So here’s the latest RR, basically a figure of 8 loop around Xinjiang from Urumqi, passing through Kashgar, Hotan and back to Urumqi (with a slight detour to visit the Pakistan border).
Here’s the route
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Printable View
So here’s the latest RR, basically a figure of 8 loop around Xinjiang from Urumqi, passing through Kashgar, Hotan and back to Urumqi (with a slight detour to visit the Pakistan border).
Here’s the route
Attachment 11963
27 May
Arrived very late in Urumqi due to a delayed flight and a difficult cabbie.
28
Picked up the bike at the yingang shop and set off at 11.30 after adjusting a few things on the bike and tightening up the top box which I’d drunkenly reinstalled at the end of the last visit. I chose to ride the S101 which runs parallel with the Tian Mountains. The area south of Urumqi was bizarre, lots of construction of what looked like power stations and national grid infrastructure. The road didn’t connect through like google said it would and I had to sneak through a building site and a road block but got back on track OK. Also, I was refused petrol at 3 stations in a row, they didn’t even have “anquan di yi” teapots!
I eventually found fuel and then turned onto the S101 proper, if I’d know what lay ahead I may have turned back. The scenery was gorgeous and that kept me going but the road was pretty much dirt hell. I’d asked a trucker how long it went on for and he said after 80 kms it was paved. This was true but I wanted to follow the road all the way to where it meets the G217 south of Dushanzi which meant a lot more dirt. To make matters worse my charger wasn’t really working so I was turning my phone on and off to save power which caused me to take a few wrong turns. In the end I pulled off the road and swapped it out for a new one. When I came to a junction I’d naively think that the better road would be the S101 as it was the only road on the map but that was never the case, and it took me a while to learn that lesson.
I stopped for dinner at 7,45 in Qingshuihexiang village directly south Shihezi, and filled up with fuel (a key stop for anyone else in the future). In the end I arrived at a golf club/yurt village at 11.40 with ice cubes for hands! It was pleasant riding all evening but when the sun went down at 10 it got cold really fast. I stayed in this huge yurt, that could’ve slept a dozen people, all by myself for 100 quai. At that point I would’ve paid a lot more to sleep in a tool shed!
I rode for 12 hours and covered 350 kms. That’s probably my worst ever time/distance ratio.
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Scenery of the S101
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Another view from the S101
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Sunset that first night, the temperature plummeted soon after
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This is where I stopped for a bite and to change over the chargers
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The S101 was awesome for scenery but kicked the crap out of me at the same time!
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The new charger - ugly but effective
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I installed it next to the ignition. You can see the old charger to the right. Looks great but couldn't charge a gnat's vibrator
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The golf club/yurt village where I stayed on the first night
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The inside of my own private yurt
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It was a bit nippy inside so i was wearing all my clothes and my snood was doubling as a hat!
29
I woke up early to find a snow topped mountain range outside my yurt, no wonder I was so cold the night before! I skipped the offer of breakfast to the disbelief of yurt bossman and was off by 7.40. Another 60 kms of dirt was waiting for me before I finally made it to sweet, perfect tarmac. The total S101 dirt road is around 300 kms if anyone fancies a challenge! I stopped at the junction of dirt and tarmac and ate some snacks from a small shop which also sold fuel buy the (small) coke bottle. There were a couple Uyghur guys who couldn’t resist pressing all the buttons and even starting my bike. I was 2 metres away and an “OI!” was enough to send them packing.
The G217 was almost perfect, the surface, twisites and scenery were to die for. And that was a distinct possibility with the amount of rock fall around, there were even several teams of climbers levering loose boulders down onto the road. I then started to a long climb and went though a few high passes with snow everywhere apart from the road. The decent was as beautiful as the way up, I stopped for lunch at the Dalong pond tourist spot, which wasn’t very touristy at all. It was however stunning and I only moved on because some coppers turned up and started hassling truckers and I knew it was only a matter of time before they got round to me. I continued on and turned onto the westbound S307 a little north of Kuqa and had an argument with a cabbie who kept on overtaking me then braking hard, driving up my arse, overtaking then braking again, you get the picture. I lifted up my helmet, shouted at him and flipped him the rods, he seemed to get the message. Shortly afterwards at 8 pm I arrived in Baicheng and had almost checked into a hotel when after I had unpacked all my bags they suddenly changed their mind and said no laowai. I was less than impressed as I’d told them I was English and shown them my passport so after a brief rant I found the poshest hotel in town. Thankfully they had cheap rooms for 120 in their old building so mindful of parking Nazis I asked where I should leave my bike then went up for shower. 10 minutes later 2 baoans in oversized uniforms knocked on my door and asked me to move my bike. I was in a pretty bad mood and they got both barrels! Later on I felt guilty and asked them where they wanted the bike then went off for some excellent bbq and beers. The Uyghurs certainly know their stuff and I had a great few hours eating and drinking, the only problem being finding cold beers. I found some eventually and ended up sitting in the shop chatting with the boss about a range of subjects including gay marriage and the youth of today! He ended up giving me 2 free beers which was surprising as we’d disagreed about pretty much everything! I went back to have some more barbecue and some dude was hassling me and asking if I was an American. I said no, but he didn’t seem to believe me and just stared at me, he was very odd so I made my excuses and went back to the hotel.
670 today, 1020 total
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Tian mountains highest pass
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Foothills of Tian Mountains
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Another high pass
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Dalong pond tourist spot
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Another shot of the golf course/yurt village
Barbecue in Baicheng
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30
Left at 7.40 and covered 200 kms before 10 am mainly on the gaosu, I didn’t have much of a choice as it was the only road. The S306 was a good fast road and got interesting after Halaqixiang with some nice twisties. I stopped for a lunch of bread dipped in honey and some guy pulled over 50 metres away and just sat down to enjoy the amazing site of a laowai eating. I arrived in Kashgar at 5.40 and no foreigners were allowed in the first 2 hotels, I had to go to the incredibly posh Qinibagh hotel, again I stayed in the old crappy building but it was still 300 quai! The new building was 500! The room was dreadful, I’ve stayed in better for 50. I still had 4 hours of daylight left so took a taxi to the grand bazaar and which was a bit of a disappointment. It was just a slightly different take on a normal market you’d find anywhere in China. Still, I did find a cool 10 litre jerrycan and had a local version of a pasty. On the way back from the bazaar my taxi driver was full of questions and I was in a mischievous mood so just started making up a story for him. I told him I lived in Shanghai and was married to a Han girl and we had 2 kids, an innocent enough tale but he was appalled! He was shaking his head and clearly felt that no one in their right mind should marry a Han! I then found a little restaurant and was having a dish and a few beers when a catfight erupted in the private room next to where I was sitting. The boss had been tutting earlier at the razed voices then one (I think) Uyghur lady went for another. The blokes were just standing around with resigned looks on their faces, unwilling or unable to intervene. A full on scrap developed and the boss ran in to save her crockery, with the plates safe everyone was content enough just to let them get on with it. I was listening and chuckling away to myself and would occasionally catch a glimpse when the door was opened, I took a picture and got some dirty looks so decided to get back to the hotel.
740 kms, 1760 total
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Kashgar near the bazaar
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Kashgar near the bazaar
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Local version of Cornish pasty
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New 10 litre jerrycan - fits perfectly on the pillion seat
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Also near the grand bazaar in Kashgar
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The view where I stopped for a snack
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The desert north of Kashgar
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My snack break watcher
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This was the room with the catfight, unfortunately the girls are behind the door and I wasn't brave enough to get a proper shot
:popcorn:
31
I left as the sun was coming up at 7.40 to ride to the Pakistan border. This was by far the longest dead end road I’ve ever knowingly decided to take, about 800 kms! The first 100 kms were pretty easy going then I started to gain some altitude, there was a police stop at the bottom of the mountain but it was still very early, about 7 am local Xinjiang time so I slipped through without anyone giving me a second glance. At first the surface was pretty average then it improved as I gained altitude, I’m not sure about the highest point but the bike was starting to suffer from altitude sickness towards the end. I was flagged down at a second police stop, the guys were friendly but were armed to the teeth which made me a little nervous. In the end I just showed my passport and continued on my way to the border. On the way I had a minor prang with a truck, he turned left without signalling as I was going to overtake. I was sure I was going to go splat on the back of the truck but in the end it was only a tiny tap which slightly damaged the headlight. It was really pretty bad luck as we were probably the only vehicles within a few kilometres on that road, he immediately put his indicator on after the fact but I wasn’t going to stick around for the cops to arrive to argue about minor damage to a headlight so I just rode on to the border. I was shouted at by a guard for taking a photo of the checkpoint but there was no way I was leaving without a photo to prove I went there!
The ride back was obviously very familiar and it was very odd to be riding the same road again on a trip like this. I got a friendly wave from the coppers at the police stop and covered great ground going mainly downhill. Back at the first police check at the bottom of the hill there was a huge queue of cars waiting to go through, I went straight to the front and tried a cheeky one but got spotted and stopped. I had to take my passport into an office and they all assumed I’d come overland from Pakistan, it seemed too complicated to explain I’d just ridden a 800 kilometre dead end road and would probably have generated a lot more questions so I just looked dumb and they told me to continue on my way.
I turned right 70 clicks before kashgar, and cut through Alto, the villages in that area were awesome, lots of bright clothing and vibrant street life. Later on there was a proper traffic police stop. They had confiscated bikes and were stopping cars and asking everyone for licenses. I showed mine and they wrote down the details, they looked at the passport but were laughing as they had no idea what anything meant. Obviously these guys had received totally different training and were really just out to catch infringers of traffic law. They were very friendly, and one guy was showing off his limited repertoire of English and Japanese words. It was a little weird and I really wanted to get out of there but had to smile politely as was going on and on ‘nice to meet you’ ‘how do you do’ ‘kon’nichiwa’ ‘arigato’ etc etc etc! In the end he said I should move there because I’d have lots of new friends, ok great – can I leave now?!!
I ended up staying in Yengisar, which is a pretty small town and I was lucky the hotel accepted me. I arrived at 9.15 pm having covered 890 kms, 2650 total. I didn’t need my jerrycan but it was fantastic not to have any range anxiety. Well worth it just for that, my total range now is well over 500 kms which is awesome.
I found this little barbecue stall with a very friendly boss who was deaf, I was amazed he was able to lip read my crappy mandarin but we were able to communicate pretty well. I’d found some cold beer in a little Han run shop and the shop owner and her boyfriend were charming, they even said ‘welcome to China’ in English! They were the only place I could find that had booze and a few restaurants refused me entry because I was drinking. I eventually found another Han run place and had some veggies and my deaf barbecue friend was cool with drinking so I was doing a kind of loop around the town. On my third trip back to the beer shop the girl had left and her mother was there. She charged me 4 quai instead of 3.5 but I thought a laowai tax of 5 jiao wasn’t too bad really so didn’t mention it. Later on I returned again and the mother sheepishly apologised and sold me the next beer for 3 quai. The daughter had obviously told her off in my absence which I thought was hilarious, guilt (and face) is definitely the most important of all human emotions!
When I got back to the hotel the police were behind the hotel desk. They said nothing and I was allowed to stay so I went to bed happy and a bit pissed!
The road to Pakistan from Kashgar
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Honey dip on the go
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Pikey petrol
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The Pakistan border, the Pakistani side was not in view, there maybe some kind of no-mans land in between the checkpoints.
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My lip reading bbq friend
1 June
I left at 7.40 again! No idea why that seems to be the norm but no matter how many times I hit snooze I always seem to leave then. I tried to get on the gaosu just outside Yengisar and the toll booths weren’t even built yet so it looked easy but some coppers turned me around. One of them actually wanted to let me on but his partner was a stickler and said no. A little further down the road the barb wire fence had been stretched apart and a tired and epically failed to get the bike through the gap. In the end I dropped the bike into a pile of rubbish but luckily got the whole shameful episode on video so all is not lost. Another kilometre down the fairly beat up old road I found an old construction entrance that had been blocked off using earth mounds. That wasn’t going to stop me however and shortly afterwards I was on the prefect surface of the gaosu. On these straight desert roads it really makes a huge difference. On the gaosu I can cruise at 120 and don’t have to worry about potholes, even though the old road is also very straight it’s hard to cruise at more than 90 and not get shaken to pieces.
The gaosu ended at Yarkant (my new favourite place name) and there were a few surprised looking coppers at the toll but they didn’t try to stop me so I moved on and changed the oil in town. I drew a huge, friendly crowd with quite a few local beauties but it was way too hot to stay and chat so I was quickly off again. The road to Hotan isn’t gaosu but is very good so I was whizzing along when I saw another rider. I pulled over and he was also on a yingang, a 150 cc, he’d ridden all the through Tibet and was heading back to Hebei. He was properly loaded up and was planning to ship all his camping gear back from Hotan to lighten the load a bit. I stopped shortly afterwards to have a drink and the bike was completely dead. I unpacked all my bags to get under the seat to check the fuse, which was fine. I’d been chatting to some friendly truckers from Henan beside the road and they’d kindly given me some tomatoes. I called them over and they gave me a push, luckily the bike started and I continued on to Hotan looking for a bike shop. I was pretty sure the battery had failed as it was a cheap one I’d bought in Jiangxi province and it’d done 20,000 kms. There was only another 150 kms to go to Hotan and on the outskirts I found a battery shop that stocked huge yuasa batteries. I decided to spend a few hundred and more than I usually would and we just managed to squeeze the battery in. The battery guys were awesome and gave me great advice on hotels and even found the Yidu hotel on google maps for me. After checking in I went to buy some new sunglasses and there were two punk Uyghur kids hassling the shop owner, he was clearly terrified but dealt with them very well, a good deal on some fake gold Ray Bans and they were off! I then found the barbecue and beer street and embarked on a fairly long drinking session. I was admiring a 2 cylinder regal raptor and had a few with the owner then got invited over to another table and had a few more. All these guys were Uyghurs and seemed pretty committed drinkers but said they tried to hide it from their parents and grandparents. At the end of the night one of them dropped me back to the hotel on his scooter and that was a wild ride through the city at considerable speed. The square by the lake had been completely transformed into a water and light show which the local kids were loving. They obviously can’t be that short of water despite living on the edge of the desert!
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The very loaded up yingang 150 rider
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Fitting the new battery
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It was pretty expensive so I hope it lasts a while!
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Loved the name of this shop in Hotan. I asked and apparently it is named after the Egyptian, dictator sandwich anyone?
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One of the monuments in the square, this one is an outline of China
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The other monument in the square, it's Mao having his hand enthusiastically shaken by a Uyghur elder. I think the message of the 2 monuments is pretty clear - we are strong, we are good and we are here to stay
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A nice regal raptor cruiser
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It's beer o'clock
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Local ass
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Some of the lads I was boozing with
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Hotan's main square at night
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2
Left at 9.20 after a very long queue for petrol, those stupid teapots really slow things down, from there it was a very straight boring road through the desert. The dunes were cool but the novelty wore off pretty quickly and I stopped for lunch and fuel after 200 kms. The guys in the service area were pretty mean looking and the stares ice cold, maybe something to do with spending you life in the middle of the Taklamakan Desert! I stopped again for a piss after another 50 clicks and was taking in the endless dunes and thinking about what a terrible place this would be to break down, and when I got back on the bike it wouldn’t move!! The front brakes had probably got sand and dust in them and had seized up. I released some fluid and did the next 400 kms with very little brakes! I stopped again for fuel and the teapot was filthy, I pointed this out and they said they clean it sometimes but the sand just keeps getting blown in. Filling up from the pump wasn’t an option either so I used my jerrycan, that’s actually a major reason to carry one in itself.
I stopped at a bike shop in Nu'erbakexiang to bleed the brakes and add fluid. The boss was a nice guy, all for free and free fuses! He couldn’t believe how far I'd ridden. Later, on the gaosu past Kuqa there had been a huge truck fire that had even melted the barriers. I rode to the front of the queue of cars and was forced to pull up next to a traffic cop, I played it cool and had a chat about the accident then he waved me through way before anyone else so I had the gaosu all to myself for a while. 50 kms down the road there was yet another police stop, these guys had blocked off the road and were stopping everyone in a lay-by. The main guy must’ve been worried that I’d try and skip past because he levelled his AK at me, new underwear required! The vibe changed as soon as he saw I was a laowai and after a quick look at my passport I was out of there.
It was one of the most boring days ever on a bike, I don’t think there was one interesting corner! I arrived in Luntai at 7.30, 820 kms, 3940 total. I checked into the very posh sanbao hotel for 300 quai.
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Dunes of the Taklamakan
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Taklamakan - I couldn't have picked a worse spot to break down
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A filthy teapot
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Jerrycan to the rescue
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Noodle shop
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Amazing looking chili sauce being prepared
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A cool water dispenser, the next must have for every office
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A skip fire in Luntai - one way to get rid of the rubbish!
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Coal for a giant's barbecue in Luntai
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Every self respecting bike owner in Xinjiang has at carpet on the seat
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3
Left 8.40 after enjoying a reasonable Chinese style buffet breakfast at the sanbao. The whole day was spent on the gaosu and was mind numbingly boring especially when combined with yesterday’s straight desert roads. There were yet more heavily armed police stops but everyone was their usual polite friendly selves and I wasn’t held up much. There were more filthy teapots and a station who’d mislaid theirs so my jerrycan was put to more good use. At one point, in a rare area of twisties, I’d flown past some heavily laden bikers who then caught me up at a petrol station where I was playing a take a sly photo game with the pump girls. They were riding from Beijing through Tibet, Xinjiang then back to Beijing. Pretty impressive on taxi bikes!
Some gaosu tolls didn’t seem to bat an eyelid at my passing, others went mental! One woman came running out of her booth “motuoche bu nan shan gaosu…..” but I was too fast for her! Apart from those brief moments of excitement I entertained myself by running the tank completely dry – 365 kms if anyone’s interested.
I arrived back at the yingang shop in Urumqi in the early evening and there were yet more police stopping and confiscating illegal bikes right outside the shop! They gave me some long hard looks but didn’t actually come over. Most of the locals were just ignoring their pleas to stop and would dodge past them…the whole road was laughing and one of the coppers took a swipe at a guy in frustration! I think I had contact with some form of the police everyday which has never happened anywhere in China but is very understandable considering the recent troubles in that area. The police were on the whole charming and although it’s always shocking for us Brits to see firearms I got pretty used to it by the end.
nice, so did you have a permit for the karakorum highway or you just slipped through the barrier?
Is that road worth it, even if you have to backtrack?
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You take a photo of me, i'll take one of you
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One of the guys doing a Beijing - Tibet - Xinjiang - Beijing loop
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Pretty impressive on taxi bikes
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Dinner with the yingang team in Urumqi
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The mosque / grand bazaar in Urumqi
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Packing the bike up
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Next stop Dongbei!
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigmonkey
Permit? Oops! I didn't realise I needed one! I set off pretty early from Kashgar and the road block at the bottom of the mountain didn't give me a second glance. I wasn't looking to stop and just rode on through, or maybe they were just setting up or something....
Is it worth it? Sure if you have the time, but it's nothing that special really. The highlight for me was the Tian mountains....