Brush up on your Arabic phrases if you're travelling to Kashgar. Most of the population are Uighurs and prefer using their own language, based on Turkish and Arabic.

You'll win more street cred than if you wander about spouting Chinese grammar.

The language can be found in your mouth.

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There is also a train line which has been built to exercise Han Chinese dominance over the farthest flung reaches of the empire, whether the locals like it or not.

24 hours from Urumqui to Kashgar skirting along the Taklamakan Desert.

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If you're heading to or from Kashgar from Pakistan, take a bag of coins with you, preferably a variety from different countries.

China only uses notes so the Chinese love to collect coins. The border guards at the Pakistani border will invariably ask if you have any. No bribery involved, just genuine fascination.

You don't get anything out of giving them coins except a sense of promoting world peace and understanding.

The hut at 4,000 metres on the road between Pakistan and China.

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However tempted you may be, don't buy a Peregrine falcon from a Pakistani in Kashgar. Even though he sounds convincing when he tells you how you can easily bribe your way past the border guards on your way to Pakistan. Even though he tells you that for the $5,000 you pay for the tied-up, hooded bird - captured in the foothills of the Tian Shen range nearby - you'll make $15,000 when you arrive in Peshawar on the Afghanistan border. It's basically a stupid idea. You're only trafficking illegally and the end result is rich Arabs in the Gulf states get a new toy to show off.

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