Week 10: Ürümqi to the China-Kazakhstan Border

Day 64

Setting out from Ürümqi I was heading for Shihezi, a city about 150km away. I joined the highway quite quickly and as it was under construction I had a full three lanes all to myself. Technically you’re not allowed to ride a bike on the highway, but since I have been in Xinjiang the police will often tell me to take the highway and at all the checkpoints that I have passed through, maybe 3 - 4 a day they have never said I’m not allowed to ride on the highway. A couple times the police have stopped and asked what I’m doing and I explain to them and they just say “ok be safe!” and then drive on. Today I made it about 90km passed multiple checkpoints and never had any problems with the police until I decided to come off the highway to get something to eat. I went into the checkpoint to register as I had got so used to doing over the past few weeks when they told me that I had to go in the police bus and they would drive me to the next place. I packed all my stuff in and they dropped me at the next check point further down the road, probably less than 10km. It seems the police are just trying to make sure you’re out of their jurisdiction. This time I was able to ride on through and I rode the last 45km into Shihezi and found the overpriced foreigner hotel which was the only place in the city I was allowed to stay. 

Day 65

My Skrillex loving escort

My plan for the day was to cycle the 110km from Shihezi to Kuytun. I had probably my most police interaction of the trip today. Most of the time the police are just kids, like 19, 20 years old and they are more than happy to join the adventure and escort me to the next check point. Today was a bit surreal at times with the first police putting on the sirens and shouting at people to get out the way over the megaphone. Then getting dropped at the next check point  where they only had a small car so I had to cycle and the police officer just told me to hold onto the back window as he drove along with Skrillex blasting on the radio. The police often ask questions like are you married? How much do you make in Shanghai? Which I always lie when I answer, I half my salary when I tell them because I knew they were not paid very well. Today I found out exactly how little they make. For anyone interested a police officer in Xinjiang earns 3,600RMB about £380 a month, not much. Anyway today was just a strange interesting day. 

Day 66

I was back on the highway today and managed to make the 181km from Kuytun to Jinghe without any police interactions, other than the mandatory registrations. I arrived in Jingle just as the sun was beginning to set and found the international hotel. All in all a pretty uneventful day.

Day 67

Not the prettiest of rest stops

From Jinghe I planned on riding the 130km to Sayram Hu a lake that I thought would be the perfect place to camp for the night. The only thing was the lake was up at about 2000m and I was down at about 400m so that meant I was in for a long climb. It’s so weird when the road is long and straight you can’t really tell how steep it is, this really plays tricks on your mind as it looks like you're riding a long a flat road and really shouldn’t be working that hard to be moving that slowly. I also had the infamous Xinjiang wind to contend with which wasn’t making things any easier. It was demoralising to say the least. As the sun was beginning to set I thought I would just find a place to camp before the lake and make up the distance the next day, but since I was riding on the highway there was no place to actually exit the road and pitch my tent. there was the barrier and then a high barbwire fence that cut the road off from the open steppe. I pushed on into the night and arrived at the lake just as the last vestiges of light were fading from the sky around about 10pm. There is a big fancy hotel built on the shore of the lake and I had to sneak past security to gain access. I pitched my tent in the dark on a kind of little beach area and decided I would get up early and pack up my tent just in case someone from the hotel came and told me that I wasn’t allowed to camp there. I bedded down for the night exhausted after a long hard day, but content that I had made it to the lake.

Tent pitched by the lake

Day 68

Breakfast of Champions

The next day I packed up early, but no one from the hotel was anywhere to be seen so I cooked up some porridge on my stove and tried to warm up a little bit as the temperature had dropped considerably through the night. There were a few other tourists walking around the shores of the lake and I had a chat with a few of them. One guy in particular stood out with his very strong views about western media. He started by asking me what I thought about Xinjiang and when I replied that I thought it was beautiful he was like “exactly, come see it for yourself, don’t rely on BBC and New York Times with their fake news making China look bad!” Not expecting such a fiery response in broken English I just awkwardly laughed and told him not to worry and then headed back to pack up the rest of my bike.

Chilling by the lake

Today’s ride was some of the most breathtaking scenery of the trip so far. Having put in a good deal of climbing yesterday I was able to enjoy a lovely rolling descent with the lake on one side and the snow capped mountains off to the distance on the other. I also felt quite privileged to be able to cycle over one of China’s crazy architectural wonders, Guozigou Bridge, given that this is a highway that you’re not technically supposed to cycling on. I was also grateful that I was approaching it from this direction as it was a fairly steep descent the whole way! This allowed my to take it all in without having to expend any effort. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get a good picture of the bridge, but you can check it out in this weeks video. The rest of the day I continued my descent towards the border town of Khorgos taking off layers as the temperature began to rise again the lower I got. When I arrived I realised it was perhaps a tad foolish to refer to Khorgos as the border town. Although large parts of it are still under construction it is well on the way to becoming another one of China’s megacities! I found a hotel in the town and decided I would take a day off to rest before crossing the border into the second country the next day and continuing the adventure.