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Published: November 12th 2017
Saturday 17thJuly–Zamyn-Uud - Hohhot I didn’t get a good night’s sleep, it was too hot and the train stopped every half hour to let another train past. There is only one toilet in our carriage, so there is always a queue, especially first thing in the morning. We stopped at Zamyn-Uud just before 830am and had immigration come on board (Zamyn-Uud is the last town before we cross the border). It seemed to take forever and once the train stopped, it became stifling hot again aboard, I expect we will have the same lengthy delay once we reach the first Chinese border town, if only there was some air in here!
Next stop Erlian, the first Chinese town once you cross the border. Chinese immigration officials boarded and checked all our paperwork, no one was allowed off until they had finished. It is still hot in our carriage but finally just after noon we were allowed off while the bogeys (Wheel assemblies) were changed as Mongolia and China use different railway gauges. This took about an hour and a half, during this time we went to the Bank of China only to find they didn’t have an ATM
so we sat in the smelly station until it was time to embark and enjoyed the coldest coke we have had in a long time.
Once back on board (we are still about six hours from Hohhot) all the staff changed and the train has ‘become’ Chinese, people are staring at me again, many of the Mongolians passengers disembarked here and have been replaced by Chinese. Lots of desert passing by now and we are still hot!
The next six or seven hours passed slowly, luckily, we weren’t hungry as we had bought a big round loaf of bread that we filled up with the sliced meat provided by the train. We also had dried noodles but neither of us fancied eating them. We expected to be in Hohhot by 8pm Mongolian time (one hour ahead of Beijing) but we didn’t arrive until 930pm, two and a half hours later than we expected. Had two arguments with the lady who kept bringing us tea, the first was over a “Hello Kitty” towel I was trying to steal (we gave it back) and the second was we had to pay for the tea she kept bringing us (we thought
it was free or never would have taken it, Bitch).
Naturally we experienced the usual drama exiting the train station, people pushing etc., but soon we were out the front and trying to find a hotel. The one we wanted to stay in was no longer there, so we ended up walking down the street accompanied by a tout on a bicycle who wanted to take us out to the ‘grasslands’. We found a hotel reasonably quickly, and selected a room that cost Y70 ($12). We were happy that it was cheap though we have to share a bathroom down the hall. This was no big deal for us until both of us saw our respective bathrooms, “I’m not showering in that” I said, “Nor am I” said Tony, the ‘ladies’ was disgusting, with a squat toilet with no door (and it didn’t flush the standard was just ‘slightly’ higher than a train station loo) and the shower was just out in the open, no privacy at all. We decided to upgrade our room and ended up paying Y134 ($23) this room is decent and big with air-con and a bathroom. We are both hot and sweaty so having
a shower is the first thing we did before crashing into bed.
Sunday 18thJuly – Hohhot We have a few things to do this morning, so up early and on our way. First stop is the bank to get some cash, we had to walk a fair distance in the early morning heat to the Bank of China’s head office as no other branch has an ATM. On the way, we tried several times to change our remaining Togrog with no luck, a money changer who was hanging around the Bank of China’s main entrance offered Y50 ($8) for Tg25360 ($31), how insulting, it is worth at least Y180, so we told him to get stuffed. At least we could withdraw money from the ATM, so now we have money in our pockets,
Next stop was China Post to mail (another!) package full off souvenirs home, it didn’t take too long once we had boxed everything up with the help of a very disinterested postal worker. Unfortunately, we failed to find the local branch of the CITS office to book our onward train tickets so we have to brave the train station ticket office ourselves.
Although nowhere near as crowded as other Chinese cities, it was still a nightmare. We lined up at one window only to be told that the lady in the next window spoke English, so we had to line up again. When we got served, we were told there were no soft seats/sleepers for Zhongwei until Friday, we could go Hard Seat only, as the trip is 14 hours (longer than our horror hard seat ride to Beijing) we can’t face this.
We then decided to try our luck at the bus station, only it appears no buses go to Zhongwei or our next choice, Lanzhou, a man tried to help us by taking us outside & pointing to the train station, which of course is fruitless. Disheartened and extremely frustrated, we headed back to our hotel, on the way we discussed what to do net, finally deciding to catch a bus to Batou and go from there. Buses to Batou run quite frequently, so we will have no trouble getting a ticket. Both feeling stressed so we decided to stay another night and leave as early as possible in the morning.
Monday 19thJuly – Hohhot – Batou
We departed the hotel at 730am and walked the short distance to the bus station. The first bus we came across was just about to leave for Batou; we squeezed in the back seat and were on the road by 8am.
We had only just gone around the corner when the bus stopped to pick up more passengers, which was crazy as the bus was already full and every seat was taken, soon the centre aisle was full of Chinese seated on stools which seemed doubly crazy to us as buses depart every thirty minutes, so why cram onto this one? We will never understand the Chinese. I am seated next to a weedy Chinese man who looks like a 70’s throwback pimp with a pathetic moustache who keeps falling asleep on my shoulder, Tony and I keep pushing him off. Incredible, can’t they stay awake for a two-hour bus ride?
We arrived in Batou just after 10am and once again the object of immense curiosity and of course staring, I can’t wait to get out of China. Unfortunately, there is no bus until 6am tomorrow morning, so we will have to waste the
day here. S0 we grabbed a taxito take us to the Beiyang Hotel Y6 ($1) and arranged a half decent room for an incredible Y78 ($13). Tony has a funny tummy so it’s probably just as well we aren’t going too far today, there is absolutely nothing to see in dirty, industrial Batou.Dinner was selected by picking pictures of food off the menu of a local restaurant, we didn’t do too badly, but what we thought was sweet and sour pork but turned out to be sweet and sour prawns, no problem really except we’d also ordered prawns and cashews, so we ended up with two prawn dishes, we also ordered what we thought was stir fry beef, but it turned out to be stir fried strips of what I can only describe as fat!! Didn’t eat that but the prawn dishes were great and the whole meal only cost Y71 ($12)!
Tuesday 20thJuly – Batou – Yinchuan Up at 430am to catch the 6am bus to Yinchuan. Had to wake up the girl on our floor to unlock the corridor door and start the lift (what a life, all hotel staff seem to work and live on
site). We then had to wake up the reception girl to check out and get our deposit refunded (we had warned them the night before we were leaving early but it obviously didn’t sink in). The man sweeping up outside let out a ripper fart!!
We climbed aboard a waiting cab and travelled to the bus station arriving just on 5:15am to find the doors locked and no sign of life. Our cabbie seemed concerned communicating that he thought the bus left at 7am, the fare was Y6.50 ($1.10) but he would only take Y5 (.80c), we do like cabbies in China (except Beijing). Thankfully we only waited about 10 minutes before the doors were unlocked and the bus station started to hum to life, all the employees had to do exercises before they started work and then they swept and mopped the floors, these were the girls who issue tickets, so they must all double as cleaners as well.
At 6am we were boarding the bus to Yinchuan departing at 6:20am. The bus was uncomfortable, it was certainly no coach with little leg room. Luckily there weren’t many people on the bus so we were able to
have a seat each. Unfortunately, this didn’t last long, we arrived at another Batou bus station not that far away but it still took one hour to get there and soon the bus was full. We cannot get over how the Chinese complicate the simplest of things, they are crazy.
Soon we were on our way again, it was 730am now and we were still in the city, we drove around the corner and picked up more people, no more seats so they (again) had to sit on wooden seats in the aisle, packed in like sardines, the train takes 11 hours so we figured the bus must take about ten imagine riding all that way on a stool!
The bus kept stopping and starting, picking up more passengers, very frustrating for us, it’s illegal to overcrowd a bus, so these people were actually breaking the law. Along with the overcrowding, people were smoking and those that weren’t, stank of garlic, not a pleasant journey at all. It just took forever and the scenery being typically Chinese was as boring as always, we cannot decide what is worse, hard seats on a train or the bus both are
overcrowded with peasants.
One time we stopped before a toll gate and half the people got off and got on another bus, relief, or so we thought, but once we were through the toll gate, the people all got off that bus and back on our bus, obviously to avoid the authorities! I couldn’t believe it, another time we passed a police car and everyone in the aisle had to duck down so they couldn’t be seen! Had half a mind to dob them in, but I thought the bus would be impounded and we wouldn’t get anywhere then.
I won’t dwell too much on the journey other than to say it was a minor form of torture, we arrived in Yinchuan at 630pm after travelling through desert landscape ad filthy polluted coal mining towns. I saw lots of donkeys and mules, and am glad to say they were all well looked after, standing under trees with buckets of water and one even up to his fetlocks in hay.
In Yinchuan, we flagged down a cab and once again got a very jolly cabbie – he giggled & yabbered the whole time he was driving, we had
Jiahoe
Turpanno idea what he was on about, but it was funny. He dropped us at the Ninfeng Hotel and I gave him a koala, which made him giggle even more.
Tony and I have made a mutual decision to fly to Dunhuang, regardless of the cost, the last couple of train and bus rides with the peasants have just been too much for us, there is a travel agent in the hotel, so we got her to book two tickets for us for tomorrow, at a cost of Y670 ($111) each, by comparison, the horrific bus ride we had just endured cost us Y65 ($11) We think it’s worth it!
As we hadn’t eaten all day so we went to the KFC across the road which went down very well. Our room cost Y190 ($32), we both had a bubble bath and crashed into bed exhausted.
Wednesday 21thJuly – Yinchuan – Dunhuang The hotel arranged for a cab for us to take us to the airport at 10am for Y60 ($10). As our flight didn’t leave until 1240pm, we thought this was a bit early but we didn’t argue. Yinchuan airport is
quite modern and new, but as expected we had about 90 minutes to wait for our flight. Checked in at 1130am, paid airport tax of Y50 ($9) each and sat and waited in the departure lounge. I bought a camel toy for Y65 ($11) as I was worried I might not see anymore.
We boarded (at 1220pm) a Shanghai Airlines plane which was small but modern. Sitting in a row of three seats with a Chinese man on the end, he took one look at us and moved! Tony was happy as he now has lots of room. The plane departed before 1240pm and flew over the desert. Lunch was chicken, vegetables and rice, not too bad.
Landed in Dunhuang around 2pm which is located right out in the middle of the desert, I feel like we have landed in Tatooine, from Star Wars. Had to walk across the tarmac to the airport building, then waited for the baggage to come off, which didn’t take long, there were only about six bags in total! We negotiated a cab out the front, for Y30 ($5). Dunhuang is really an oasis town, green in the desert and quite a nice
clean little town.
We checked into the Five Rings Hotel, scoring a room from Y80 ($13), it was a bit dinghy but quite adequate for our needs. Right across the road is John’s Information Café, which is notoriously good at arranging plane and train tickets, so once we had checked in, went straight over to arrange a train to Turpan and a flight from Urumqi to Kashgar. They were very helpful our train departs tomorrow night (no soft sleepers available so we have to go hard sleeper which is bearable), our flight is also being arranged, but costs more than we initially thought Y1270 ($211) but is a necessity if we want to make it to Kashgar on Saturday.
We walked the main street and found an ATM to withdraw money and an Internet Café so we spent an hour catching up on our emails. Had an early dinner (430pm) at Charley Johng’s café, very interesting the menu said, “Australian Beefsteak, vegetables and chips” so tempted by this, we ordered it. We don’t know what came out but it certainly wasn’t anything you would get in Australia! Have no idea what kind of meat it was (probably camel)
and it was deep fried in batter!! Still we ate it, the meat was a bit stringy but the chips were good!
After dinner, we returned to John’s Info Café, where we hired a driver for Y30 ($5) to take us to the “Singing Sand Dunes” and “Crescent Lake” we probably could’ve walked as it was only about 4kms and you could see it from the end of the main street but we weren’t to know this! The sand dunes were massive and filled the horizon, too bad it was overcast, or the colours as the sunset would have been spectacular.
It cost Y80 ($13) entrance to the dunes, and again, hordes of tourist buses and Chinese tour groups everywhere, which spoilt everything as usual. Once inside you could ride a camel, go sand tobogganing or paraglide, would have been good if you didn’t have to pay extra for everything and there were no Chinese around! We decided to do the sand tobogganing, so it cost us Y10 ($1.60) to climb up this massive sand dune and toboggan down climbing up was hard work although there was a wooden ladder built into the sand dune, most of the
steps were full of sand which made the going tough. Two thirds of the way up was a man with the toboggans, so I stopped there while Tony continued up to the top of the dune, unfortunately he was unable to make it as a lot of the steps father up were broken and he kept sinking in the sand. While he was gone I watched the tobogganing, it looked pretty tame with the toboggans stopping halfway down the hill and people having to push them with their hands, I decided against doing it when I saw a guy pissing in the sand, great.
There were camels everywhere giving rides, but really just to the lake and back, so we decided to ride a camel somewhere more exciting. We had told the driver to collect us at 830pm, but this was still some time away, it only took an hour to climb the dune and have a good look around, which brought us to 7pm. Nothing impressive about the lake, just a lake really, although I guess it has some significance being in the middle of sand dunes.
We then spent more than an hour wandering through the
souvenir shops/market, we had a good time here bartering for goods, Tony bought a few things (including more dolls for his mum) and I bought a delicately hand painted vase with horses on it for Y100 ($16).
It was now 8pm, so we went to where our driver was supposed to pick us up from and luckily, he was half hour early, but he was drunk as a lord!! Drove the (very) short distance back into town and had a good shower to remove all the sand, sand everywhere.
Thursday 22ndJuly – Dunhuang – Turpan We got up early so that we could visit the Magoa Caves, but first we wanted breakfast! Some confusion at the hotel as they think we are going on a tour with them, although we never booked one, had to try and explain that we didn’t want to go but it never really sunk in until a passing Aussie who spoke Chinese sorted out the mess. We then went to restaurant two doors down for an “American” breakfast, what a huge disappointment, two eggs, four slices of ‘sweet’ toast and undrinkable coffee, Tony also had watery porridge and a honeydew thickshake that
was undrinkable.
After the abortion of a breakfast we walked back to John’s and hired a driver to take us to the Magoa Caves Y40 ($6 each), we have the driver for as long as we like. Driving out to the caves took about 20 minutes, we have the same driver as last night, obviously he doesn’t have a hangover! The scenery is very barren and desolate, not much too see but interesting in an arid sort of way.
Entrance to the caves cost Y100 ($16), which we thought was excessive, as the Let’s Go said that you pay extra to look in certain caves. Once inside we were directed to join a group that was just leaving on a tour, however the tour was in Chinese, once the guide spotted us, she struggled with her English to explain things, but we told her politely not to bother, we would “hop” from one group to the next.
The caves are built into clay cliffs, the Chinese have reinforced the exterior with a concrete façade and each cave is behind a locked steel door, there must be over 400 caves but not all are open at the same
time, they are rotated to preserve them. The caves were fantastic, all with Buddhist themes, the statues being carved from the clay walls, incredible handiwork, with each cave being adorned with frescoes that completely cover the walls and ceilings, some were very dark and you needed a torch to see the best bits, but others were lit by artificial light.
Sadly, a lot of the caves had been plundered by the French, Hungarians, Japs, Russians, Brits and Yanks in the early 20
th century, so there were holes where the statues once were and huge chunks of fresco were missing where they had been taken and sold to famous museums around the world. In one cave, they had actually scraped off the gold from the Buddha’s faces in the frescos, a real shame.
The Magoa caves are unique for their paintings of “flying apsaras” angelic, flying Buddhas with fluttering drapery. As well as these we went into two caves that had enormous carved Buddhas both over 26 metres high which quite literally took our breath away at the enormity and craftmanship, remember these are hand carved dating from 366 AD. There was also a sleeping Buddha that was quite
impressive. We hopped from group to group, sometimes hooking up with an English tour, but mainly finding our own way around.
We finished about noon and made our way back to our happy driver, he stopped so we could take some photos of the caves from the roadside (photography prohibited at the caves themselves). When we got back to John’s Café, he had managed to score us cheaper airfares Y860 ($143) this was a huge saving so we were very grateful, he also had tonight’s train tickets to Turpan for us Y195 ($32) for both of us, we are sharing the compartment with two French women who also purchased their tickets through John.
We are catching a bus to the train station at 520pm (the journey takes two hours) so as we had over four hours to kill, we re-rented our room in the Five Rings until 5pm for Y40 just so we could sleep and escape the heat which is very oppressive.
On the bus at 520pm along with the French women; again, it was a crappy bus with no leg room, we scored the back seat to ourselves, more leg space but very hot. Again,
the Chinese stuffed around and made things difficult for themselves, checked our tickets about three times and scratched their heads.
Finally, we were on our bumpy way, our bags are on the roof, terrified they would bounce off. The journey was boring and uncomfortable, but we arrived at Liuyan train station just after 730pm, there was a lot of confusion when we tried to get off, the driver checking tickets again. We asked one of the French women (who spoke fluent Chinese) what was going on and apparently three people had dud tickets, this is so typically Chinese, the driver knew this before we left Dunhuang as he checked the tickets twice, but still let these people ride!!
We boarded our train to Turpan at 850pm, we should arrive in Turpan at 6am, at least most of our time in the hard sleeper section should be spent asleep!
Friday 23rdJuly – Turpan – Urumqi Did I say we would spend most of our time asleep? How wrong was I, neither of us got more than an hour’s sleep, mainly because it was stifling hot, dumb French woman on the middle bunk kept shutting the window. Apart
from the heat, the rest of the train for a hard sleeper carriage was relatively quiet, normally this means a good night.
Arrived in Turpan at 6am and made our way out of the station to be met by a man who offered to take us to the city (50kms) for Y10 ($>2). This sounded quite reasonable, so we took him up on his offer, as did the two French women. On the way, he explained he had a tour bus that could take us on a day trip, but we explained we were only in Turpan for one morning and had to catch a bus to Urumqi.
It was hard to keep awake during the drive, but there was nothing to see but desert and dawn was breaking anyway. When we arrived in Turpan (a lovely city with poplar lined streets and vine covered walkways) we dropped the Frenchies off at their hotel, and our driver offered to take us to three sights that we wanted to see for Y130 ($22) each. This was a good deal and enabled us to be on a bus by mid-morning, so 7am found us at the gates of the Jiaohe
Ruins, a mud city built before the crucifixion. The ruins don’t open until 9am, but our driver managed to swing it so we could go in now, fantastic, we had the whole place to ourselves and the early morning sun lit up the ancient ruins magnificently. The city featured, small rooms, temples and watchtowers made from earth and straw, absolutely magnificent and no Chinese tour groups to ruin it. Entrance was Y30 ($5). Most of the souvenir stall vendors were still in bed, we knew this because they were all sleeping outside! We made it safely back to the car without having to run the usual gauntlet.
Our next stop was the Karez Irrigation System, which had underground irrigation tunnels, this cost Y20 ($3) to see, but probably wasn’t really worth going to, although the water was crystal clear.
Our last stop at 9am, was the Emin Minaret, a restored mosque built in 1778, with an impressive tower that rose 43 metres. Again, this was constructed from mud and straw and was excellent to walk around, lots of different chambers and a very large prayer room. Interesting that there was no artificial light at all, it was well
lit by natural light only. It was starting to get quite hot now, our driver said it was
only going to be 42 degrees today!
Our driver then dropped us at John’s Café (yes, there are four in Western China) and said he would take us to the bus station for free when we were ready to leave. He gave excellent service (even stopping when Tony wanted to take a photo of a goat riding on a donkey cart!) it was probably because he was a Uighur, not Han Chinese!
After an excellent breakfast of cheese and mushroom omelette (Tony) and fried eggs, ham and toast for me, we were at the bus station at 10am and on the bus to Urumqi by 1030am. This bus, thank God, is a luxury coach and we have scored the two front seats, I tried to sleep most of the way, we are both tired due to busy morning and no sleep on the train, I caught a few winks here and there, not much to see except desert, mountains and a very impressively large wind farm, we are both dying to have a shower and change our clothes.
We arrived in Urumqi just after 1pm, only to have a huge fight with a so called “cab” driver in the lobby of our hotel he agreed to take us and a French couple to our hotel and the train station for Y20 ($3) but only took us to the hotel and kicked the French couple out. Ended up paying him just to shut the wanker up, our hotel is nice but run down, and cost Y130 ($22) a night.
I jumped straight into the shower, then had a nap before we set off to find an ATM to withdraw money, Urumqi looks like any other Chinese city, nothing special but even though it’s almost 5pm, it’s still quite hot. Our cards wouldn’t work in the ATM, so we had to go inside to try to get a cash advance on our credit cards, where they refused saying they did not recognise our VISA cards, an international credit card!! They said we could only use them in Beijing, what a load of wank considering we’ve used them all over China, even in small towns like Dunhuang. I am starting to have an intense dislike for Urumqi. Tried several other ATMs on the way back to the hotel, and another Bank of China suggested we try their head office. We will try tomorrow morning before the airport, so returned to our hotel, in failure.
Tried several other ATMs on the way back to the hotel, & another Bank of China suggested we try their head office. We will try tomorrow morning before the airport, so returned to our hotel, exhausted.
Saturday 24thJuly –Urumqi - Kashgar Up earlier than we wanted to be to go to the bank – caught a cab for Y6 ($1) only to find main branch closed until 11am – 2 ATMs further down the street also didn’t work – things starting to look desperate now – we both have about Y250 ($42) each – enough to get to Kashgar – hope we have some luck withdrawing money there, although we have USD & travellers’ cheques to convert.
Cab to airport cost Y50 ($8) & we were there just before noon – airport totally confusing as all the check-in counters were written in Chinese & we didn’t know where to go, no flight numbers were displayed anywhere, so we just jumped on a line & hoped for the best. Luckily it didn’t matter & we got our boarding passes no problem. Went through security & there was a problem with my daypack – apparently, I had a knife in there!! Pulled everything out to reveal Dad’s swiss army knife – can’t remember putting it there lately, so it’s been through other x-ray machines & never been picked up – they checked it out & still gave it back to me so obviously I don’t look like a terrorist!
Boarded our flight at 12:50pm for 1:20pm departure – we are flying China Southern & it’s a reasonably small plane, six seats across. We have another Chinese man on the end who also moved once we were in the air – must be something about us, but Tony always appreciates the extra room. Lunch was served in a cardboard box, a roll, muffin & rockmelon – flight took an hour and a half & we landed in Kashgar at 3pm.
Caught an airport shuttle bus for Y10 ($>2) to the heart of Kashgar – already you can see more ethnic groups – Uighurs, more than Chinese – got dropped off at the Seman Hotel, which proved to be a bit too expensive, so we crossed the road & checked into the Seman Road Hotel for Y80 ($13) per night. The guy at check-in was a character, spoke very good English & was ready for a laugh – told us where the Bank of China was & put us in a cab (desperate measures, we are now down to about Y25 ($4) each!). Really hot afternoon & very glary, really miss my sunglasses.
It was now after 4pm but the bank appeared to be firmly shut, & remained shut even though we waited 20 mins (a sign on the door said hours were 4pm – 8pm) – we had no option but to return to the hotel where the guy remembered it was Saturday & the banks weren’t open until Monday!!! In a panic, we asked if there was anywhere we could change USD & he said he could do it – whew, we were so relieved! Tony changed USD200 (Y1600) & I USD100 (Y800) – at least we can eat & go to the market tomorrow.
We then went across the road to John’s Information Café & had a few beers & a bowl of chips each. It was nice sitting under the vines, although we were continuously bombarded by pesky European wasps. We then internetted for 2 hours at a café just down the street – it was now past 9:30pm when we finished – it doesn’t get dark until 11:30pm, but both still feel very tired, so we returned to our room – there seems to be a nightclub next door, so we had to use our earplugs to escape the constant boom boom boom.
Sunday 25thJuly – Kashgar Woke about 9am, both slept well once we got to sleep. Going to Kashgar market this morning, but first we had eggs & toast at John’s Café (not so good as the ones in Dunhuang & Turpan although this is the original one). We asked John to organise our bus tickets to Osh – there is only one bus a week so we need to be on it. We then jumped on John’s free bus to the market – overhearing conversations from other Westerners, it seems the animal market is somewhere else. The bus dropped us off at the side of the road & we could only assume that the market was down the road opposite, so we headed in that direction.
We were very disappointed in what we saw, it seemed to consist of bric-a-brac, shoes & clothes – nothing really exotic unless you count the pots of sheep heads and legs! They did have some carpets, hats, musical instruments & knives (mainly reproduction) but the rest of the tuff you could find in markets in Adelaide – a real let down.
We spent about ½ hour having a quick look around & bought nothing. We then asked a passing American woman if she knew where it was – she said to catch a cab & say “Dong Wa” – so we did this & ended up in a park named “Dong Wa” – silly bitch! We gave up & caught a cab back to our hotel, where our helpful “friend” at reception told a cab driver where we wanted to go.
The animal market was quite a way from the other market & well worth a visit – most of the animals were farm animals – sheep, cows, donkeys – all in good condition – they were all for sale, along with halters, lead ropes etc. It was fun walking amongst the animals, although a bit dusty – we took some photos before catching a cab back to the hotel. It was past noon now, time for a siesta, just like everyone else in Kashgar!
4pm found us back at John’s Café – luckily, he has our bus tickets to Osh for tomorrow. Had a Chinese feed & Tony a few beers before doing some more Internet (& then some more beers!). Still very hot, returned to our room, collected our laundry & Tony happy that the TV works today.
Monday 26thJuly – Kashgar – Osh, Kyrgyzstan Woke about 7:30am, moving on to another country today, bus leaves at 9:30am (Beijing time – all transportation in Kashgar runs on this, in reality Kashgar time is two hours behind this e.g.: local time is 5:30am). Checking out of our hotel was like raising the dead – the guy in charge of our key deposit virtually had to be shaken awake, & the guy at the front door was asleep in the foyer.
Went over to John’s Café to get our last decent Western breakfast, but to our dismay it wasn’t open yet, we had no option but to catch a cab straight to the bus station, earlier than we wanted. When we alighted from the cab, we were descended upon by money exchangers, wanting to change our Yuan to Somme. As they were offering a good rate, we exchanged almost all our money. Then came the hard bit, waiting around for our bus to depart – we thought we had an hour to wait, but again Chinese efficiency came to the fore & 9:30am saw us still standing around waiting with our luggage while the Chinese farted around doing nothing. We had surrendered our passports when we first got there, so we were a bit anxious that we would ever see them again.
Finally, about 11am we boarded, the bus is a Chinese Sleeper, we haven’t been on one of these since our early days on the east coast (& we vowed we never would again) Tony has a bottom bunk & I the bunk directly above him – not a lot of room as usual, hard to stretch right out. 11:15am saw us departing the bus station, only to do the normal Chinese ‘trick’ – “let’s go around the corner & pick up more people!!” About 15 more women got on , mainly Kyrgyz women, who farted around with their huge bags before they got settled, one big old fat Kyrgyz woman kept sticking her arse in Tony’s face while she sorted her bunk out.
Finally, we were on the move, we have no idea how long this trip will take, but imagine about 12 hours, arriving in Osh perhaps around 9 or 10 pm. I hate sleeper buses, I would rather sit up than recline, which I find uncomfortable for looking out the window, gives you a sore neck, so I resigned myself to sleeping.
2:30pm (all times based on Beijing) found us stopped on the side of the road for what reason I know not, & could only assume it was a lunch break – no one on the bus speaks any English, so it’s hard to ever know what is happening. We are the only Westerners on the bus & apart from 6 Japs, about 4 Chinese, the rest are all Kyrgrz. As we still hadn’t had anything to eat all day, Tony went out & bought a whole heap of bread from a roadside stall – the bread was fantastic, round like a small pizza & tasted like a cross between naan & pita bread with the flavour of onions – so much better than that Chinese sweet stuff!
Our fellow passengers are all well behaved, & nowhere near as annoying as the Chinese have been – the Kyrgz ladies are all beautifully dressed & cannot wait to take their headscarves off once they are on board the bus – they also spend a lot of time laughing & giggling. Scenery has changed, much more mountainous with the occasional snow-capped peak showing through.
At 4:45pm we pulled up at the Chinese border, only to find it closed – apparently (get this) there was a song and dance show on for all the workers!!! Only in China! There trucks upon trucks lined up on the Kyrgyzstan side, and heaps of people on the Chinese side waiting to cross the border, no one could get through until the Chinese had finished “watching” their entertainment. We are at a place called Irkeshtan. A French woman came up & told us that her group had arrived at the border at noon (it closes for lunch for 2 hours then reopens at 2 pm); the show started at 2pm & has been going ever since. As it was now past 6pm, so they had been waiting there for 6 hours to cross the border. She said it was absolutely crazy, & had never seen anything like it; she was worried they weren’t going to open the border at all, and even if they did, by the time they got to the Kyrgz side, that one may be closed. She had a valid point & a concerning one – we didn’t want to be stuck here all night either, but again, there was no one we could ask. Our driver had settled down with some men & cigarettes, again displaying the Chinese “patience” that we find so irritating.
6:30pm brought the show to an end, & the Chinese border patrol decided they would go back to work & open the border. Suddenly the place becomes a hive of activity with people filling out departure forms & quarantine cards, trucks revving & luggage being checked.
Finally, we were through, but still had to wait for the rest of the passengers & the bus to come through, which took about another hour.
8:30pm saw us on the way to the Kyrgyzstan border, I think all fingers were crossed that it would still be open. It was, & the bus was stopped by a border guard at a checkpoint & our passports (we had been reunited with them when we boarded the bus) & the Japanese’s were asked for. Again, we were anxious as we had heard the border guards were corrupt & had to be bribed to let people through, so we had some USD at the ready.
Must have been a long day for them as we went through the checkpoint with no problems. Into the immigration area next & the Japanese & us were ordered off the bus first. The soldiers went through everything in our luggage, although I think my soldier got bored with mine quite quickly! The room resembles something out of “Stalag 13” with bare floors & a chair & table in every room with the soldiers in camouflage. Went through passport control – being Australian seems to create interest, as they look at your passport & go “Australia! Kangaroo!” (years later while working for immigration I now know that there is a holographic kangaroo that “hops” across the page under special UV light!!). Went through to Customs in another barren room, where they copied down our passport details again before we could go. I was stopped on the way out by a large soldier “YOU!! OPEN BAG!!” So again, I plonked my bag down, unlocked it, then started to unzip it – I hadn’t even got it open when he said “OK – GO” – he didn’t even look, it was bizarre, although Tony & 3 Kyrgz guys from our bus thought it was quite funny.
Tony had his watch set to Kyrgyz time, it was 8:40pm (10:40 Beijing time). Again, we had to wait for the rest of the bus to come through immigration, & by 10pm, we were back on the road – Tony & I now concerned we were going to arrive in Osh around 4am – a rotten time to arrive anywhere, as we would have to wait for our hotel to open.
We are heading to Osh through the Taldyk pass, a mountain pass of 3615 metres which has some stunning scenery, but we saw nothing as it was pitch black. The road quite bad & bumpy – resigning ourselves that we would arrive in Osh in the middle of the night, we tried our best to get some sleep in our uncomfortable bunks.
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