Old Town

Sprawling on both sides of Jiefang Lu are roads full of Uighur shops and narrow alleys lined with adobe houses right out of an early-20th-century picture book. Houses range in age from 50 to 500 years old and the lanes twist haphazardly through neighbourhoods where Kashgaris have lived and worked for centuries. It's a great place for strolling, peeking through gates, chatting up the locals and admiring the craftsmen as they create their wares.

The Chinese government has shown little affection for the old town, however, and has spent the past two decades knocking it down, block by block. During our short stay we witnessed dozens of old homes bulldozed.

The old neighbourhoods that do remain tend to be hard to spot because they lie behind the high modern tower blocks along the main boulevards. Check out the streets southeast of the Night Market or the craft stalls on the street north of the post office. Avoid the residential area to the east, which has been turned into a tourist trap and requires a ticket to enter.

At the eastern end of Seman Lu stands a 10m-high section of the old town walls, which are at least 500 years old.