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Published: March 12th 2018
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A brief outline of the dull bit: arose as planned at 05.20 for 06.00 start, to travel 475 miles, estimated 15hr journey. Went straight to bed on arrival, climbed in at 05.18. No breakfast, lunch or dinner at all! Pretty stressful day.
However, we travelled through amazing scenery. The first section, via Miran, Donglik and Bashkorgan to Huatuguo, led first across a lengthy plain, seemingly pure white sandy desert but in the dark! In daylight we began to climb through beautiful, warm, rounded bare rock mountain scenery, with a mostly frozen river trace running beside us; in summer it must be spectacular, flowing in full flood. We climbed to reach 7,500 feet by 1pm, where there was a police throatpoint. The scene at that point, sadly, beggared belief – the filth and chaos was simply indescribable, presided over by officials that included at least one despicable youngster who chose to specifically humiliate our driver. The “wc” was a particular disgrace, so bad that I would not soil my camera by picturing it; suffice to say that it would have been utterly impossible to even enter since, in desperation, the entire interior floor and passageway had been abused.
There are 250 lorries in this line
One cannot begin to calculate the cost and inefficiency of delaying skilled drivers, valuable resources and the goods involved for hours and hours upon end. Moving on, the beautiful pristine scenery continued – although at one point we were alarmed to see someone leave the road and hurtle downwards some 12 feet or more, travelling at about 40 mph; he seemed to stagger out of the wreck OK, and presumably (like nearly everybody else) had been texting at the time. We “summitted” at 3,527 metres at 14.00 hrs and then passed through extensive extraction activities, based on asbestos. We reached Huatuguo (pronounced a bit like a slurred “where-to-go”) at 16.50. Leaving there at 18.30 hrs, we were still considerably less than halfway to Dunhuang, but until dusk enjoyed at first the view of the local petroleum fields – literally hundreds of “nodding donkeys” working away, a great reminder of dimly-remembered Geography lessons more than half a century ago. We were also fascinated, and impressed, to see the new railway under construction, presumably to eventually link Golmud with perhaps Dunhuang, Ruanqiang and eventually Hetian? Once again the scenery was magnificent, with the Himalayas to the south, snow-capped and stark, and the hills through which we travelled being illuminated in the evening light. As it grew to darkness we were able to appreciate the stars
Open-cast quarrying near Bashkorgan, Xinjiang
We are led to believe that asbestos is involved. as seen from a desert (although, to be honest, they are viewed just as well from Colonsay if you choose the right place from which to observe). On this leg, we reached 3,648 metres – which is seriously very high; finally there was a fast and very lengthy descent along the darkened and poorly defined roadway to reach the level plain and, eventually, Dunhuang.
We had passed through only four checkpoints, of which only the first was much of a pest. The third one, about 2am on top of a mountain, was quite thorough and a rather chilling experience; there was some delay due to a broken photocopier and unfamiliarity with passports, but all perfectly acceptable and polite.
Trials and tribulations are of no interest to most, but might interest other travellers. We had arranged to meet our driver at 6.00 (his suggestion) and he arrived at 6.45. The first hour went well (apart from his smoking and incessant hand-held phone calls); we then reached and passed a line of 250 stationary lorries, plus another 50 or so which were parked up. We reached the head of the queue at 7.45 and he then
parked; it turned out that the road would not be opened until 9.00 am (so the 6am start was pointless). It eventually opened at 9.30 am and a convoy system was in operation, led by a vehicle that erratically travelled at speeds between 15 kph and 55 kph; most of the time it was around 25 kph, but there was no obvious rhyme or reason connected with the road (all of which would have been safe at 60kph). Unsurprisingly, all the drivers in the convoy did silly things to try to jockey themselves into a forward position – it was very frustrating. After the midpoint we met the convoy coming the other way, with 146 lorries in total. These are not small lorries, the average is 70ft, some are 90ft and some (especially car-carriers with up to 8 cars in each tier) are 120ft long; so the convoy was lengthy. We then reached an appalling police check point which delayed us and everyone else – we counted 515 lorries lined up at that point.
The plan was to pay off our driver (1,700 Rmb) at Huatugou and move into a different vehicle for the second leg (2,000
Classic view of "nodding donkey"
One of many hundreds near Huatugou Rmb). Unfortunately (and we were already 4 hrs late) the drivers became involved in an heated exchange; a total of seven were involved and at least two of them (perhaps charming in reality) gave every impression of being very nasty pieces of work. Eventually we were cajoled into getting into a domestic taxi (inappropriate because its luggage space was occupied by a liquid-gas tank); having negotiated a price reduction (1,500 Rmb, still 500 Rmb over the odds) we set off. There was a great deal of nonsense and eventually we turned around, came back, met the (helpful and resourceful) Huatugou police and established our credentials. We then moved off in approaching darkness for a lengthy drive across desert and mountain in a car with no rear seat belts, four under-inflated tyres (one seriously) and no working phone (China will not allow foreigners to buy a SIM card). As the hours went by, the driver was, mercifully, kept awake by various anti-speed devices and a range of hazards fallen from badly laden vehicles (including about ten one-hundredweight sacks of meal or something, scattered the length of the road, being much the same colour as the road itself and from either side
Petrol station sign
Another option would be "Escape route". of the depositor’s lorry). We passed one overturned lorry – the driver seemed to be OK and was busily recovering and stacking the hundreds of cases that formed his load. The most dangerous items were metals beams about 8 ft long, very heavy, with a spread end from which a tongue protruded upwards; our driver would not stop to remove any of these, although he did stop frequently to relieve himself in the headlights, to have a good hawk and spit, and for other less explicable reasons. Fortunately he did not have to stop to dispose of his unwanted food wrappings, drink containers or empty fag packets, they were just thrown out of the window.
Incidentally, the authorities in Ruoqiang had insisted to us that we had to take a bus, not a car, and travel an unbelievable detour via Golmud. Note that this is not correct. One could catch a bus OR take a car to Huatuguo, and there is a bus from there to Dunhuang. We chose to go the whole way because we are very law-abiding and there is no approved accommodation in Huatuguo for foreigners; we understand that less straight-laced people do get away with it, but be aware that Huatuguo is not even slightly geared for tourists and it would not be the ideal place in which to become benighted.
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