Harbin to Kashgar, and wherever else theres time for

So after starting off on our long detour to Ordos, it started to get dark, we were soaked to the bone, and we decided to start looking for a place to stay. Cue bike problems. For some reason the bike kept stalling. I would let it rest for a minute and then it would start up again. Then fifteen or twenty minutes later it would die again. I though maybe the air filter was soaked from riding through a deep puddle earlier, but I took the cover off and it was bone dry. After messing with things for awhile I just guessed it was water in the gas. (later I would find out my gas cap sucks...) But there were no gas stations nearby so I just had to keep on riding while my bike decided to die randomly.

I didn't take notes or anything while I was going, but I think by that point were were back in shanxi, and we went to the first town we could find to get a hotel. We decided anywhere with hot water for a shower would be fine. After asking a bunch of hotels, we finally found one. (most of the hotels there had solar water heaters, so because of the rainclouds, nobody had hot water)

"are you sure you have hot water?"

"yeah definitely"

"We can take a shower and the water will be hot?"

"yup"

They seemed pretty confident, so we checked in and went upstairs. There was no hot water.

"You said there was hot water"

"we do have hot water"

"where is it?"

"its cloudy today so it didn't heat up"

After yelling at the lady who lied to our faces, she ended up bringing us three electric water kettles and some buckets, so we ended up kind-of getting a hot shower, and then we washed our mud soaked clothes and laid them to dry.

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(9 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

The next day the weather was decent we finished our several hundred km detour to Ordos, where we had tracked down an outdoor supply store to buy sleeping pads at. Ordos is crazy big, has massive 8 lane roads everywhere, not nearly as abandoned as everybody makes it seems, and ten times more buildings under construction than I have ever seen in any other place.

We found the store by calling the owner and asking for directions. We got there about 10 minutes later, but the door was locked. So we called the owner back and he said he was in the grasslands backpacking, and asked if we could wait 3 or 4 days for him. That was not what I expected after he had given us directions to his store. We told him we needed it that day, and he ended up calling his neighbor to come unlock it for us and help us find what we needed. We never got to meet him but he helped us get what we needed.

We headed out of Ordos and found a nice lake on google maps which we decided would be a good place to camp. We drove there and arrived to find out There was no lake. And after asking some locals, there hadn't been a lake there since around 2001. So we camped in the middle of the lake.

Before we set up camp we rode back to the highway to find some dinner. We found a place that sold "hui fan" and even though it was over our budget (30kuai each) we tried it. It was one of the best meals on the whole trip. Huge chunks of slow cooked mutton with onions and some other delicious things on top of rice. Definitely worth it. I saw a storm front moving in and asked the owner if it was going to rain.

"now way, not a chance"

After eating for a few more minutes I saw it moving in pretty quick, so we paid the bill and rode back to the lake as fast as we could. We hopped off of the bike and began to franticly set up the tent. We had barely got the fly on as it started to pour. We threw the saddle bags and all of our gear inside, and zipped up. We had to lean against the sides to prevent the tent from blowing over, and put all of our stuff on the sleeping pads,because the tent was quickly filling up with water. After about an hour and a half it passed, and the sky cleared up and was beautiful. Luckily the "lake" bottom was mostly sandy, and we did not get stuck in a muddy mess.

Camping in the lake after a huge storm.

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(10 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Drying clothes in the morning

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(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

lonely tree

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(1 of 6) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

After a good night of sleep we got on our way. The grasslands started to turn into desert, and it got hot. There was no shade anywhere, and the sun was beating down on us, all we could do was keep riding. Luckily for the water-cooled lifan, it was no problem.

Stopping to stretch somewhere between Inner Mongolia and Ningxia

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(2 of 6) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Hiding from the sun under a bridge, now equipped with sleeping pads

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(4 of 6) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Empty roads

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(5 of 6) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

We rode until it started to get dark and found a nice sketchy clearing in the bushes to crash for the night. The sunset there was beautiful.

Setting up camp

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2821/1...e20bcc55_z.jpg
(6 of 6) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Looking forward to the rest, really hope you got some nicer camping experiences later in the trip!

I"m enjoying this too. Definitely worth the wait!

Excellent storytelling. These are such typical TIC stories, but they beggar belief anyway: Sure we have hot water! No way will it rain! Oh, you wanted to know our address because you are coming? Sorry, we're closed till next week. Then, OK, I'll get my neighbor to open the store for you. Really, this is China!

euphonius

After passing into Ningxia, The scenery and overall feel of things started to change. Before I felt like it was a conveyor belt of endless Easter/coastal China. Every city/village/person was typical han. But once I got to Ningxia I all of a sudden felt like I was making some actual progress on my way to Kashgar.

The people in the first town I stopped in all had some pretty unusual lilac colored hats, and the architecture had a noticeable shift in style.

I wish I would have taken more close up pictures of people and buildings, but I didn't. oops.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5508/1...c259b38e_z.jpg
(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Also, it got hot. The mornings, evenings were nice, but when the sun was up hot, it was really hot. And there was absolutely no shade. I don't remember seeing a tree for hundreds of kms.

We escaped the sun by hiding under a (rare) overpass for a while.

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(13 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Went through a wind farm that kind of reminded me of Palm Springs. Somewhere near the border of Ningxia and Gansu.

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(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

After a while we started getting into some pretty desert-ish landscape. I was pretty exceeded to find a 西, and stopped for a picture.

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(19 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

It was around there that people started growing a lot of watermelon. Tons of it everywhere.

We saw a big thunderstorm off in the distance, but it came up really fast. Luckily it was just about lunch time, so we hid in a restaurant and ate a really slow lunch while we waited for the storm to pass.

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(20 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Once we were in Gansu, it seemed like most of the tourist traffic stopped (except lanzhou, of course). There wasn't much except the highway. Really the only traffic there was was big semi trucks heading out to xinjiang. For the next few days/weeks we kind of lived the trucker life, taking the same roads, and eating washing faces and brushing our teeth in the same places as they did. I talked to some of them while eating a few times, and it seems like they have a pretty rough job. A truck always has 2 drivers, and they drive 24 hours a day, in every kind of weather, everyday until they get where they are going, stopping only long enough to find the next load, and then its back on the road. Every time I saw them stop for a meal, they would wash their faces, brush their teeth, eat quickly while chugging red bull, and get back on the road.

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(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

In Gansu it was really amazing to see what a difference irrigation made. Completely barren dessert could be used to grow plenty of food. Seeing the contrast between the two was breathtaking.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5539/1...51f1f2d2_z.jpg
(21 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

After camping in a beautiful valley, we were headed for Lanzhou. It was a fairly steep mountain road, and the overloaded 125 was doing its best, but all of a sudden I felt a jerk. I pulled over and inspected everyone, and saw nothing out of the ordinary, so we continued on. Then there was another jerk, but on the narrow road there was no place to pull over. It felt as if the brakes were on, but I had no choice but to continue. After a few hundred meters, there was a pullout carved out of the mountainside. I put the bike up on the center stand, and after finding nothing wrong with the brakes, and nothing wrong with the engine when it was in neutral, I realized it must be the chain. Upon inspection I found that somebody had forgot to pack their sock, and it must have fallen and gotten caught in the chain, which wrapped really tightly around the front sprocket and was a huge mess to get out. Luckily the problem was simple, as having a serious issue on that road would have been a really really big problem.

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(22 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

After that, the ride to Lanzhou was uneventful, and we made it by afternoon. It was nice being in a place where I could actually find a place to stay that didn't look terrified to see a foreigner walk in the door. We found a good hostel for 35 RMB s night. They even let me park my bike in the lobby!

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(23 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

We stayed for 2 nights so we could shower, wash clothes, rest, and eat the obligatory bowl of 拉面, and then it was off to Qinghai...

The road to Xining was uneventful, and pretty good riding. It was just the same old, so I didn't stop to take any pics or anything. I was a little worried about how the bike would do as the altitude increased, but it had no problems.

As we were riding, one of the cheap elastic bands that had been holding our sleeping pads on broke, so when we got to xining, after stopping for some roadside watermelon, we set out to find some. Murphys law as in full effect. We had to try about 10 places before we found somewhere that actually sold rope. It was weird. Sometimes practical things like that are much easier to find in a tiny town in the countryside than they are in a big city.

Originally we had planned to couch surf in Xining and stay there for a few days to check it out. I had considered trying to get a job at 民族大学 there, so I wanted to check it out. After our host fell through, and we saw that xining was pretty much just another typical giant chinese city, we decided it wasn't worth getting a hotel there and decided to try to make it to the lake before sunset.

Once out of the horrible city traffic, the drive from xining to the lake is nice. A lot of green, which was a nice change from the desert we had been riding through. There were beekeepers along the side of the road, so every once in a while we would have to ride through a bunch of bees. I even got one inside my helmet at one point. My visor was down, so I don't know how it got in, but it was kind of scary. I almost pissed my pants, but I didn't get stung.

After that we decided to stop and by some honey, and it was really good. It turned into breakfast (with nang) for the next few weeks.

We stopped by a cool waterfall at the entrance to some national park or something. The entrance was a long tunnel through a mountain, but we didn't have time to explore.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2847/1...a4a0c895_z.jpg
(1 of 2) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Along the way it looked like they were trying to make a forrest or something. There were tons and tons of trees they had planted. Every one of those sticks has a baby tree at the bottom. It went on for miles.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5497/1...50d2b56c_z.jpg
(2 of 2) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

The weird thing was it didn't look like they were the kind of trees that they grow to cut down for wood. Maybe they are starting to care about the environment? Who knows.

As the sun began to set we were getting pretty close to the lake.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7365/1...f0291f82_z.jpg
(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

I thought a giant lake in the middle of nowhere would be easy to find a campsite, but I underestimated the business mind of the Chinese. We went down a long dirt road that hadn't been maintained, thinking it just ended near the lake. It was dark, and there weren't any lights around, so I though we were in the clear. The second I pulled up to the beach, a guy popped out of nowhere and said were would each need to buy a ticket for 20yuan.

"its dark out, why do we need a ticket?"

"thats the requirement, anybody who comes here needs to buy a ticket."

"we just want to sleep, then were are going to leave early in the morning."

"oh, you want to set up a tent? Thats an extra 30 yuan per person"

"we only have one tent"

"Still 30 per person, plus 20 each for the ticket"

"are you kidding, thats more than a hotel!"

"this is a famous tourist place, it is more expensive"

After continuing the ridiculous conversation for awhile longer, I realized he had nothing else to do but argue, and wanted to get some money out of us, so we weren't going to win. I turned around, down the sketchy dirt road in the dark, and kept looking. I decided it wasn't worth going to the edge of the lake, cause the same thing would probably happen again, so we found a nice grassy field and settled in for the night.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3818/1...8d69a0c0_z.jpg
(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

The night there was freezing. The cold wind from the lake and the high elevation were a bad combo. We had down sleeping bags, rated to 0 or something, but they were from taobao, so... Needless to say, we both shivered all night.

Morning

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(24 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

We had some of the leftover watermelon for breakfast. It had sat out all night, so it was nice and cold. The Chinese health/medicine ideas never cease to amaze me. Baxi saw me eating the watermelon and started to freak out.

"Don't eat that!"

"Why not?"

"Its cold!"

"Yeah, watermelon is better cold."

"No, you will get sick!"

I decided it was worth the risk, and had watermelon for breakfast.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3667/1...531d7692_z.jpg
(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Baxi saw how much I was enjoying it, and that I wasn't dying, so after taking a picture of me (maybe to show the police if I died) she decided to risk it and join me finishing off the deadly cold watermelon.

The weather around the lake was really interesting. The air was really really cold, but the sun was really really hot. There wasn't really a way to be comfortable. If you were in the shade it was freezing, but in the sun you could feel your skin getting burned. It is also super windy, all the time. Day and night, the whole time we were there it didn't stop.

We decided to stay around the lake and hang out for a day or two, so we started along the round that follows the south side of the lake. The dunes on the southeast side of the lake were really beautiful, but they were littered with locals offering ATVs for rent. Every 50 meters there was another group of people waving bright flags trying to attract customers from the desolate road. There were so many people renting atvs that it seemed like even if the lake were packed to the brim with tourists, they still couldn't make that much of a living.

It made me a little sad to see such a beautiful place being trashed like that. The locals didn't seem to care about protecting nature at all. At every site, where the family renting the atv's was living, there was a giant pile of trash, being blown all over the pristine land by the strong wind. It didn't seem like anybody made any effort to put it in a bag, or even dig a hole to keep it from being blown into the lake. I hate to think about what they do with the tires/oil/gas from the atvs.

Once the dunes ended, the was pasture. A lot of it was sheep, and the rest was youcaihua, the yellow flowers. We were a little early in the season, so they weren't blooming yet, but apparently, the entire place turns bright yellow.

Aside from the shoulder of the road, all of the land was fenced off with barbed wire. Almost every section of land had some ancient Tibetan, some holding yaks, wearing bright colors and holding a sign welcoming you to experience their "hospitality" for a small fee. We thought about staying, but decided it was probably not worth it, as it was clearly for tourists, and I could sleep in my own tent for free.

It was harder than I thought to find a place on the lake that didn't need an entrance ticket, but I was determined. After a while, I found somewhere that wasn't fenced, and looked like nobody was watching it.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7358/1...17bb9d76_z.jpg
(1 of 1)-2 by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

It was hard to ride through the sand, but with some help from baxi, we made it to the water. It was a beautiful color.

Success!

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(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

We got lazy and decided to hang out there and enjoy the lake for awhile.

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(25 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

After a lazy afternoon, we went to find some food. Because all of the roadside restaurants were geared toward tourists, we couldn't find any other tibetan food, so just went for a bowl of noodles. All of the prices there were 2 or 3 times as much as other places. We went to a general store and found some better rope to hold our stuff to the bike, bought some local form of baijiu, and set off to find a campsite.

We found a place between barbed wire fences that looked nice. It was soft green pasture, really inviting to sleep on. There was a stream running through it to the lake, and the locals all came there to fill up buckets of water to take back to their tents.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2881/1...7b90c1ac_z.jpg
(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Since there was great cell service there, as there is everywhere in China, baxi was on weibo and found out there was a meteor shower that night. We were pretty stoked, because with the high elevation and no cities around, we had a perfect view of the stars.

Sunset by the lake

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(27 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

A woman who had a home stay in the field next to us wandered over after it was dark, and tried to get us to stay with her.

"What are you doing"

"watching the stars"

"What stars?"

"The ones in the sky..."

"Where are you staying tonight?"

"We have a place"

"What are you doing here? How long are you going to stay?"

At this point baxi was getting annoyed, and she told the lady to get lost. It worked, and the rest of the night was great. The meteor shower was incredible.

After hanging out at the lake for 2 days, it was time to keep going west. There were a few mountains, and the land started turning to desert.

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(28 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

I'm from Arizona, and the landscape and plants in that area reminded me a lot of being home. It was strange.

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(29 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

We usually try to find places hidden from the road to camp, but because it was so flat you couldn't get out of the way. I thought it would be ok, since we were pretty far off the road, but it was really noisy with all of the trucks going by all night.

Setting up camp. We drank some of the tibetan baijiu and watched an incredible sunset before setting up the tent and crashing.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3723/1...9c0f51f8_z.jpg
(31 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

It was that night that I learned my lesson in desert camping. In Arizona, the dirt is mostly sandy, and doesn't get kicked up too easily. There, in the middle of nowhere Qinghai, it was incredibly fine dust. As we were sleeping, a strong wind blew, and by morning, even though we had the fly up, the inside of the tent had almost an inch of dust everywhere. It wasn't the kind of dust you could just wipe off either. It was so fine that no matter what you did, it just kind of stuck. So I accepted my fate of being covered in dust for the remainder of the desert portion of my trip. Luckily my camera bag had a rain cover that kept the dust out pretty well.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2833/1...8cc01a3b_z.jpg
(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr


The next part of the trip, between there and Geermu, was the most barren place I have ever seen in my entire life. Seems ironic that it would be in China. Probably 300km of absolute nothingness. Only a road, sand, wind, and the power lines that followed the road. This was one of the toughest sections of the trip. I have no idea how anybody could have possibly done that before motor vehicles existed. The whole time (and according to the people I talked to pretty much always) There was a strong wind, blowing West to East. The poor overloaded 125 could barely do 50km/hr. It was hot, and we had to stop to let the bike cool off from time to time, but whenever you stopped you just got barraged by sand. There were no buildings, signs, or even big rocks to hide behind. On that entire stretch the only thing we passed was a gas station. I can't even imagine how bored the people who work there must be. There were big tanks of water that got refilled by trucks every so often, and some barriers to keep the sand from swallowing the gas station.

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(32 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Mandatory middle of nowhere selfie

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(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Once in a while we would come across places with some kind of grass growing. The ground was really salty.

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(33 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

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(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

We camped on night in one of these areas and there were more mosquitoes that I ever imagined could be in one place at one time. I don't know if it has to do with the salt or what but it was weird. We set up the tent while wearing full gear, helmets, gloves etc.. but still got tons of bites. We dove into the tent and spend the next 30 minutes or so killing all the mosquitoes that had gotten in on our clothes. Going out to go the bathroom was awful. Needless to say, it was an awful place to camp.

The next day it was more of the same. Flat. Straight. Windy. Hot.

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(2 of 2) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

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(1 of 2) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Then in one of the salty grassy stretches, Camels!

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(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Then more sand.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5503/1...bd9d4cf1_z.jpg
(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

I don't know if I just didn't take pictures, or they got deleted, but at some point we got to geermu (golmud). Since my pictures don't exist, I will paint a picture of golmud for you with my exquisite prose. (thats sarcasm) Really dirty and tired from being in the desert for the last few days, we decided to find a real place to crash. After some baidu-ing we found an "international youth hostel" I was happy to see the word international, because that meant it wouldn't be a big hassle for me to stay there. Or so I thought.

After scarfing a huge bowl of hundun, we found our hostel. They had showers and hot water, empty beds, a good place to park the bike etc... but there was a problem, foreigners couldn't stay there.

"Aren't you an international youth hostel?"

"yeah"

"But foreigners can't stay here?"

"right"

"international?"

"yes"

After talking in circles for a minute, the boss explained to me that originally they were able to accept foreigners, but the police had made some rules or something, and in that city foreigners could now only stay in 3 star or above hotels. (Later in xinjiang I would run into this "rule" a lot) He seemed genuinely sorry, and tried to help me resolve the situation. We called the police and asked a bunch of questions but they wouldn't budge. The police in those places have to be getting pretty good kickbacks from the big hotels for making these groundless bullshit rules.

After we failed, the owner generously let us use his showers, wash our clothes, change the oil in my bike, and hang out in his lobby all day, all for free. He just asked that we leave before it was dark. He ended up being a really cool guy, and was fun to talk to. Unfortunately a bunch of his business had gotten screwed awhile back when the police decided foreigners couldn't stay at hostels in that city anymore.

The funniest part of the day was when a girl from Taiwan showed up at the hostel with her mainland friend. Since the Chinese ideas about Taiwan are "disputed" it was really funny to see the reactions of the other people in the lobby when the owner told her she wasn't allowed to stay there. It caused a heated political discussion among the enlightened youth, most of who were traveling around the motherland after graduating from university.(毕业旅行)

"I'm sorry you can't stay here"

"why not"

"foreigners aren't allowed to stay here"

another person in the room "she is not a foreigner, she is from Taiwan"

After a while the police were called again, and it was decided that because she didn't have a Chinese ID card (she wasn't a foreigner, after all) she would have to stay in the foreigner hotel.

It was pretty funny to watch how delicately the police were trying to handle the situation.

After that I changed my oil in the courtyard. While I was changing the oil, I saw a hui minority skinning a lamb. Since my bike's seat is terrible, we had been sitting on a sheepskin, and since it was getting matted and dirty, I wanted to add another layer. I went to talk to him, and it was hilarious. I don't mean to stereotype people, but he perfectly fit the stereotype. He was like a character from Aladdin or something. His really thick accent and traditional clothes (and the fact that he was causally gutting a lamb in a hostel courtyard) made me feel like I was in a movie or something.

"hello, I see your skinning a lamb, I've been looking for a skin to put on my motorcycle seat, do you know where I can by one?"

"how about this one?"

"Ummm... I want one thats dry, to sit on, like this one" I showed him the one on my seat.

"Ah yeah, this one is very nice, very nice"

"sure, I can get you a skin, wait an hour or two."

"ok"

"do you need anything else? I can get pretty much anything you need"

"The skin is all I need"

"how about..."

The guy proceeded to list like 100 things, some of which were drugs, and a bunch of things I had never heard of before/ didn't understand, and I just kept telling him I only wanted a skin, but he just kept going. It was hilarious.

A little while later his pal showed up with a stack of skins tied to the back of a motorcycle. Unlike the one I had, this one was from a lamb. It was pretty small, and it was the whole skin. Just like it was cut off and hung up to dry. There was dried mud/crap all over it, the skin was just dried hard, so it cracked when you bent it, and the hair was pretty short, so it didn't provide much padding.

"just wash it, and it will be beautiful like your other one"

He only wanted 50kuai for it, and I thought it was awesome to be buying a sketchy lamb skin from a man in the courtyard, so I bought it. I really regret not asking for a picture with him.

After that we failed at trying to find tibetan food (strange for a tibetan city, so close to the tibet) and had a crappy sichuan meal instead, before heading out to the desert to find a place to sleep that didn't cost 400rmb, like the 3star hotels in the city. We found a kind of cool place between some sand dunes, and stuck some candles in the sand and enjoyed to cool desert air for awhile before crashing.

Sand. (don't remember if this was taken before or after geermu, but it was all pretty much the same)

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2858/1...17b6f362_z.jpg
(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Baxi holding the new skin so it didn't blow away in the strong wind while we rested.

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(3 of 3) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

The beast conquering the silk road...

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(2 of 3) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

This bird's friend was dead, but he just stood there, waiting for here to wake up. I tried to scare him away, but he always came back and waited by here side. Poor guy...

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(36 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Not even power lines to keep us company while we wait for the sandstorm to come kick our asses.

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(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

At this point we were getting pretty close to the border of Xinjiang, which was a major step in the goal of getting to Kashgar. We had been camping a lot, and hadn't got a place to stay in Geermu, so as it started to get dark we looked for a place to stay. After failing to find a place in the small town where we stopped to get gas, we ate dinner in one of the truck stop restaurants. They said they had just opened that day, and didn't have menus yet.

"What do you have?"

"normal dishes"

We asked all of the dishes that us easterners were used to, and every time she replied "no, we don't make that"

After awhile we gave up, and told her just to make something with meat and vegetables. In the end we got something like 芹菜炒肉 and some mantou to eat. It was alright. For some reason everything out there was about twice as expensive as it should be. I guess customers are few and far between, so they have to have higher prices?

Anyhow, after dinner it was starting to get dark, so it looked like it was going to be camping again. Then all of a sudden in the distance there was a giant tank in the road. And a lot of soldiers. And some jeep mounted machine guns. It looked like we had just entered iraq or something. Then the man standing in the tank motioned for me to pull over. We got out. They all looked really confused to see motorcycle there, and were way more confused when I took of my helmet and they saw that I was a foreigner. After a lot of confused talking (most of it in uighur, so I didn't understand) they shuffled us into a small shed/office. I figured out that this was the border to Xinjiang.

This was shortly after a lot of police were attacked in the far west, so I guess they were trying to find some suspects, and being extra cautious, so every person entering or leaving Xinjiang had to register. They asked all about what we were doing, who we were, where we were going etc.. and were satisfied with all of our paperwork/answers, so after awhile we were allowed through. I really wanted to take a picture, but that was not gonna happen.

At that time it was getting close to dark, so we wanted to find a place to sleep, but didn't want to be anywhere near all of the tanks and stuff. I don't know what exactly the rules about camping in China are, but finding people camping would probably raise their suspicions, since it seems Chinese people never camp. We drove for a few more ams and pulled over. We were in one of those salty/grassy/sandy areas again, and even though there wasn't any trace of water anywhere around us, there were millions of mosquitoes again. We set up the tent and dove in.

Getting near the border

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(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Home sweet home

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(1 of 1)-2 by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

The morning after. Still tons of mosquitoes.

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(38 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Where the 315 goes over the mountains was really cool. It was a nice change from the flat desert we had been in for the last few days. The dirt and rocks were very colorful, the road was curvy, and in good condition.

This section

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Screen Shot 2014-01-17 at 4.52.12 PM by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Into the mountains

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(39 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

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(40 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Even more amazing in person

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(41 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

The only traffic on the road was semi trucks. At the peak there was a truck repair stop. Whoever lives/works there must be pretty lonely.

A less maintained section of road

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Û?ÿÓáqéñøÙJô+Q_jñ3áUËú©ÿÃÄx4éä 2(jæï<(°IUª¶é·]ë»ÓEê»öR3Aìk¶;*"dÐ&¬`U¦NNð5§Zû)ËA±åÖy ÜoõA¦¦1ùXñUÆêhIÕÃÀ¶ÛèV±·)eõo¿êþ%à^4Jiúj(º×áQ×çSEKÑ ,£bA2VSº4(xÔ¢£Ãý¬4X×$nXüºb«íGêÛ®*±®**H½0ªÆ1µjÞñWFÛ zôÅWzèСp¸P»qÛúâ¨KÖ^ý0%7´õÎÄ>!ï¤!Ñ&SêD*Ç*wü Ú{fQ^¬8Ñhßv Ökº¢³7G1Æ£ð ®DÚ by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

At one kind of blind turn, two overloaded semis' trailers had collided. It caused a backup several km's long. I'm not sure how long they had been there, but all the drivers in line were walking around, playing cards, and eating with each other. It seemed like it was going to be a long time until the two drivers figured out who was going to be paying for the mess. Luckily it didn't matter for me, I just went around. While I was crossing I passed two guys on motor scooters with huge backpack on, and in full moto gear going the opposite way of me. They each had twice as much gear as baxi and I combined, I thought they were crazy.

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(43 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

miles and miles

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(44 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Towards the bottom of the mountain, as it was turning back to flat boring windy desert, we crossed a guy who wasn't so lucky.

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(45 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Not sure what he was hauling, but I was suppressed some "entrepreneurs" hadn't helped themselves to his load.

I'm still reading! Love your pictures, and the stories are great too.

By the way those trees you talk about in qinghai are, i suspect, a part of the "great green wall of china". It's a project to try and prevent the Gobi desert from spreading south and eating away at china's precious arable land. It surrounds all of inner mongolia, from gansu all the way out to helongjiang. Massive project that the government rarely gets credit for.

Im reading too. Great story. I regret that I didnt have my girl with me when I was on the road

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I'm still reading! Love your pictures, and the stories are great too.

By the way those trees you talk about in qinghai are, i suspect, a part of the "great green wall of china". It's a project to try and prevent the Gobi desert from spreading south and eating away at china's precious arable land. It surrounds all of inner mongolia, from gansu all the way out to helongjiang. Massive project that the government rarely gets credit for.

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Thats interesting, I've never heard of it. I bet you're right. Also, its a bummer I didn't end up going through xian on my way back. It would have been fun to meet up.

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Im reading too. Great story. I regret that I didnt have my girl with me when I was on the road

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Thanks. As for having somebody with you, its got both pros and cons. haha.

So, we were finally in Xinjiang. We had no real plan other than to go along the southern roads to Kashgar, and then loop around the north on the way back. I don't know if any of you have ever noticed, but Xinjiang has a lake (at least part if not most is already dried) bigger than Qinghai lake. (upper left corner of pic, Qinghai lake is on the lower right)

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Screen Shot 2014-01-19 at 8.37.15 PM by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

I had never heard of this lake, but it seemed pretty cool, and there was a road leading to it not far from where we were. We couldn't find much about the lake online, other than it was a salt lake, the fee to enter was apparently really really high if you were in a vehicle, and that there wasn't really anything else there. Feeling up for adventure, we decided to give it a try. The intersection with the highway was very clearly marked with official blue signs, and there were also the brown senic spot signs with the lakes name. There was also a sign for some town near the lake as well. Once we got to the intersection, we saw that it was a dirt road, and it wasn't in great condition, but we figured the lake probably just didn't have many tourists, so it wouldn't be worth paving hundreds of ams of road just for that. It was clearly marked, so we decided to give it a try.

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(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

There was about 200k to go on this road before we would get to the town by the lake. We figured about six hours on the sketchy road. It was pretty slow going, but if you road fast enough the washboarding kind of didn't matter too much. Going fast was a little dangerous, since the bike has terrible suspension, but we found a good balance and were cruising. After about 30km, we hadn't seen a single other car on the road, but we just figured there wasn't much tourism in the middle of a huge desert in the summer, and kept going.

Obey all speed limits!

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(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

This pic pretty much defines the word desolate

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(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

We cruised (and slowly destroyed our backs) for about an hour before we saw a semi truck heading that way. We figured he just wanted to take the short cut from Urumqi, and saw it as a good sign that the road actually went somewhere, so we kept going. After another hour we made it to a huge sign. It was written in 3 languages, Mandarin, Uighur, and English. It said "DO NOT CROSS THIS LINE, MILITARY TERRITORY, SEVERE PENALTY FOR TRESPASSERS. I was soooo pissed. We had ridden two hours over a bunch of S+++ road following signs to a town and a tourist site, all to run into a sign telling us we couldn't go there. Are you F***** kidding me China? You couldn't have put that sign 100km back at the intersection? That road only goes one place, so it was really annoying to waste all that time, when they could have just put in with the other signs, letting you know that you are about to waste your time. I was hot tired dirty and super pissed, and we had a two hour ride to get back to the highway. I wanted to kill whoever was responsible for that, and to top it off, the rocks/washboarding/lack of suspension had caused my front fender to crack in half, and it was about to fall off.

Dont be too angry, it could have been worst. You could have been riding a bicycle ;)
When I was in Xinjiang Ive met a French guy who cycled from there from Europe and he said told me a similiar story. 100km up the hill and a checkpoint at the end wher he has been told to turn around......TIC

this is a great ride, looking forward to more!

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it could have been worst. You could have been riding a bicycle ;)

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Man I can't even imagine...

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this is a great ride, looking forward to more!

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Thanks! Glad to know somebody is reading it. haha.

So after our ill-fated trip to the lake, we went looking for a place to stay. The problem was, going down that road had cost us a big chunk of the day, and it was getting dark. In the southeast of Xinjiang, there isn't really anything. Even tiny towns are 100 or more km apart. As dusk was approaching, the only place within reasonable distance was the 36团, I think it was the 36th regiment of the army or something, but there was a small town there to support the army base.

We turned off of the highway and headed down the road. After a km or two we were met by some barricades slapped across the road. They were not official looking at all. There were some road-signs, fence posts and barbed wire hobbled together blocking the street. On the side of the road, sitting by a table were 3 guys with billy clubs, skateboard helmets, random pads and the like. It looked like some kids playing paintball or something, not a government checkpoint, but we had no choice but to stop. After telling them that we were just looking for a hotel for the evening, and were leaving the next day, they recorded our id numbers and plate number and let us through. As we were going one of the local guys crashed his motorcycle into the barricade. I don't know if he was drunk or what, but he laid the bike down and he and his passenger high the ground pretty hard. They were a little cut up, but after a minute of looking dazed they lifted the bike back up and put it on the kickstand. I left.

After having some ice cream and cold water, baxi went to look for a hotel, while I watched our stuff. (after all, according to all of my students, all people from xinjaing are liars and thieves!--gotta love propaganda) While I was sitting there, after seeing a guy sell a huge ball of hash to another guy in broad daylight in the middle of the street, a guy selling paintings walked up to me.

"Hellooooo"

"Hi"

"Do you want to buy a painting?"

"nah, I have no place to put it."

"I painted it myself, isn't it beautiful?"

"its great, but I"m on a motorcycle, I have no place to put it"

"You can just strap it on the back, like this..."

"Nah, I don't want it."

"Its already on your bike, you pretty much bought it already"

"nope"

It was amazing how hard the guy tried to sell it. No matter what I told him he just kept trying. He must have been as bored as I was.

After 20 minutes or so, baxi came back. She had found a few cheap places, and they all had the same answer: If you go to the police station and they can register the foreigner, he can stay.

We went down to the local station, and it was the typical scene. A really nice, mostly empty building, with a bunch of guys sitting around smoking cigarettes. I walked in, and nobody said anything. After awkwardly standing for a few minutes, we went to get their attention.

"hi, I want to regestier to stay here for 1 night"

"Why?"

"I'm traveling, and it is getting dark soon, so I just want to rest until tomorrow, then I will continue on my way to kasher"

"Let me see... no we cannot register you."

"Why? I have all the documents I need, and have registered many times before."

"I'm sorry, its an order from above, try going to the next town"

"Its too dark to ride a motorcycle on the highway now, its dangerous, and besides the next town is over 100km away"

"I really do want to help you, you see, its just an order from above, mei ban fa"

We talked in circles for about 10 minutes, and we got nowhere. After we left baxi told me I was being too nice. She told me if I had gotten angry they probably would have just given up and given me the piece of paper I needed. I'm still not sure what their deal was. Maybe they wanted a bribe from me? All they had to do was type my passport number into their computer and see that I hadn't committed any crimes in China, and I would have been good to go.

What I should have done was just unrolled my sleeping bag in their police station, and played dumb. "Its too dark to ride, and you won't let me sleep in a hotel, so I'll just stay here. As long as you have a smile on your face and are polite, they can't get too mad at you. I know a few people who use this strategy, and it works well for them.

We took off and had no choice but to camp again, for the 7th day in a row. In that area everything was dead flat, no bushes ,no hills, nothing. Since my tent is neon green, it would be easy to see from the road. Finally we saw a group of trees, with an abandoned house next to them. The tree's were all dead, and it kind of reminded me of a haunted house or something. Especially since we had arrived when it was kind of dark. The place was surrounded with empty beer bottles, clothes, and that kind of junk. It looked like it had been a party spot about ten years ago. Baxi wouldn't go in the building, and I wasn't too keen on sleeping in it either, so I parked my bike behind it and we went behind the dead trees.

We were woken up about 530 or so in the morning by a super strong wind. There was a massive sand storm, and our tent was being blown down, even with us in it. We didn't have much time before all of our stuff would get ruined by the dust, so we took out the poles, rolled all of our stuff in the fly, and carried the whole mess into the abounded house.

It was hard to get the door open, but finally we managed, and it did a good job protecting us from the storm. I have no idea what we would have done if that building wasn't there. The visibility was only about 3 meters or so. I've never seen anything like it before. We set up the tent inside the room, and since the storm was showing no signs of letting up, went back to sleep for a few hours. It went on until about noon, then we packed up and headed out.

When we got to the bike, it was all covered in sand. About an inch deep over the seat, tank, and bags. I wiped it all off as good as I could and we headed off.

Home sweet home
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(1 of 1)-2 by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

deluxe accommodations

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(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Sandstorm

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(1 of 1)-3 by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

After the storm, it was more cruising west. Not much to see besides sand.

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(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

They had some horribly labor intensive process of sticking straw into the sand in a grid pattern to keep the dunes off the road. Putting that in would have been a tough job...

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(1 of 1)-6 by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Found a better position for the sleeping pads. Nobody at any of the checkpoints seemed to care that you couldn't see the license plate.

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(1 of 1)-4 by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

All of a sudden there was a massive river, in the middle of a barren desert...

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(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

All around it was some epic quicksand. I have a video somewhere, I'll try to find it later.

Under a bridged there was some graffiti. I guess other people had gone to hide from the sun. Can anybody on here read Uighur? I wanna know what the tank shooting the birds says. haha.

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(1 of 1)-5 by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

There weren't many towns along the road as the sun was going, so it was camping again. We found a patch of trees and settled in.

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(1 of 1)-7 by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

I'm not sure how long we were in this area, but it was a few days. Just hot straight sandy riding. Once in awhile there would be a random stretch with trees, then it was back to sand.

Afternoon nap. Super hot, no water to be seen, but still mosquitoes!

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(1 of 1)-8 by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

A desolate campsite

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(1 of 1)-9 by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

The harsh desert heat took a toll on my dash panel

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(54 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

We stopped in some small town to rest in a hotel, and found a decent place for the night. I went to fill up at the end of the day, and found a nasty surprise from the sand storm a day or two back. The super-fine sand had actually gotten into my gas tank through the sketchy recessed gas cap. I don't know how, but the area surrounding the hole was filled with sand. When I opened it some fell into the tank. Good thing I put that fuel filter on before I left... I couldn't figure out a good way to get the sand out without getting more in the tank, and I had no vacuum. Stuffing the opening with a wad of wet paper towels and scooping it out was the only thing I could think of. I got most of it out, and didn't have any problems from it later in my trip, but its still amazing to think that the gas cap was designed that poorly.

After that we made our way to Kashgar

The outskirts
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(55 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Great stuff! :popcorn:

By the way, that "huge lake" is long gone... Used to be an important stop on the silk road, ages ago. More recently China tested it's nuclear weapons there, it's called Lop Nur. So I'm not surprised it's off limits. But then, why the brown tourist area signs?

This is a great post... one of the best...

You really have to hang on to that girl... my wife wouldn't go near anything near a camp site let along 300 KMs of barren dessert and sand!

Harbin Steve,

Amazing travel log. Very Very impressed with this trip on such a small bike. You haven't said too much about Baxi's thoughts on the trip. Would be very interesting to get her take, especially comfort/lack of comfort on the back of your bike.