Khorgas

On the Chinese side of the Khorgas border point, a rash of buildings testified to the sudden spike in China-Kazakhstan exchanges over the border in the 1980s and early 1990s.

This is the new Wild West - quite literally, for the many young people flocking to Khorgas from the big Chinese mega-cities to the East.

When you cross the border to the Kazakh side, things are more subdued. The Kazakh Khorgos (the name of the town is the same, but there is a difference in pronunciation) is still more or less what it has always been: a couple of dozen old houses congregated around a pretty mosque and a road running down to the border post.]