Silk Road/ Xinjiang province... advice needed

Hi all,

On 2nd August I'm flying to Beijing and on the 20th August I start a tour of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, beginning in Bishkek. I'll spend the first week in Beijing and Xi'an with friends (as I used to live there), but between 9th and 19th I'd like to explore Xinjiang province and possibly Almaty, Kazakhstan.

I know the logical route would be to travel overland via Lanzhou, Jaiyuguan, Turpan and Urumqi, but it would take a lot of long sleeper trains and Urumqi seems to be very westernised, whereas I'd like to see more authentic Uighur culture and fewer tourist attractions.

However, 10days is obviously a tiny amount of time to traverse China.... At the moment I'm thinking of flying Xi'an-Kashgar - flights at the moment are 2500RMB but I hope they'll go down - then either bus, train or flight to Urumqi and onwards overland to Almaty.

To anybody who's familiar with any of these areas, which places should I skip or not miss? Which part should I fly and which parts are overlanding easier?

Alternatively I've looked at going to Almaty via Kyrgyzstan through the Torugart or Irkeshtam pass but these seem very complicated and expensive, especially Torugart. Is it worth me travelling all the way to Khorgos to enter Kazakhstan?

Thanks in advance!