Leaving Kashgar

3am, and an orange desert moon sits low in the night above the Quinibagh Hotel.

Sleeping merchants snore and fart softly behind rows of numbered doors.

Yesterday i took tea in the courtyard with the tall, bearded, Afghan who has shining cheekbones and piano-players fingers. He's been my next door neighbor for the week. In the rooms below are three cloth merchants from Lahore, and across the terrace a Glaswegian Buddhist monk who chants quietly from dawn until well after midnight. I had wondered if perhaps he was an insomniac, but even he appears to be sleeping now.

As I light a cigarette i am thinking about my journey, - about how i always say i won't do this again...B thinks i'm addicted to the stress, the 'Adrenaleene' , he says i should take up a normal hobby like sketching or poetry instead. He even gave me a lovely black Moleskine notebook, the type students have as travel journals, but i used it to keep my secret collection notes - in schoolgirl codes that only i can read.

'What's this?' he'd asked when he'd seen it (squinting sideways)

'Research' (i lied)

'And what are you researching my little professor? How long you can avoid the insides of a foreign jail?'

I finish the cigarette and pad back to my room to pack the final layer into the hold-all. Crappy souvenirs, unwashed underwear, and the camera right on top to avoid too much digging about.

They're even more paranoid since the troubles. Last week arriving over the Irkistan Pass they checked our passports six times. Maps were confiscated from a Japanese college group, and our bags were searched at three separate check points. I know that it's journalists and insurgents they are after but still... as i think of it my guts squeeze.

The alarm clock goes off an hour after i've finally fallen asleep and i get up again, confused, because it's still the middle of the night. Outside the hotel I wake a taxi driver dozing in his cab who overcharges to drive to Kashgar international bus station. I curl up on top of my bags waiting for the sun to rise. It's the last bus across this border before it closes for eleven days, a national holiday, fifty years since the death of Mao Tse Tung - there will be no way out of the country overland after today. Besides which my visa expires tomorrow.

At dawn Uygher men in waistcoats and embroidered cloth caps walk silently to the Great Mosque for early prayers, morning traffic begins spluttering into life, and the smell of baking bread drifts up the road. I realize that i'm hungry, and a little cold, and in need of a pee.

Inside the station the sour faced woman behind the counter has elected not to notice me even though i'm first in the queue. She shuffles her papers while i fiddle anxiously with my passport.

'Where you want go!'

She looks up and barks suddenly, smacking the papers down on the counter.

'Err, Kyrgyzstan please, Osh City'

She looks irritated,

'No bus today!'

'But there must be a bus - i mean i came here yesterday and they told me...'

'No! Bus cancel! No bus today!'

Now she looks past me, jerking her chin towards the next in line, signalling that she is finished with our conversation.

Behind me is the young Swiss backpacker i'd spoken with outside, he's also heading for Kyrgyzstan, perhaps he'll have more luck.

He persists, pointing out that there is clearly a bus scheduled for this morning, that we must leave before the border closes, and what is more that he is Swiss. The cashier considers these points for a moment before conceding that there is still a bus for Bishkek which leaves in two hours time. Brilliant, we both start counting out our Yen.

'Can we buy two tickets please?'

'No ticket! Bishkek bus no foreigners allowed!'

and this time it really is the end of the conversation. She turns her back on us and we slope outside in search of a ride

A stocky Uygher in a black pickup truck, with five day stubble and smiling eyes says that for fifty US dollars he'll drive us to the border. I'm sure this is illegal. But then everything seems to be illegal here lately, internet access, international phone calls, the use of any non-government translators or guides.... The streets have been heavy with columns of soldiers all week. Han police with automatic weapons and riot shields stare silently in lines outside the ancient mosques, observation cameras film civilians on public transport. We throw our bags into the back of his truck as this is the best,- the only, offer we've had. The truck grumbles and eases out across four lanes of traffic, heading North towards the city's ragged edge.

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Two hours beyond Kashgar and we appear to have stopped for some money laundering errands in a small and joyless country town. The driver's mobile has been ringing non-stop, he had wedged it under his chin and kept on driving until a second phone in another pocket started up and he was obliged to pull over due to a shortage of chins and hands. Now he is counting out money from a bulky wad of foreign cash. He sees me staring at the $100 bills in his rear view mirror and winks cheerfully as he crams them back into his jacket.

'Five minutes please waiting - i very quickly!'

- and he's out of the truck, still on his mobile, across the road and scampering down a rubbish strewn alley. The Swiss and i look at each other and raise our eyebrows in unison.

This town lies near the base of the Tien Shan Mountains. The border post should be an hours drive above us. We need to hurry or we'll miss them before they close for lunch. A small knot of nerves has begun to form in my stomach.

The driver returns grinning broadly and as we leave town a Han Chinese with bulging eyes aggressively flags us down. It seems he also needs a lift to the border and thrusts his ID through the open window. He's a customs official on his way to work.

He doesn't think he should pay for the ride, the driver thinks he should, as they argue the Swiss reads his paperback and i watch three crows on the roadside dismantle a lizard. Our new passenger is excitable and spits as he speaks in rapid Mandarin which none of us understands. He pulls out his phone and makes a call whilst sucking fiercely on a cigarette and inexplicably showing us his badge again. I am starting to wonder if he may be a little crazy.

When two kilometres later we are met with a road block things unfold swiftly, and strangely in silence.

As the truck glides to a halt the Swiss glances up from his book, we both turn to peer through the dirt smeared windows without speaking. Men in immaculate grey and white uniforms are pointing guns at us from three directions. A Colonel with gold-braided shoulders and a pair of over-sized binoculars stands, hand raised, in the middle of the road. The struck stops, soldiers open the doors, handcuff our driver and drag him away.

The Colonel climbs behind the wheel without acknowledging us. He turns the ignition and nods to the customs official who grins ghoulishly back at me before turning and leaving without another word.

I have the clear and uncomplicated thought that i don't like the look of this at all.

The Swiss and I exchange a bewildered look and he passes me a biscuit from the open packet in his lap.

At the police station more grey-uniformed men with guns stand and watch impassively over a scene of enormous confusion. It is scorching hot and airless under a high noon sun. Thirty or so Uyghers, including our arrested driver, are shouting and arguing with the police. Han soldiers dash back and forth with clipboards and the courtyard heaves with sweaty acrid smelling men who all seem to be yelling at once. We are jostled out of the pick-up and our luggage swooped away by a soldier. Before i can object a handsome Uygher officer has ushered us into a shaded corner where he announces that he is here for our assistance.

'You must be wanting to go the border?'

I smile weakly and the Swiss nods.

' Please, - we are very sorry that you have been mixed up in these things'

He sighs and shakes his head.

'We will send you with a jeep, let us find your luggage, you are my responsibility now.'

The gate Sergeant is sweating profusely, his blue shirt sticks to his back. He looks wearily down at my hold-all and up at my face before unzipping the flaps, skimming over the jumble of underwear and trinkets, taking a cursory look at my passport, and waiving me along to the waiting jeep.

As we head towards the border post i'm unsure whether i feel like laughing or being sick.

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9pm and a red sun sinks over the Kyrgyz city of Osh.

Wood-smoke drifts on the evening air and the call of the muezzin floats out across the valleys. I'm collapsed on the bed in the Salam Guesthouse while B pours two tall vodkas.

'So come on , tell me, how was it? What did you find?'

'Oh B, it's a long story....'

I sigh dramatically.

'You wont believe it but when we finally did get to customs they hardly searched me at all. They wanted their lunch break, my bags were full of dirty laundry...'

'You're disgusting'

'Thankyou, i know'

I reach into my hold-all and unearth a small dense package.

' Well there was one thing....from an Afghan at the hotel, it wasn't cheap but it's certainly very old, it should fetch double in London...'

I unfold the package and hold out the small gold-pelted bronze. She feels satisfying in my palm, her green eyes glinting in the fading light.

'Lovely isn't she? - perhaps i'll keep her, for my personal collection...'

I take some pictures of the new acquisitions on my phone; two clay figures, a string of amber beads (maybe Syrian?) an early carved lapis gaming piece, and the bronze. B is sitting beside me on the bed now, doing his two favorite things in the world which are drinking vodka and looking at maps. I'm so tired i fall asleep in all my clothes.

In the morning i have six new text messages but before i can read them the phone is already ringing. It's our old friend George.

'Are you sitting down?'

'No George i'm lying down - because i'm still in bed - shouldn't you be too? Jesus it must be four in the morning in London...'

'Yes my dear it is, but listen - i got your pictures, i'm at Burmondsey market...'

He lowers his voice to whisper,

'There's a buyer here, i mean a serious one, for the little bronze...'

I sit up and try to pull my thoughts together.

'Shit George, give me a minute, i mean i don't even know if i want to sell it or keep it yet...'

'Oh believe me, you want to sell it'

'Okay, okay, but it won't be cheap, i mean i paid $200, and then there's the travelling...and you wouldn't believe the day i had yesterday...'

'$200 you say?'

he's chuckling now, i can hear him,

'Well you can put two 00's on that for starters my dear...'