the truth is in all this.

All I can say that sometimes it can be tough to look at:

Very tough actually:

Not everything is bad though.

You can see old doors…

…in new buildings:

You can see new decors…

…and how they cover…

…otherwise bleak and cheerless high-rises:

“If you haven’t been to Kashgar, you haven’t really been to Xinjiang”, they say:

Well, I don’t know about that either. It is a very interesting place anyway. Many people in Northern Xinjiang had warned us about coming here. “Too dangerous!” they said.

But when we arrived and checked out the local youth hostel, it was full of white people who looked mostly like tree-huggers and pot-heads. We figured we didn’t want to hang around with them, so we left and got a regular hotel room.

Kashgar didn’t feel dangerous at all. Actually, it kind of felt like the Paris of Xinjiang:

With large squares…

…old dudes…

…and old ladies…

…with tiny back alleys…

…and fruit stands everywhere:

We especially liked some of the little shops:

And dental clinics:

Then it rained:

Kashgar is supposed to be one of the cities with the least annual rainfall on the planet. But sometimes, it still rains:

Many things are not as simple as they seem, and everything is constantly changing.

Kashgar’s main road is just an example:

It could be anywhere.

Or could it?

Soundtrack: Manowar – “The Crown And The Ring”

-total: 5510,9km

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I finally got my visa extension today. Yay! :)

And these guys made an interview with me for a paper from 乌鲁木齐 (Ürümqi):

They were utterly charming, and I found it very interesting to hear their views on the media.

Anyway, we were getting ready to leave this place.

“More walking?” they asked.

“Airplane!” I said.

Soundtrack: Manowar – “Sting Of The Bumblebee”

-total: 5510,9km

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My visa wasn’t ready yet. No big deal, just one more day of waiting.

We walked around in 南湖公园 (South Lake Park) for a while:

The municipal administration was there:

Some apartment buildings:

And a couple of horses that we initially mistook for cows:

Later that night, we met up with my good friend 朱辉 (Zhu Hui) whom I hadn’t seen in two years:

Of course we couldn’t break with our tradition – 火锅 (hot pot) it was:

And again later that night, we went back to the park:

It was shiny and nice:

The administration was sparkling:

And so were the apartment buildings next to the lake:

People were dancing:

…and they were dancing literally everywhere:

One question: why do we Germans rarely dance on public squares?

Soundtrack: Manowar – “Sign Of The Hammer”

-total: 5510,9km

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The visa application had been accepted.

All we could do was wait.

So we wandered around town, much like these guys:

Went to 二道桥 (Erdaoqiao), the Grand Bazaar that I had visited two years ago and seen from afar four years ago:

And this time, we decided to climb the tower and get an overview of the city:

Here’s a video:

There was a ladder that led to a higher level of the tower.

Someone had sawed off the lower steps, and there were footprints all over the wall:

We decided to pass.

Then we checked out the bazaar:

The back streets seemed more interesting though:

My hair and my beard were starting to annoy me.
So we took a cab to the north of the city and looked for my favorite hair salon.

But it wasn’t there anymore:

We wandered around for a while, then gave up and we went to a different hair dresser:

We had a date with my good friend 申叔叔 (Uncle Shen) in that area.

He took us to a nice Uyghur restaurant:

Not only did it have luxurious decor:

But it also served very tasty lamb sticks:

Then we walked through the night, looking for a place to drink:

Walked past a restaurant that served 大盘狗肉 (“big plate of dog meat”):

And found a place that seemed more likable:

Good times.

Soundtrack: Manowar – “Hail And Kill”

-total: 5510,9km

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