From Khorog in the Western Pamirs I got a (very unconfortable) ride in a chinese minibus along the Pamir highway to the eastern Pamiri town of Murghab. Making my base here I spent a few days exploring the eastern Pamir region - which is a dry, desert high-altitude plateau - whilst staying with a really delightful local family. Whilst in the eastern Pamirs, amongst other things, I spent a night in a yurt with a nomadic family, saw some disappointing petrogylphs, and an old soviet observatory from where I had great views of Kongur (7700m) and Mustagh Ata (7400m) in China.

We left Murghab on 6th July and spent the night of the 6th at Karakul, a spectacular high-altitude lake, just south of the Kyrgyz border. On 7th July, I crossed into Kyrgyzstan, and headed straight for Osh, the country's 2nd largest city, and capital of the Kyrgyz Fergana Valley region. After over a week in the desolate eastern Pamir region, it was so nice to be able to buy decent food and supplies in Osh, especially at the city's spectacular bazaar.

From Osh, instead of heading north, further in Kyrgyzstan, I headed for the notorious Irkeshtam pass into North Western China (the troubled Xinjiang province). The first stage of this journey was to get a shared taxi from Osh to Sary Tash the point at which the roads to Tajikistan, Osh and Irkeshtam converge. I spent one night there, then early the following morning walked to the road that led to Irkeshtam, put my sorry-looking face on and managed to hitch a lift with a Kyrgyz truck.

The road was appauling. It took almost 5 hours to cover the 90km (including a brief stop to drink some fermented mare's milk). But eventually I made it over the pass (and through a significant number of checkposts). From the Chinese side of the border I then found a ride into Kashgar, the oasis city at the very edge of China's western frontier. Because of the trouble in Urumqi I wasn't expecting everything to be normal, but I was still surprised what I found there...

The city had basically become a military base, the mosque was closed (and had a permanent military presence of over 1000 troops outside), the Sunday markets were closed, and constantly circuling the town were 20-30 vehicle convoys or military 4ton trucks, carry soldiers standing in firing position, with bayonets fixed. In addition to this, across the whole of Xinjiang province the internet service was cut, as was the ability to make international phone calls (hence the delay in this blog post).

I only stayed in Kashgar for enough time to book my train ticket to Shanghai, via Urumqi. Yesterday I arrived in Shanghai after 72 hours on trains. On the journey I met some great people, but also got quite ill. I was so relieved when I finally arrived. I plan to spend a few days here in Shanghai, before flying to Shenzhen on 19th (I can't bear any more time on Chinese trains), spending a couple of days in Hong Kong, before flying back to good old blighty next week. See you all soon!