Kashgar

Next morning we manage to survive the assassin car drivers to get out of Osh and make it to Sary Tash. We grab some calories at the small Chaikhana and hit the mattress early, since the plan is to get up early, leave the bikes at the hotel and cross the Irkeshtam border to China.
So next morning we get out with little luggage, manage to stop a truck and take a seat in the dirty cabin, to take the bumpy road. It's cloudy, misty and cold, and serious soldiers in thick anoraks ask for our passports way before the border.
While the kyrgyz side is dusty and full of unshaven soldiers, typical for this region, the Chinese side is an embarrassing, ridiculous demonstration of both, power and illiteracy. Since it's not allowed to hitchhike on a truck, we have to walk a stretch of no man's land, then take a shuttle from the border to customs.
People ask us where we are from, holding our passports in their hands (on which it is clearly written). Very few employees speak another language than Chinese, and some seem to live in the realm of the unknowing when it comes to dividing the world outside of China into different sub countries.
After the actual border, we find a taxi to bring us to Kashgar - stopping another four times at immigration checkpoints. It gets tiring, we agree.
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Kashgar itself: a new puzzle part on the silk road. We roam around in the old town, characterized by Persian style arches and arabesques and of course uncountable cameras. Obviously, the Uyghurs need to be controlled, not only suppressed.
Tourists from the big cities though love to dress up in the traditional Uyghur style to do sexy photo shootings. We are impressed by the tourists cultural awareness in a region where people are afraid to be imprisoned when performing their way of living *eye roll*

The food is good though...
We are happy when we make it back to Kyrgyzstan - we miss our bikes and need to kick dust...Leggi altro