The city of Bole, a small town in western Xinjiang only 20 miles from the Kazakhstan border, has found a new use for all their stray cats. Watch out if you’re a rat!

In 2009 photographer Aphra Pia visited China to travel along the fabled Silk Road.

Next time you squeeze that little packet of ketchup onto your greasy french fry for lunch, think of Xinjiang. There’s a high probability that the tomato used to produce that ketchup came from China’s largest, western province.

Somewhere between Urumqi and Kashgar these nomads have set up tent at the foot of the Tian Shan. THIS is why you take a train when you travel in Xinjiang, not an airplane. How are you supposed to see this through a small hole thirty thousand feet in the air?

Oftentimes when people return from traveling Xinjiang and the Silk Road, the very first thing they want to get their hands on is a Xinjiang cookbook with authentic Uyghur recipes and Hui recipes. Unfortunately such a cookbook doesn’t exist…
…but hopefully this will help.