The westernmost city in China and a Silk Road crossroads for two thousand years — a warren of an old town, the country's largest mosque, and a Sunday bazaar where Central Asia and China meet. Closer to Kabul than Beijing, and it feels it.
Kashgar sits closer to Kabul than to Beijing, and it keeps its own hours: the clocks say Beijing time, life runs about two hours behind them, and in June the sun is still up at ten in the evening. The old town, the mosque and the craft lanes fit inside a few square kilometres, so two days covers the city itself. What catches people out here is not the language — it is the checkpoints, and the paperwork for anything beyond town.
Officially it is Beijing time, the same clock as Shanghai. In practice shops open mid-morning, lunch runs late, and in June the sun is still up at ten in the evening. When you are given a time, ask which one.
There are more ID checks here than anywhere else you will travel in China: at the station, at hotel desks, at checkpoints on the roads out of town. None of it takes long, but the passport has to be on you.
The Grand Bazaar has traded every day since the early nineties, so arriving on a Tuesday costs you nothing. The Sunday-only one is the livestock market, out on the edge of town, and it runs in the morning.
Karakul Lake is about 200 km southwest on the Karakoram Highway, at 3,600 m. Foreigners need a border permit for it, arranged in Kashgar before you go, and there are checkpoints on the road that will turn you back without one. Book a driver, and give the whole day to it.
Expect more ID checks than in the east — at stations, hotels and some streets. Keep your passport handy and build in a little extra time.
Official source ✓The Grand Bazaar runs all week but Sunday is when the old livestock market and the full crowds come alive. Plan around it.
Verified 11 JunThe Karakoram Highway day trip to the Pamirs is the region's showstopper — arrange a car and check current access first.
Worked recently × 12
Free, and open at any hour. Know what you are looking at: most of it was demolished and rebuilt after 2009 to meet fire and earthquake codes, so the lanes are wider and the brick newer than old photographs suggest. Walk it early or after dark. Id Kah Mosque sits in the middle of it.
Built in 1442, on the square that is still the centre of the old town. Entry is free and requires real-name reservation (book 1–7 days ahead on the '喀什古城文旅' / '游喀什' mini-program); visitors are let in through the day apart from a couple of hours in the mid-afternoon, when it closes for prayers. Dress modestly, with shoulders and legs covered, and take your shoes off before the prayer hall.
In the northern lanes of the old town, copper bowls, painted cradles and long-necked lutes are still beaten and carved in the doorways. Prices open high for visitors and are meant to be argued down — halve the first number and work up from there. Do it in the same walk as Id Kah.
Officially the Central and West Asia International Trade Market, on the east bank of the Tuman River northeast of the old town. It trades every day and stopped being Sunday-only back in the early nineties, though Sunday is still the biggest crowd. Carpets, hats, dried apricots, spices.
The one thing here that really is Sunday-only: a yard on the edge of town where sheep, cattle, donkeys and the odd camel change hands for cash. It is a few kilometres north of the centre, about fifteen minutes by taxi or half an hour on the bus. Go in the morning — it is a working market, not a display put on for anyone.
About 200 km southwest of the city and 3,600 m up, on the road that runs to the Pakistan border. Muztagh Ata and Kongur Tagh both clear 7,500 m and rise off the far shore. This is a border zone: foreigners need a border permit for it, arranged in Kashgar before you set off, and the checkpoints on the road do turn people back without one. Book a car and driver in Kashgar, who will normally arrange the permit with you.
Xinjiang's most typical Islamic mausoleum: a 17-metre column-free dome sheathed in deep-green glazed tile, begun in 1640, holding five generations of the Afaq Khoja family across 58 tombs, with an 1873 mosque alongside. One correction worth knowing: the 'Fragrant Concubine' is not buried here — Qianlong's consort rests at the Eastern Qing Tombs in Hebei, and the site's own signage says so. ¥40 entry without the song-and-dance shows, which run several times daily; it's 5 km northeast of the old town.
Six hundred years of Uyghur mud-brick homes stacked on a 40-metre loess cliff over the Tuman river — maze lanes, overhead 'street-crossing houses', and working pottery, woodcarving and copper workshops with resident heritage masters. Verify before you go: it reopened in June 2023 after restoration, but June 2026 local reports say it closed again on 19 June for upgrading, no reopening date announced. When open it's a living community — don't enter homes, don't crowd doorways for photos, and drones are banned.
The old town's true centre after dark: under 600 metres of street holding 200-plus stalls — samsa straight from the oven, pilaf, yogurt rice dumplings, clay-pot meat, roast pigeon, pomegranates juiced to order. Kashgar runs on Beijing time but lives two hours later, so it only gets going after 20:00. It's halal ground: don't bring outside food, and ask before photographing vendors or diners. Treat it as the evening half of an old-town day rather than a separate destination.
Rice steamed with mutton, onion and shredded carrot in the fat off the meat, usually with raisins through it. The name means hand-grabbed rice, and it is a lunch dish here more than a dinner one.
Grand Bazaar
Cut small, salted, then dusted with chilli and a lot of cumin and grilled over charcoal on flat metal skewers. Ordered by the ten. The stalls light up when it gets dark, which out here is late.
Id Kah night market
Slapped onto the inside wall of a clay oven and pulled out blistered, stamped with a pattern in the middle. Sold off carts everywhere, cheap, and it keeps for days, which is the whole point of it.
Hand-pulled noodles under a stir-fry of mutton, tomato, pepper and onion, mixed together at the table. The everyday meal here, and the safest thing to order when the menu has no pictures.
Lamb and onion in a square pastry parcel, baked stuck to the wall of the same clay oven the bread comes from. Eaten standing and far too hot. Buy them off the oven, because they go dull once cold.
Id Kah night market
Pressed in front of you at street carts, two or three fruit to a glass, sharp and not sweetened. Late summer and autumn is the season, along with the melons, figs and grapes.
Small guesthouses inside the old town, with the mosque, the craft lanes and the evening food stalls all on foot. Rooms are plain and the lanes stay noisy late.
¥150–500 a night
The old traveller strip just west of the old town: hostels, cheap doubles, and the agencies and drivers who run the Karakoram Highway trips. Where to base yourself if you want the Pamirs.
¥80–350 a night
The modern grid south of the old town, with the chain hotels, the banks and the front desks most used to registering a foreign passport. Nothing to look at, ten minutes by taxi from what there is.
¥200–800 a night
Only worth it for an early train or a dawn flight. Nothing is within walking distance, so you pay for a taxi at both ends of every meal.
¥150–400 a night
Not every hotel is licensed to register a foreign guest, and out here the ones that are not will turn you away at the desk. Confirm before you pay, and expect the check-in itself to take longer than it does in eastern China.
Flying in
Kashgar (KHG) is barely ten kilometres north of the old town, about twenty minutes by taxi, with direct flights from Urumqi and most large Chinese cities. Landing here saves a very long overland haul across Xinjiang.
By train
Kashgar station is the western end of the Chinese network, northeast of the city, with sleepers in from Urumqi and Hotan. There is no high-speed line, so it is an overnight at best against roughly two hours in the air from Urumqi.
Passport at every gate
Airport, station, hotel desk, and the checkpoints on every road out of town. Hotel registration takes longer here than in the east, so allow for it when you arrive.
Tickets and timetables all run on Beijing time even though the city does not. Book rail on 12306 with your passport, and set the alarm to the ticket rather than to the daylight.
Taxi & DiDi
The meter starts at ¥5, and in a city this compact most rides come in well under ¥15. DiDi saves you saying a Uyghur street name in Mandarin. The Grand Bazaar is walkable from the old town; the Sunday livestock market on the edge of town is the trip you really want a car for.
Bus
A yuan or two flat, and the routes reach the Grand Bazaar and the Sunday livestock market. Signs and announcements are in Chinese and Uyghur only, so have the route number written down.
Car with a driver
The Karakoram Highway is not a public-transport trip. Agencies and guesthouses around Seman Road arrange a car and driver for the day; agree the route and the return time before you set off.
The old town is under two kilometres across, so most of your walking happens inside it. There is no metro here and no need for one.
SUN
Sundays · the big one
DLY
Dusk · call to prayer
MAY–OCT
Karakoram Highway · arrange a car
SEP
Muqam performances, intangible-heritage market, food street
OCT
Golden desert poplars along the Tarim
May to October, when the passes are open and the bazaar is in full swing. Sunday is the day for the grand bazaar and the livestock market.
Two to three days: the old town and the bazaar, plus a day up the Karakoram Highway to Karakul Lake if the weather is clear.
Fly — KHG is barely ten kilometres north of the old town, about twenty minutes by taxi, with direct flights from Urumqi and most large cities. The train is the western end of the network: an overnight sleeper at best, with no high-speed line.
The old town is walked. Taxis start at ¥5 and buses are a yuan or two; for the Karakoram Highway you need a car with a driver — it is not a public-transport trip.
Inside the Old Town near Id Kah for the atmosphere, Seman Road for the old traveller strip, or Renmin Road in the new town for chain hotels. Confirm the hotel is licensed to register foreign guests before you pay.
Lamb polo (pilaf), lamb skewers, naan straight from the oven, laghman noodles, samsa baked pies and pomegranate juice.
The Old Town, Id Kah Mosque, the handicraft street, the Sunday Grand Bazaar and the livestock market, with Karakul Lake on the Karakoram Highway as the day trip. Carry your passport everywhere — ID checks are frequent out here.
