Day 91. Kashgar

Its 8am and still dark outside. This crazy manipulation of time doesn’t make much sense to us, but the locals seem to have adapted as there is nothing happening outside at all. 

On a different topic we have made a few plans. We have decided to ship the bike home from Kuala Lumpur. There are several reasons for this, the monsoon will be happening in Indonesia which will inevitably slow us down. To ship from Dili to Darwin could take 3 weeks as the ship goes in a circuit from Dili- Singapore- Darwin. Travelling in the north of Australia at this time is not ideal, and we definitely said we wanted to be home for Christmas. 
So it wasn’t a difficult decision when all things were considered. We hope to finish the journey another time. 

Our friends Reijo and Barbra who we were with on Santorini will be in Singapore around the same time so we have arranged a few days holiday with them in Bali , we will fly home from there and hopefully collect the bike in Auckland and we should be home towards the end of November. 

So with further planning for Pakistan and MFAT warnings for Myanmar to heed to we had a very productive morning. 

The afternoon we wandered again around the new old town although a lot of the wooden structures are original. 





Mark suggests a new bike seat for me😙

An absolutely delightful time wandering through the stalls and shops with a stop for tea in the one hundred year old tea house where people were happy and friendly with many photos back and forth. 



















Then we we went to the Saturday Bazaar which is open every day. You name it you can get it here. Robyn settled for two silk scarves by way of a birthday present.  




What to choose, what to choose. 

On the way home we stopped for a drink and a very nice man offered to help translate for us, turns out he works for the government in Beijing as an advisor, he is a nuclear physicist! I didn’t ask!  

We then wandered past what is left of another part of the old town, this area is cordoned off and uninhabited, an area of mud brick buildings in various states of decay and it will all be gone soon, I dare say we are one of last westerners to see this.




Fresh bread in the making. 





A quick ‘good afternoon’to Mao Zedong on the way back to the hotel. 







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