Xinjiang Photo Album

Memories from South Xinjiang trip during mid-October, 2026

Kashgar

Urumqi to Kashgar flight had been a spectacular show!

Little stroll outside our homestay. We stayed in the Kashgar Ancient City scenic area.

Id-Kah mosque

An alley in Kashgar Ancient City

Yummy yak milk ice-cream

Kashgar Ancient City looks like a town in the 12th century - the buildings are different shades of beige and mauve. The leaves and flowers bring contrast on them.

Lots of old doors, blue doors can be seen.

Throughout Xinjiang, I noticed a lot of pigeons would circle the sky.

What is modern day traveler doing here?

Donghu Park - we loved this place. It was windy at times! We sat on a bench, our backs against each other. At times, going still, to let the wind blow over us. The offbeat moments always leave a soothing memory of a place.

Kashgar, today. The architecture is still inspired by the old era color. The Poplar trees line every street, makes Kashgar a pretty autumn destination.

G314 Highway

We rode this highway the whole day. G314 National Highway in China is also known as China-Pakistan Friendship Highway. The highway crosses border and known as the Karakoram Highway in Pakistan. I admired how the Chinese built such a pristine highway in mountains, and the design prioritized good view, good view and good view!

First stop at Opal village. This is where the people queue for washroom, and also obtain their border area permit. We bought necessaries such as oxygen can and water from here.

Second stop - Oytak Red Canyon.

The highway was definitely the biggest attraction of this journey. Speeding up, wind gushing in through my window, taking hairpin bends, Poplar trees, canyons, rivers, snow capped mountains, and the Uyghur music playing in the car - road trip at its best!

Baisha Lake. "Bai" means white and "Sha" means sand in Chinese. This is the white sand lake. From the highway, it looks like the highway just ended up in the lake! This is actually a reservoir. Well, the Chinese can turn anything into a 5A scenic area!

Karakul Lake. "Karakul" means black lake in Kyrgyz. Kyrgyzstan is not far from here. The area is called Kizilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture. I regret spending too much time at Baisha lake. Because Karakul lake has more vast area outside tourist zone to explore. The calmness of this area, animals grazing, and high peaks overlooking the mandane, was just the thing!

Muztagh Ata Glacier Park. It was so inspiring to see so many Chinese uncles and aunties hiking alongside us. Oxygen cans in their hands, curiosity in their minds. Chinese aunties adored us, they came to ask our country, volunteered to take our pictures.

It felt like - I was standing in front of an open freezer, and icy cold wind gushing outside, slapping my bare skin. It was -8 degrees.

Tashkurgan

Millin dollar sunrise.

Good morning from Tashkurgan! We stayed at a breathtaking location in Tuogelunxia village. From here, you can see unobstructed 360 degrees of view.

Meet Torgrencia Tent Camp, where we stayed.

After a good sleep, we spent the day lazily. In the afternoon we visited a Tajik home. Almost all homes in that area got destructed by an earthquake in 2017. The state helped the locals by building new houses. Some old homes that survived the earthquake were preserved by the state.

The Tajik aunty who served us Tajik milk tea. Then she also danced with us, while upbeat Tajik music played on a loudspeaker. Good vibe!

Samudro's Tajik wife.

Traditional Tajik table with dried food.

After visiting the Tajik home, we explored more in Tuogelunxia village. Not an official scenic area. But the perfect offbeat yet stunning place to spend an afternoon, walk slowly and admire the beauty of the world.

We looking so good here.

I don't know what this is. But Samudro said, this is the stunt pose we need to practice. So we practiced in front of the mirror in our home. And arriving at this place, we thought, let's do the stunt here.

Grassland? Wetland?

Meet Zhang. He was very kind to take the time and show us around. After knowing we are from Bangladesh, a country hardly anyone heard of in Xinjiang, he played our national anthem in the buggy sound system. He tried to learn how to say Hello in our language. I noticed, that the Chinese deeply respect the mother tongue. 

Random road.

Peace.

The happiness in the ordinary, in the quiet. After watching lots of films by Abbas Kiarostami, where the scenes are of quiet roads and mountainous surrounding, I feel, my picture looks a bit like Kiarostami film roll, like "Through the Olive Trees".

Niangao, the doggo. He is very big, very lively. He runs and rules around the place.

Cosmos.

There was this staircase that lead to nowhere. The Chinese people are so fun loving and adventurous. They were taking pictures and waving standing here. And all cliff-like locations. I tried to do warrior 3, not my best, my best would mean risking my life, so...

"I walk a lonely road..."

Sky full of stars... a bit of Milky Way. Andromeda Galaxy - light from 2.5 million light-years reached my Galaxy phone's lens.

The East side was studded with stars. Seven Sisters, Orion can be distingushed. We saw so many shooting stars, counted them and giggled like children.

The next day, we headed out for another road trip, along the Panlong Ancient Path.

Cheese!

Panlong Road. More roads are stretching around the valley beside the mountains.

Teeny tiny Waqia village, and might Pamir standing beside.

Tiny Jo, looking at the Pamirs.

The last few stretches of the magnificent hairpin-bend road, that tourists come to see and make drone shots.

Where does the road go?

Bandir Blue lake. This is another Chinese genius. A massive, kilometers length reservoir, that became tourist attraction. Random Instagram reel, where we first saw this, made us think it must be AI generated. Turned out, it is not.

Pamir Eye. Not sure what resembled the eye.

Random click from the moving car.

An offbeat view, from Taheman Dream Tree Hole tourist place.

It was NOT a printed wall in a studio, but an inspiration for printed walls in the studios.

Quiet afternoon road trip. Flags waving, cars riding past...

The next day. Road to Tashkurgan airport.

Tashkurgan Khunjerab Airport.

Ba-bye beautiful Tashkurgan!

Urumqi & Shanshan

Arriving at Urumqi. The city already got a coating of the first snow of the season.

Walking/hiking in Hongshan Park. Parks love us, and we love them back.

View of Urumqi city from the top of Hongshan Park. The city has a vibe like that of Almaty. We met two Kazakh young men there too, he he. We pondered about life in Urumqi. I imagined me renting a small apartment, from which window, I can see the Tienshan mountain, walking on the parks...

View of snow wrapped Urumqi from the train window.

We saw countless windmills on our way from and to Urumqi

We took a high speed train to Shanshanbei station. Shanshan is a quiet town in Turpan. Everything is developed. A picturesque town!

Kumtagh Desert.

There was a middle East aura in this place.

All ready for visiting the cold desert.

See, the high sand dunes.

View of the Shanshan town from the top of the sand dunes.

Boom boom, car's coming.

Lovely camels.

There were half a dozen sand sculptures.

The Windows wallpaper?

Turpan is famous for raisins. The dry climate and hot summer contribute to the finest raisins. There are traditional adobe where grapes are air-dried into raisins. The architecture of this place is inspired by those adobes.

Ba-bye Kumtagh desert! Local aunties gave us DiDi rides in Shanshan. They wear flowery claw clips on their hair. And look at the Hello Kitty's! It's a very good city to drive around!

So, those were sand dunes, we nodded on our return ride from Kumtagh desert.

We watched the sunset, while speeding around 250 km/h on our return train to Urumqi.

Xinjiang International Grand Bazaar.

Last night final shopping. It was snowing when we arrived. We shopped kilograms of dry fruits, raisins, tea, apricots, yak meat. A quick selfie before leaving.

By-bye China! This was the last photo Samudro took in China.