Upon reaching the very popular tourist stop beside Karakul Lake – just off the Chinese section of the Karakoram Highway, between Tashkurgan and Kashgar – I understood the purpose of the horse and rider pictured in this series’ previous post.
For the moment at least, they were engaged in the tourism trade, rather than herding.
In western Xinjiang, nomadic and quasi-nomadic herders do still take sheep, goats and cattle – and themselves, their tents and their horses – to and from high-altitude summer pastures.
However, some herders – or former herders – probably now make more and easier money by “farming” tourists.
As a future post will show, horses and camels are not the only “animal rides” available to tourists in this region.
(Photo is ©️ Doug Spencer, taken at Karakul Lake at “2. 23” pm on 24 May 2024. The “real” time of day – as opposed to official/Beijing time – was circa 12 noon, so we were probably ahead of that day’s “tourist rush” for lunches and rides. Lunch at Karakul Lake comes with a very splendid view, as you can see in this series’ next chapter)