Arrival into China, Urumqi

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We left Bishkek for Almaty early in the morning by minibus and found the border crossing back into Kazakhstan refreshingly easy. We then had a day in Almaty doing some last minute Central Asian shopping before getting to Almaty station in good time for our midnight train to Urumqi. We attempted to board the train but were made to wait, the reason unclear although the gaurd was busy selling his cases of smuggled chinese beer to the Kazakhs! Kind of sums up Central Asia........

We arrived at the border the next afternoon, after we'd settled into a relaxing game of chess expecting a couple of hours either side with passport control, customs and the small matter of a track gauge change. Time seemed to stop......
Five hours later we had made it out of Kazakhstan. Then we were confronted by the "china customer" as he introduced himself, who insisted we both were to completely empty our rucksacks in this small couchette! He took great interest in all our tourist paraphernalia and asked us whether we were photographers. It appeared he was looking for the terrible western propaganda namely The China Lonely planet, if only he'd looked a bit harder he would have found it tucked away under the table! Eventually we moved on. The border crossing taking in excess of 8 hours, with limited toilet breaks.

Urumqi is a pleasant bustling city and we noticed the change in culture almost immediately, people are a lot more ordered and choose just to stare at the random westerners, light relief compared to Central Asia where the ubiquitious calls of "Taxi-Taxi" and "Mister" are heard constantly! We enjoyed the local cuisine, particularly as ordering was like a game of Russian(Chinese) Roulette, although we managed to order the Tien-Shan or Tsingtao with relative ease. Our second afternoon was spent in realxing in the cities parks, where we were entertained by the locals having their apres-lunch dancing to chinese pop, a sight not disimilar to Fat Boy Slims "Praise You"
Overall an enjoyable start to our month here in China.

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