We embarked on a road trip through one of the most sensitive regions of China’s most sensitive province. Outside the edge of ancient Kuqa, standing alongside the noisy highway, we are attempting to ascend into the land of nomads by hitchhiking. They are the northern realms of Xinjiang graced by the Tianshan (Heavenly) and Altai (Golden) Mountains - a place of itinerants with their golden eagles, rolling green meadows set against snowy peaks, and landscapes of the bluest alpine lakes and granite towers dotted with cozy yurts. Kazakhs, Mongols, Uyghurs and Altais have shared these lands for thousands of years.

Our ambition as simple passerby’s is to just glimpse their way of life. A question lingers: do they still hold to those legendary traditions, or are they now merely a remnant of the past?

If interested in more photos and the story: The Heavenly Way