You decide...

Ok, we had a really interesting experience trying to find a hotel room once we came into Kashgar. Our book listed a hotel with 10 yuan beds and we thought we'd head there to check it out.

The Noor Bish Hotel it's called, and was tucked into an alleyway. We go in and there was a westerner and and middle eastern guy talking, we said hi and they pointed us to another fellow who was supposed to be the boss.

We spoke in english (since we weren't sure what language they spoke here, either Mandarin or Uighur) and asked about rooms. This guy started to say something to some other fellow to our left in what I assume is Uighur because I couldn't recognize any of it. After that the other fellow motions to Jenni that there was nothing available. We said "No more rooms?" and he just kept on waving his arms. The western guy seemed really surprised cause he also questioned "no more rooms?!?".

At the same time, I am looking at all these open doors with empty beds in them so I really don't think they were full. It's mainly a backpackers hotel too and there aren't that many out here right now.

So what do you think happened here? I've got an idea (the first one). It's not nice, but I'll throw it out with another. Let me know your opinions too...

1. Uighur and Han Chinese have a similar relationship as Tibetans and Han Chinese. We are basically seen as invading their land and forcing them to be a part of China. Apparently there's a bit of tension between the two groups. We both knew this coming in but and hoped to portray ourselves as more Canadian (hence the english) but we didn't expect to discriminated against so outright. Crappier food, worse rooms sure, but to be shut out completely? Wow. What a feeling that was. I am still amazed at having experienced that.

2. We had thought that being a Uighur guesthouse, they maybe had some issue with Jenni staying there (all the occupants did seem to be male). I don't know enough about Muslim religon but maybe this could be it.

I don't know what was going through their minds, n any event, it has changed my whole perception of this culture. It is still amazing to see the difference in how they go about their daily lives, and just how different they are from the rest of China, but I can't stop thinking in the back of my mind how much some of them may hate us just because of what we look like.

I wouldn't recommend the Noor Bish to anyone because of this. It's just not worth it.