Kashgar Tribal Artifacts - Life for the Modern Nomad | Handmade Jewellery, ethnic handicrafts, antique furniture

While celebrations are taking place all over the world today to herald in the Chinese New Year, this year’s festivities are being conducted with particular enthusiasm as 2012 is the Year of the Water Dragon, considered by many to be the most auspicious sign in the Chinese zodiac.

Picture by Katsushika Hokusai, renouned Japanese artist 1760 – 1849

In this age of ascending feminism and focus on equality and human rights, it is difficult to assimilate the Hindu practice of sati, the burning to death of a widow on her husband's funeral pyre, into our modern world.  Indeed, the practice is outlawed and illegal in today's India, yet it occurs up to the present day and is still regarded by some Hindus as the ultimate form of womanly devotion and sacrifice...

Fanny Parkes was the daughter of a British colonial officer and the wife of a civil servant who came to India with her husband in 1822 and stayed for twenty four years, traveling extensively throughout Raj India, often on her own, and assimilating all aspects of Indian society and culture.  When she returned home she published her memoirs at the behest of her mother, producing an 800 plus page edifice called Wanderings of  a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque, During Four and Twenty Years in the East; With Revelations of Life in the Zenana...

Robert Louis Stevenson once said "For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” Obviously the man had neither pets nor children.  We're heading off to India on a buying trip this Saturday and along with all the usual stuff we have to organise before one of these odysseys, we have something brand new to worry about: what to do with our 16 month old black poodle Phoenix while we're away...

Every year we here at Kashgar witness the Great Shopping Debacle that is Christmas and all the trauma it entails.  What we have discovered after many years behind the counter serving our customers is that most of the stress associated with the festive season is self inflicted.  What this means is that with a little bit of forward planning, it can be avoided completely...

I've become obsessed with squat toilets, Gentle Reader, and with good reason. Like others before me I've come to the conclusion that when travelling, all toilets outside of five star establishments are dangerous. I could write a book about the squat toilets of the world and I mightn't be the first person to do so. In some respects I find them preferable to western toilets since as a short person my feet are often left dangling uncomfortably above the ground. They are also (in theory at least) more sanitary than their western counterparts because you don't have to contend with dirty toilet seats. In reality however they are more likely to resemble filth-encrusted Jurassic swamps....

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