A FULL HOUR BEFORE DAYLIGHT, desperate to escape the pre-dawn chill, I dart inside a darkened teahouse, but only for a moment.

Soon, I'm back outside, braving the cold, drawn by a cascade of animal calls last minute China travel deals. Eyes wide, hands wrapped for warmth around my cup, I slip into a corner table outside the teahouse, fearful not to miss a minute of the morning's magic.

Sure enough, I've barely settled, cross-legged on a woven mat, before an enormous flock of sheep sweep past, followed by carts laden with cages of birds of every description.

The squawking and clouds of feathers still hover in the air when even better entertainment appears: a pair of elderly, toothless gents prying back the lips of a camel, examining the local transport with all the zeal of potential used car buyers kicking the proverbial tires.

Already the wee hours resound with the arresting aroma of mutton and agitated reverberation of the weekly arguing.

Fridays and Saturdays may be peaceful prayer days in Kashgar, mesmerizing Muslim city at the westernmost frontier of China. Still, Sundays are nearly as sacred in this Middle Eastern-flavored crossroads that is much closer to Pakistan, India and Iran than Beijing .

Sundays, you see, are market days. Just not the buy-it and bag-it variety. China shopping, like practically everything in Kashgar, is an ancient art form in which no transaction transpires quickly.

Haggling is spirited and can consume an entire day. And involve the entire community, which religiously gathers every week, along with thousands of visitors, for the famed Sunday market, Xingiri Shichang in Chinese, but better known as Yekshenba Bazaar to local Uighurs.

Hence, after tea-break, I'm dodging sheep as I slither around multi-story stacks of socks, scissors and shawls. And vats of fluorescent-hued spices and carts overflowing with the frisbee-sized flat-breads that are, to Kashgar, what rice is to the rest of China.

From fluffy sheepskin hats to rugged camel-hide boots, not to mention beads, buttons and buckets of local lard, everything - including plenty of kitchen sinks - is for sale at ths fairytale bazaar, a veritable Market At the End of Earth abounding with more special effects than George Lucas could dream up.

And more than mere marketplace, Kashgar's amazing bazaar is an anything-goes civic center where you can have your hair cut, watch a boxing exhibition, even test-drive a donkey or horse.

For centuries it has been so at this desert oasis China travel service, a last-chance outfitting station along the fabled Silk Road, mankind's first superhighway, connecting the world's two great empires, Rome and China, two thousand years ago.

Back then, camel caravans laden with Chinese silk, spice and porcelain, would stagger into Kashgar after the perilous crossing of the Taklamakan Desert - whose name says it all. The nearest translation: Those Going In Never Return.

Yet it was hardly smooth sailing further westward, with more than 4,000 rugged meters to ascend through treacherous mountain passes on the trail to India or Pakistan, and the hungry European markets beyond.

No wonder many weary traders lingered in this last bastion of civilization. Some stayed, opened shops, prospered and carved a marvelous metropolis from sand and rock.
Just as much as the stunning scenery - desert dunes roll right to the base of snow-capped mountains - it's the people of the region who give Kashgar China Holidays its color.

Tribes from nearby mountain villages - Tajiks, Kyrgyz, Kazakhs, Uzbeks - long ago blended with Arab traders, Russian adventurers and Hun warriors in a melting pot that bubbled over a Wild West boomtown too distant for the dictates of faraway emperors.