The Top 5 Things To See & Do In Kashgar

A safe haven and popular resting spot approximately half way along the Silk Road – Kashgar is the first or last spot in China (depending on which way you’re travelling). It is also the westernmost metropolis of China, yet even though modernity has swept in, craftsmen and artisans still hammer and chisel away in side streets and donkey carts still trundle the streets. The Sunday market is the real deal despite the bus-loads of tourists and everything sell-able is haggled over her.

Sunday Market

The market has been at the centre of Kashgar’s commercial life since at least the Tang Dynasty. Today a hundred thousand people converge on the town each Sunday. The ethnic diversity of the visitors matches the ranges of goods on sale, with Uighurs, Tajiks, Kyrgyz and Han Chinese trading in goods. Buy anything from knives, hats, cumin and scorpians.

Livestock Market (also Sunday)

Once it was here that traders exchanged their horses for yaks, before or after crossing the mountain passes and even today Kashgar has a lively Sunday market, where traders from a 50-kilometre radius come to sell their animals. The livestock market has recently been moved 7 kilometres from the main market and it is the most vigorous section, with bearded men bartering for horses, camels, cattle and sheep.

Cock Fighting

A local tradition which takes place at the livestock market.

Id Kah Mosque

Large mosque which holds 500 worshippers and the centre of Islamic activity in Xinjiang, playing host to the Kurban Festival and Fast-breaking Festival.

Mao Statue

In the centre of Kashgar stands a Mao statue 12,26 metres in height in reference to his birthday.