Sandstorm: Tashkurgan - Kashgar23 May 2008
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In the morning there was mercifully no sign of the man from Hanoi when I got on the bus to return to Kashgar. It was slightly clearer weather than yesterday and the mountains looked better than ever. A quick and reckless trip back to Kashgar saw me there just after lunch.
In the late afternoon the sky darkened and the wind picked up. Within a few minutes visibility had dropped to a few hundred meters and there was dust and sand flying about everywhere and the streets had emptied. The gale rattled the windows in my room for about an hour and then it was gone almost as quickly as it arrived.
I wandered down to the bar/restaurant and Manas appeared.
We agreed that the other night had been a bit overdone and ordered some beers.
We hadn't been there long when The Apparition from Hell appeared again:
"Where you go next?"
"Flying to Urumqi"
"What there to do around Kashgar?"
This seemed like an opportunity too good to miss, so I mentioned Hotan (Khotan) in the Taklamakan desert, about 10 hours bus ride away.
"You go with me to Hotan."
"I'm going to Urumqi."
He turned to Manas.
"You go with me to Hotan."
"No. I'm here on business"
And so it went on, as before, until he gave up and went to bother a French couple instead. Within 5 minutes they looked ready to hit him as well.
We were a lot more restrained than 2 nights previously and Manas actually got up to go and then didn't sit down for another beer (miracles do happen). We swopped e-mail addresses and his parting words were: "Send me the link to your journal; I want to see what you write about the Vietnamese motherfucker"
