We spent all day travelling to Kashgor, a major Chinese city 60 km from the customs border post and 160 km into China. We left the bush camp at 07:00 on a very cold morning – it took ages to boil the kettle on the open fire and most of us kept our thermals on which we needed for the night as it was cold and windy.
We reached the first police checkpoint where our passports were collected at 08:00 (the outer checkpoint). As we made our way over the Ak Beijit Pass the scenery became very desolate with a few herds of cattle and sheep together with isolated yurts. We saw Lake Catyr Kol on the left and that some of the small streams had ice in them. The truck was now warm from the strong sunshine. We went through the Kyrgyzstan customs control around 10:00 and then passed through the first Chinese control zone at 11:20 and proceeded to the second (about 4.5 km down the valley). We then had to return to the 1st checkpoint to be counted and then at the 2nd we had all our bags taken through the mobile x ray equipment. Peggy’s and my laptop were singled out for checking by the military and then returned to us. To go to the toilet we had to be escorted by the military. We picked up our Chinese guide at this point.
We then drove on to the 3rd and final checkpoint which was 100 km further on where we were efficiently logged, passports stamped and allowed to proceed. Carl won the sweepstake for the length of time we would take to get into China. The clocks moved forward 2 hrs and we left at approx. 18:40 after changing some currency into yen.
The road to Kashgor was excellent and we quickly booked into the Blue Sky Seafood Grand Hotel which was located fairly centrally. We then went our separate ways to find an evening meal.
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