Some trips begin with a travel magazine. Some with a friend’s recommendation. Some with a deal you found at midnight that seemed too good to ignore.
This one began with my mother.
The Seed That Took Years to Grow
I can’t tell you exactly how old I was when she first showed me the photos. What I remember is the feeling — that particular stillness that comes over you when you see somewhere so foreign and so vivid that your brain quietly files it under someday.
My mother had been to Xinjiang more than 20 years before, camera in hand, and she came back with pictures that didn’t look quite real. Mountains that seemed painted on. Markets tumbling with colour. Faces that held whole histories. She had that glow that travellers get when they’ve been somewhere that genuinely changed them, and she talked about it the way people talk about things they know you won’t fully understand until you’ve seen it yourself.
She was right.
The Story About the Lamb
But it wasn’t just the photos. It was one story in particular that lodged itself in my head and never quite left.
She told me about arriving at a village — I’ve imagined the scene so many times it feels almost like a memory of my own — and being received as a guest. The kind of hospitality that doesn’t ask what you want; it simply gives you everything. And what they gave was a whole roasted lamb, carried out by the villagers to be shared at the table.
Not a dish. Not a meal, really, in the ordinary sense. A gesture. An act of welcome so generous and so unhurried that it said everything about the people and the place without a single word.
That story cooked in my head for years. Quietly, persistently, the way the best stories do. I’d think about it on ordinary Tuesdays. I’d think about it whenever someone asked where I most wanted to go. I’d think: one day I want to be that guest. I want to sit at that table.
Fifty felt like the right time to finally show up.
The Research (Which Was Really Just Catching Up to a Dream)
So when I finally opened my laptop and started planning, it didn’t feel like research. It felt like I was filling in the details around something I already knew I was going to do.
I read everything I could find. Travel blogs from people who’d driven the mountain roads. Forum debates about the best season to go — and there are strong opinions, let me tell you, the kind usually reserved for football and the correct way to make a cup of tea. I watched videos of the Kanas Lake at dawn and the Tianshan in snow and bazaars so alive they seemed to hum through the screen.
And the more I read, the more the picture my mother had painted years ago came into focus. Sharper. Realer. Finally, properly mine to plan.
North First — And Here’s Why
One thing the research made very clear: Xinjiang is not one trip. It’s a region the size of Western Europe with the personality of an entire continent. The south — Kashgar, the ancient Silk Road cities, the vast Taklamakan Desert — is a different world from the north, where glacial lakes and Altai mountains and green grasslands await.
Both are calling me. But in late May, the south has a complication: sandstorm season. The Taklamakan doesn’t sit quietly in spring. It stirs, and when it does, the air turns a dramatic shade of orange and sightseeing becomes an exercise in eating dust. Magnificent, but perhaps not how I’d choose to spend a milestone birthday.
So: north first. The Tianshan in bloom, the Nalati grasslands, Kanas Lake still cold and dramatic from the thaw. The south — and Kashgar, and the whole roasted lamb of my imagination — will wait for the return trip. Some things are worth planning twice.
The Flight That Made It Real
I found a Cathay Pacific direct flight. Hong Kong to Ürümqi, landing at 7am.
There’s something about booking the flight — not browsing, not comparing, but actually booking — that turns a dream into a plan. I sat with it for a moment after the confirmation came through. My mother’s photos. The village. The lamb. All those ordinary Tuesdays of thinking someday.
Someday is now apparently the 28th, departing at a civilised hour, arriving as the sun comes up over the Tianshan.
I’ll clear customs, collect my bags, step out into the cool Ürümqi morning — and head north.
For My Mother
She’ll be following along from home, which feels right. She planted this particular seed, after all. The least I can do is send back photos.
And if I find a village that carries out a whole roasted lamb for their guests — Mum, I’ll save you a seat.
Next up: the itinerary — where I’m going, how long I’m staying, and what I’m most irrationally excited about.
Travel Mad Serene’s Journal 