Taklamakan is a big desert in the middle of Xinjiang Province in China. This province is situated at the extreme west side of the country. There is a lot of different ethnies living there: Ouighour mainly, Kazakh, Kirghiz, Mongol, and Han, the Chinese from China. As a young ethnologist, it was of course an even greater pleasure to hang around over there...
Those pics were taken in the Ouighour part. Ouighour people are muslim and their language is close to Turkish language. They are living along the silk road in (kind of) oasis.
Like some other Chinese ethnic minorities, Ouighour culture is endangered.
Anyway, this is only 15 days of travel over 2 months in 2005.. I got my brand new camera stolen quite quickly!! haha... :)
I hope you enjoyed the trip as I did!
