On Sunday we had a job to do and that was to cycle to the chinese border. The other travelers who accompanied us in Sary Tash during our ordeal there could look forward to yet another day in the village since they would take a transport on Monday morning. It would be to lie to say that it wasn’t a relief to finally leave Sary Tash in the early Sunday afternoon.

Kyrgyzstan is very very beautiful, but the mountains in the background is actually in the Pamirs in Tajikistan

According to a signpost at the junction in the village it was 71 km to the border and our intention was to camp some 10 km before getting there. The altitude profile we had made already in Osh told us it was going to be a flat ride the first 30 km and then a little bit uphill.

We all know that travelling along the same road a second time usually gives a feeling that it is shorter and thus we felt that the first 15 km of the day went past very quickly. Then came the uphill section. We were already at 3500 meter and although not very steep at all the road slowly brought us up to 3760 meters altitude. Our speed up that hill was very low but that was soon to be changed.

At 3760 meters altitude. Cycling nerds – look at our chains… it was uphill.

Every uphill has a downhill on the other side and so did this one. With a perfect road, a gentle slope and no traffic made both of us beat our speed records. The new record is now 68.8 km/h. With our heavy loaded bicycles it felt like riding a motorcycle 🙂

Struggling uphill…

What took us 90 minutes to go uphill would take less than maybe 10 minutes to roll downhill if it wasn’t for the many stops to take photos and just admire the stunning scenery.

Our late start and the many stops made us ride through the sunset. The wind picked up in the evening and when we looked for a spot to pitch our tent we had to find one that provided some shelter from the wind. The spot we found had a wonderful view but when we finally had time to sit down and enjoy it, it was already dark.

Campsite with a view. It was so windy so we built a small wall of stones to prevent the wind from lifting the tent

The following morning was the day we had waited for for almost a week – the day of our entry into China. It is always sensitive to take photos in border zones in this part of the world and thus we don’t have very many pictures from this area.

After only 5 km from our campsites, we had our first encounter with the border formalities. Kyrgyzstan has a pre-checkpoint 10 km from the real border and here they checked our passports and noted our names in a book before we could continue.

An old rocktet launcher (Stalin Organ) beside the road in Nura. It even had some rockets inside. It can’t have been in use since it was aimed back at Kyrgyzstan rather than towards China.

A few kilometers before the real border we got to the village of Nura. All the buildings looked very similar and all had bright blue roofs. We had never seen such similarity in Kirgizstan before, but later we were told that the village was destroyed by a earthquake and a following landslide some years ago. When rebuilding the village all houses came out in the same way.

Only blue roofs in Nura.

The proceedings at the Kyrgyz side of the border was smooth. We cycled past several hundred trucks that were waiting to get through. With our exit visas stamped into our passports we could ride 500 meter to the chinese side where a lone chinese soldier took a quick look in our passports and told us to go to the next checkpoint 4 km down the road.

The chinese have moved the real border checkpoint 140 km inland and the second checkpoint in the mountains was only a sort of a thorough pre-check. We got a few of our panniers inspected and they even asked us to show the content of our computer and camera.

Since it is only a pre-check we didn’t get any stamps there and the chinese don’t want independant travellers inside the country who haven’t yet passed the proper border checkpoint. This is a wellknown fact among cyclists and we knew that the officials would put us either on a shared taxi or a truck. We had prepared for this by buying some ropes at the bazar in Osh to tie our bikes and bags to the truck.

Going with the first truck

A chinese officer found a truck for us and we removed the pedals and turned the handlebar and loaded our things into the empty cargo hold only to find that there were no holes, no hooks, no nothing to tie our bikes and bags to so we tied them together hoping that one big and heavy piece would move around less.

The road is mostly on gravel but a new road is built and some sections are ready and in use. At one of those sections there was a long pile of gravel across the road. It was maybe 20 cm high and I saw it long before we got there. When we approached the driver didn’t slow down and a few seconds before hitting it I understood the the driver hadn’t seen it. Wej and I held on to our seats and then a huge ”baaang” sent us airborne for a second or two. When we landed the loockers over the windscreen got open and the drivers private clothes, blankets, food, tools etc. fell out over us.

We got seriously concerned for our bikes. They must have gone airborne too and we feared that something must have got broken, but when we arrived at the real border checkpoint 4 hours later we found out that the bikes and everything was OK.

Finally some good chinese food…

When we arrived to the border it was already 6 PM and 100 km remained into the city of Kashgar. We had forgot to buy food and water at the border and were hungry and thirsty, we had no map and no chinese currency so we decided to hitchhike with another truck into Kashgar city. This was our first proper cheat on this trip. When we took the train in Georgia it was because of Wej’s injured knee, but this time the only reason was laziness and bad planning.

We cycled 10 km from the truck parking area and checked into a nice hotel. It was wonderful to shower again after a week without. We also soaked all our clothes in the bathtub for one entire night and they came out like new….

The water after washing our clothes or was it after our first shower in a week 😉

Kashgar is a small city by Chinese measures but big with Swedish. We stayed for two days and enjoyed strolling around, going to restaurants, buying some electronics (extra harddrive and battery pack) and just be in a big city again.