Kashgar or Hotan Sunday Market?

In response to Viladimir's reply to my question - I had some exchange of info on Xinjiang a while back and a local person wrote back to me and he mentioned the Sunday market in Hotan!

OP, according to my LP you are correct- and I trust LP more than this guy. Sadly haven't been, so I can't help you.

I think I've seen on another post (again, reading the forum regularly for the past couple of years has educated me a lot) that Hotan's is smaller, slightly more "authentic" but Hotan is harder to reach than Kashgar. Kashgar though not as good as before, is still photogenic and easier to get to.
Cheers!

I would think that, assuming #1 is wrong, that he's not as well-informed as he thinks he might be.
Cheers!

The main difference is that less foreign visitors find their way to the Hotan one. As for the markets themselves I didn't see much difference. If you're a photo buff then go to Hotan. It'll be hard to get that great shot with large numbers of foreigners in the background. I think there must have been around 200 foreigners walking around the Kashgar one, as opposed to maybe 10 at Hotan - in 2001.

#1 is wrong.

When we talk about the Kashgar Sunday market, are we talking about the regular one or the animal market? At one point, they were together, but several years ago the animal market was moved outside of town. I saw in in 2003 and thought that it was very interesting. The regular market, had a lot of normal stuff for sale, as well as things native to the area. And IIRC it is open every day. The animal market is just on Sundays. Horses, sheep and cows are sold there.

I went to the Kashgar animal market which despite the large number of tourists (the Australian "Getaway" travel program was filming the day we were there) is very interesting.

Normal markets (ie not animal or not mainly animal) are all over the place. If you visit a town of any size, they will probably have a market which will be quite photogenic.

as a local guide, I can tell you that both market are worthwhile to see. compared the two markets Kashgar sunday market is bigger than Khotan Sunday marker( local Khotan people call this market as Qongkur Bazar in uighur language meanse A Bazar located lowest place in Engilsh). kashgar sunday market is day by day being modern but still crowded and attractive. the khotan sunday market looks kind of premitive coz is the structure. both are distinctive.but if you need choose one of them The Kashgar sunday market makes u happy, you will be satidfied with it. if you have have enough time you would go Khotan as well , a lot of attractions can be seen there.

Went to both 2004. Hotan was far the more interesting for me, few tourists, stalls mainly dealing with the general commerce of local life (with just about everything imaginable), still very large, fantastic ambience; rather than the many tourists and quite numerous tourist oriented wares in Kashgar. Kashgar's concrete floored, roller-doored set up detracts from the atmosphere a lot (although no doubt much more comfortable for the traders). I agree that the animal market in Kashgar is very interteresting, exponentially bigger than the small animal section in Hotan. The Old town of Kashgar, either side of Jiefang Beilu, was actually more interesting for me than the main Sunday bazaar there.

But for me, Hotan is definitely the one I would go to again.

Good luck.