The Sunday livestock market in Kashgar is a glimpse into a traditional way of life that is fast disappearing. People come from great distances to buy and sell their animals - maybe just a single goat, or a couple of yaks or maybe tens of fat tailed sheep or a donkey or two.
The massive Sunday bazaar is thronged with people from early morning. Carol, our guide, explained that the area nearest the front of the huge covered bazaar was for tourists and asked if we'd like to walk deeper in and out the other side into the streets where the people themselves shop - of course we said yes.
On the way through the covered part we could see that all the usual items were on sale, only in vast quantities. It feels modern and lacks atmosphere, though not as badly as the bazaar in Urumqi. The aisles are endless, with each commodity, such as clothing, grouped together.
Though locals do shop in the big covered bazaar, outside in the streets it feels much more interesting with more local character, smaller traders.
The Sunday Livestock Market was one of the main reasons for visiting Kashgar. As tourists we were operating on Beijing time, though the actual time difference is two hours earlier! The hotels keep to Beijing time but the people who live here, such as farmers, operate naturally on local time, two hours earlier, so when we were at ten o'clock it was only 8 for them.
So though we arrived late morning it was still quite early in the day for the traders. Nevertheless, all the food stalls leading up to the entrance to the market were busy cooking, with some fine demonstrations of noodle-making.
All the traditional fare was on offer: samsa, nang breads, cooked meats - mainly mutton I think, plov of course.
We entered the area where the animals are for sale, thousands of beasts in pens or tethered together with ropes: cattle, bullocks, yaks, calves, sheep and goats of many different types and some donkeys.
The processing of buying is bartering via a middleman, there is no auction.
It was totally fascinating and we wandered around for a long time.
Carol says she has seen camels for sale here but not many and not often. No doubt in the heyday of the Silk Route they would have been a common sight.
For us the livestock market was the highlight of Kashgar, a glimpse of the life of the people as it has been lived for centuries.
On the way out I tried a dish of cold noodles in a chilli broth with a few cold potatoes which was very good.
The food vendors were still going strong as we left the livestock market, one of the highlights of the whole trip.
