Camels, doctors, and such things

The biggest Mao Zedong ever

Before I get to camels and doctors and whatnot I wanted to share another fun fact. Kashgar, of all places, is home to the world's largest statue of Mao Zedong. Located across from the entrance of Renmin Gongyuan, 人民公园, aka the People's Park, in central Kashgar, Mao looms over the old town with one hand, cupped, high in the air as if to say, "Yes, even you, Uighur people of Kashgar, are my children." I took a stroll to the park yesterday afternoon and snapped a few photos of old Mao, the only Chinese man in Kashgar (more or less).

Camels at auction

Ok, now to camels and doctors. As stated in yesterday's post, I took a trip today out to the Sunday livestock auction just outside the city. I went with a girl I met at the hostel named Hong Yin, a girl from Chengdu actually, and we split the taxi fare out to the auction yard. As promised, the auction yard was jammed full of Central Asian livestock and Uighurs eager to buy and sell. The auction yard was a penned-in dirt field. Along the pen walls were different places to eat, pulled noodle stations, steamed buns, naan roasters, etc. Within the pen were different partitions set up for each different type of animal sold. There were sections set aside for sheep, cows, goats, donkeys, horses, and my favorite, massive camels. We met a foreigner, actually, as we wandered around the grounds taking photos. He was an American named Jeremy from New York and he came with a Uighur friend to buy four baby cows. Interesting guy. His friend, whose name I don't recall, was also a blacksmith from a nearby village and makes fine knives with bone and horn handles from sheep. Pretty cool stuff. Anyway, we said goodbye to them and continued to snap photos. All was well and good and we stayed for a couple of hours when my taxi-mate, Hong Yin, wandered into a cow pen and snapped a few photos of these really enormous cows tied to a post when one of them turned around and stepped on her foot. Her boots did little to stop the full weight of that cow which come crashing down and crushing her last few toes. She took the pain well, but in the end we decided it was better if she went to a hospital to get it checked out - she couldn't walk. And since we were in the middle of the desert, we had to climb on to a mini tractor-rickshaw thing which took us through the dusty terrain back to town. We went to the "People's Hospital" of Kashgar and jumped through some language barrier hoops to get her an x-ray and medicine and everything. It worked out and it turned out not to be broken. She's just bed ridden for a few days which, for a traveler, is a nightmare, but better that than broken. All in all it was a good day for me. The auction was awesome and a few hours in the hospital helping out a fellow traveler is no big deal and all part of the experience.

Hong Yin's arch nemesis

Tonight I guess a lot of the people here at the hostel, some workers and some travelers, are cooking dinner to which I've been invited. I'm happy for the community meal and it should be pretty good, some Chinese, some Uighur, and some French cuisine. There is a French couple staying here too and their plan is to go overland from here, through Kyrgyzstan, to Iran, and then back to France through Europe, having started from Australia. They've got some pretty cool stories.

Tomorrow I plan to hit the big "silk road" bazaar that has been here for centuries. Maybe I'll by some sheepskin lined boots. I really want sheepskin lined boots...

I guess too I plan to stay here in Kashgar a few days and take it easy. I really like the hostel here and the one guy working in this place is probably the friendliest guy I've ever met. That and the internet connection here is solid and the food is cheap. A good pace to bunker down for a few days...