7/2/04 2:34 PM: I arrived in Kashgar late on Thursday night. I was traveling with Sophie, the British girl who had been slowly making her way through Central Asia. We had taken the long bus from Osh, Kyrgyzstan to Kashgar, China. Getting through the border at Irkeshtan Pass proved very difficult. It took us 13 hours to negotiate this crossing. Sophie has a Columbian father, so her credentials often get a second and third look. "I don't look British," she contends. The border officers in China though that she had replaced the original picture in her passport with one that looked like her.

Here is a street scene of the Market in the Old City. It is not as bustling as it would be a few days later on Sunday, when Kashgar holds the biggest and most kinetic market in all of Asia (supposedly). I bought a rug here, as well as tea, knives, and some honey for my father. I was looking to buy children, as I figured this market in a communist country must have children being sold into slavery. No go.