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Central Asia

From Pik Lenin to the Taklamakan desert

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23.05.2004 from Kashgar, Xinjiang, China - 14'788km

Nin Hao!

Finally, I got my visa for China in Bishkek. For my way to China, I had to go back about 900km, so I took a shared taxi for most of the part. In the end, it was something like 2.00 in the morning, the taxi driver offered me to go right to his home in a small village. He met also some friends and as closer we got to his home, the more vodka needed to be poured down. The last two bottles for the very last part. Luckily, I was drunken as well, so I didn’t bother too much sitting in the car with a more than tired driver (he was behind the wheel for some 20h). It remained some long and nice uphill to the 3600m-pass towards Sary-Tash. I really enjoyed sitting on the saddle again.

For my birthday, I decided to make a detour to Pik Lenin. So, when I opened up the tentdoor in the morning, I had not only a perfect blue sky but also a 7134m peak right in front of me… very nice! Then, I headed definitely towards China. A rough gravel road lead me over an amazing high plateau and the Irkeshtam pass at 3530m. Still, the mighty Chong Alau was right South of my route – a huge wall of snow and ice.

I tried to arrive right in the morning at the border. Heavy rain and then snow made a rather pitiful goodbye from Kyrgyzstan. Exiting was no problem, I just had to get back my map… an officer tried to steal it. He asked whether he could have a look at it and went off into one of the many offices, then I had to insist really hard that I could have it back… On the Chinese side the complete opposite: no chaos, no demands for bribes, but also painstaking checks on the vehicles and very tight ‘regulations’ on everything. After a SARS-check, a stamp in my passport, a short search of my baggage and many ‘Welcome to China’ greetings, I was finally in.

A long and beautiful downhill followed. The landscape got quickly much drier, while approaching the Taklamakan desert. A couple of passes and wonderfully coloured hillsides made a very nice ride. But on the other side my visa was very short… only 30-days. So, I cycled a 152-km distance on the second day to get quickly to Kashgar. The people were mostly Uyghur, speaking a language very similar to Uzbek… so I got away with learning Chinese right away – a totally incomprehensible language so far for me… The arrival in Kashgar came very much as a shock in many ways. Not only the transition from poor villages to a very busy downtown with lots of new shiny buildings, but also the transition from mostly Uyghur faces to mostly Chinese. I was very lucky to meet already after an hour two other cyclists… Kasghar is really a focusing point, ever since the Silk Road started

Now, I’m very eager to start the Western Tibet traverse. A 2400km gravel track ride to Nepal over some of the most exciting terrain on Earth… I was waiting a very long time for this… the first 5000m pass is just over 350km away… but unfortunately also the first checkpoints where I have to sneak through during the night… Let’s go!

All the best,
Daniel

Central Asia

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