Hotan خوتەن / Hetian 和田, Xinjiang, China

Read extensive information about visiting Hotan at Central Asia Traveler on Hotan - Ancient Kingdom of Jade and Silk, including sightseeing, transportation, lodging and dining.

Here at Flicker, see 100 images of Hotan in twelve sets, including sightseeing, maps, hotels, dining and more.

Enjoy the vast array of delights in this largest city on the southern rim of the Taklamakan Desert, in the northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. Observe the ancient handicrafts practiced here for two millennia. See silk made by hand in the ancient tradition from cocoon to the colorful King of Silk. On the other side of town, see the entire process in a 1950s-era mechanized factory. Watch carpets tied by hand in age-old patterns. Observe precious jade being carved into fantastic shapes, and paper made by hand from mulberry bark and desert plants.

Visit the excellent museum in its newer, larger facility that brings together the region's 5,000 years of human history on the crossroads of Indian, Central Asian, Chinese, Russian, Middle Eastern and even Greek cultures, a corridor for and center of shamanism, Buddhism, Christianity, Manichaeism and Islam. Plus the museum offers an entire floor of more recent cultural treasures of jade, carpets, silk, ethnic attire, jewelry, musical instruments and Uyghur traditional medicine.

Visit a Sunday bazaar that rivals any in Central Asia for size and variety, then stop by Hotan's nearby main mosque. Or head out on Thursday nearby to a weekly tiny bazaar and festivalin the desert an ancient sacred site of pilgrimage at the edge of the desert, with its ancient shrine, tomb and mosque.

Beat the heat along more than 1,500 kilometers of shady grapevine-covered corridors in the county, or in one just outside your hotel door.Wander around neighborhoods with traditional Uyghur architecture. Watch nightly authentic Uyghur traditional music and dancing. Eat rice-based polo or noodle-based langmen from bottomless cauldrons in busy Uyghur restaurants and nibble your way along the stalls of an ancient night market, with sizzling lamb kebabs, mountains of fresh melons, stacks of nut bars and an endless variety of other treats.

But the old and new exist side-by-side in ancient Hotan. Marvel at the dramatic modern architecture in the center around the enormous Unity Square. Dance the night away at a score of flashy night clubs, grab a burger or fried chicken at a Chinese chain, wander the endless aisles of three enormous supermarkets, pick your live seafood for dinner from two walls of tanks in a new restaurant more than 2,500 kilometers from any ocean, or watch the world pass by as you linger at a number of modern coffee bars or internet cafes.

Spend Y20 to Y2,000 per night on a range of accommodations. Visit different nearby ancient ruins from this fabled Silk Road kingdom, by taxi, by 4WD, or by an overnight camel caravan. Wander along the bed of the Yorungkash River, whose jade has been traded from here to central China for more than three thousand years, washed down from the fabled Kunlun mountains of immortality, home of the Great Mother Goddess of the West.

You can reach Hotan easily with daily inexpensive flights from Urumqi. Or travel on quality new sealed asphalt highways on many daily air-conditioned buses from Kashgar (500 km), Aksu (500 km), Korla (1000 km), or Urumqi (1500 km), choosing to watch the desert and oasis scenery from a seat bus or go overnight on a sleeper bus.

For the more adventurous, Hotan can be your gateway to two lesser-known routes into Tibet. The first is through remote western Tibet from nearby Kargilik / Yecheng, where you can reach the Tsaparang, the ancient hilltop capital of the Guge Kingdom, and the holy Mount Kailash. The other route is via a series of legs across southern Xinjiang and through Qinghai Province to Golmud, where you can catch the train to Lhasa. Through this latter route -- shunned by ancient China but well-known to and used by the local Tocharians in Xinjiang and Qiang peoples in Qinghai, Tibetans, and Mongolians for their Silk Road trade and made famous by Ella Maillart's 'Forbidden Journey'-- you can also reach Dunhuang, Xining or Lanzhou.