When I first met Mirsali Abduwili at the front desk of a hotel in Kashgar, I thought he was a journalist from the U.S.
"If you have not been to Kashgar, then you haven’t really been to Xinjiang”. This Chinese saying led me straight to the first destination of my journey to the west: China’s highly praised Kashgar.
Turpan is famous for its delicious grape. If Xinjiang ever developed a vineyard rating system, 58-year-old Ablet Yunus’ orchard would be classified as one of the best.
Due to excessive irrigation, the lower reaches of the Tarim River, China’s longest inland river, ran dry in the early 1970s and pushed surrounding trees to the verge of disappearance. After years of restoration efforts, the river has now regained its former glory.
