to Khorgas: Quite the border crossing

August 28, 2016

“Are you ready for the hacking and spitting?” Rachel asks as we are crossing into China today. Remembering this experience during our cycle tour in 2007 in China. We packed up quickly delaying eating breakfast because of the mosquitoes. We stop on the other side of the river just before Zharkent at a shop for some juice and eat one of our breakfast cakes that we’ve been carrying for a couple of days.

Although the landscape looks flat, the road is heading uphill. Throughout the day and with a slight headwind we gained 400 meters making for a tougher day than expected. Nearing Khorgos, the road divides with a new road going right. We check the tablet for googlemaps and maps dot me, but cannot make out which would be the road headed to the border. So we guess and stay to the left on what looks like the old main road.The road we choose is less busy and after a kilometer or so we come to a fence of what seems like a military area where we have the first of many passport checks before being waved through.. The road weaves toward the town of Khorgos, and we are still uncertain if we are on the correct road until a local confirms with a wave, yes China is ahead.

We stop at a shop to spend the last of Kazakhstan COM before heading for the border. When we reach the border, we are waved through a gate and another passport check and then into the customs building. Here we have to unload bikes to send gear through an x-ray machine. Why the country is concerned when leaving the country is unclear, especially while the man watching the monitor doesn’t seem all that intent on watching the monitor.

Reloaded we push the bike through a long tunnel and another passport check before being shown to the immigration window. Our picture is taken and we get an exit stamp for Kazakhstan. Exiting the building is another passport check. Then out into the giant parking area, it’s not clear where the exit is until a guard points the way to a gate and another passport check. Then we see across a blocked road to the China border only 500 meters away. But to get to there, we must cycle a 7km loop road bordered by large blue fence and a camera on every light pole about 50 meters apart. No idea what this is all about. Googlemaps does not show the loop road in no-mans land.

At the end of the loop a guard stops us to check our passports, then, points us into the China immigration and customs building. This is a huge hall, dimly lit, with no staff in sight. Then one woman comes out and gives us the arrival cards to fill out while we wait for the end of lunchtime. After a time, we weave our bikes through the wait line barriers, first to a health check where our temperature is taken, then to the window for our entry stamps. Then walking to the x-ray machines, where we unload the bikes once again and as we leave the building another passport check.

In front of us is a huge boulevard and as we exit we are inundated by money changers. Patrick is interested in trying to exchange the Kyrgyzstan money we got stuck with for yen but no-one seems to know the going rate. With nobody speaking English it gets too complicated to explain so we decide to wait for a bank. The Israeli cyclists in Karakol advised us on a hotel that turns out to be very near.

After checking in we head out for a bank and to eat lunch. The time zone is very different from Kazakhstan, China has only one time zone matching Beijing’s time, which makes the difference with Kazakhstan two hours. Patrick stops in at a China Mobile shop to get a sim card and data and while getting the sim card and adding the data is easy, setting up the device gets complicated because the technician cannot read the English instructions on the device. Eventually we get on the web, but it still is a frustrating experience because of the slow connection speed and many blocked sites. We try to run through a proxyserver but that slows things down so much it is almost not worth it. Is CGOAB blocked in China? Why?

Rachel is able to get her hair trimmed and later we walk to what we thought was a shopping mall, but is more like a covered bazaar with many small shops selling the same products. We do find a nice parking-lot restaurant for a good stir-fry meal with rice.

Tomorrow is a rest day to plan the stretch to Urumqi.

Nice looking mosque and rose garden just outside of Zharkent.

Exiting Kazakhstan through a plexiglass tunnel.

Into China! A clean 6-lane boulevard with very nice landscaping leads us into Khorgas where at least a dozen highrise buildings are under construction.

Our first Chinese meal: dumplings in a nice broth.

looking and tasting good. We need a short break from Central Asian foods before we can face Mongolia cuisine.

Khorgas is mostly under construction. There are cranes and large concrete structures under construction everywhere. No expenses are being spared in the landscaping and hardscaping.

Today's ride: 48 km (30 miles)
Total: 2,508 km (1,557 miles)

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