6/28

We're at the end of our journey now. I'm posting this last report after arriving home and suffering through several days of tummy problems. The good news is that it didn't interfere with our trip at all. I'm posting this last snippet from the trip. I'll try to figure out how to poast a few pictures in the coming days. Thanks for the reading.......

We have a few hours on this last day to see the sights of Hotan, an oasis community on the part of the Silk Road that goes around the southern side of the Taklamakan Desert. We began our visit with a drive to the edge of the desert to visit the tomb of Imam Assam. The area is a series of gravesites among sand dunes, including the tomb of the Imam. He might have been a Muslim soldier who died in the Muslim/Buddhist wars of the early 12th century. He might have been a local Imam of the same period who was a famous preacher. But the area was a cemetery before and after his burial. A Tang dynasty general's coffin from here, beautifully carved, rests in the Hotan museum. And new grave mounds have appeared here in the last three years. There is a small, 100-year-old mosque on site. The desert dunes tower all around, and the caretakers have planted poplars to try to stabilize the cemetery. There are rough fences around the burial areas, festooned with flags, scraps of cloth, and the skins of sheep and other animals. Our guide was uncomfortable here, at this un-Islamic display of prayer to someone other than God, the use of flags (a rather Buddhist practice), and apparent animal sacrifice. He attributes all of this to a Sufi influence that came in the 17th century. Despite his discomfort, we found this place full of wind, sand, symbols and Silk Road history.

And so we're off, for an overnight return to Urumqi, followed by long, long, long flights back to California. A wonderful trip