On the edge of Eurasia. From Novosibirsk to Malaysia on SUVs. Part V/1. China. From Kashgar to Ali

Part V/1. China. Kashgar-Ali.
Non-Chinese Kashgar. Fly high in Tibet. The altitude of 5100 m. Houston we have a problem!
Part I. Kazakhstan
Part II.Uzbekistan
Part III.Tajikistan
Part IV.Kyrgyzstan

After the Kyrgyz part of the enter the territory of the Xinjiang-Uighur region of China. We were met by a representative of the travel Agency Abdul. It should be noted that thanks to the wise decision of Chairman Mao in China has only one time zone. Although taking into account the length of the country from West to East, the zones should be at least three. In connection with this fact, our Kyrgyz two hours of the day, the transition into Chinese as much as four hours a day. We immediately jump two hours ahead. Abul hurries us. Here is just a border post, no customs, no passport control. It is 150 miles away, and you need to have time before closing to 7 PM.

A few tens of kilometers across China are striking: like the new asphalt, but somehow, in the constant potholes. Speed is low. Everywhere information signs dubbed in several languages: the Chinese, Uighur (which uses Arabic script) and sometimes the British, the Russian is written in typical nasty "Chinese" font. The presence of the Russian first perplexed, but then he saw the stream of Trucks from Kyrgyzstan, all became clear. Almost all drivers must speak Russian.

Time control and customs. Besides us there is almost none. While waiting in cars, suddenly someone from a car pulling up screams: "mate, move over". The thoughts I had in China, and it's in Russian, I was very surprised, how could she take. And this is the driver of KAMAZ from Russia, with a face quite Slavic. Then begins the screening machines. All communication only through Abdul, for before the end of China's only through an interpreter. "Phones with GPS there is?" lapping the serious kind, looking curiously strange car, asks the shift supervisor. "No, of course not!" I say confidently clanking three iPhones in his pocket. "A satellite phone?" he continues. "Yes, where else can he be?" asks I quietly pushed the leg this is the satellite phone away under the seat. "Nothing illegal, no...Well, okay!" happily said a Chinese official and we have fun casual execute documents. We pretend to show personal belongings, he pretends to inspect them. We pass fairly quickly.

Soon Kashgar, the largest city in this part of the district.

We move on already quite a decent road. Starts China...
It would be correct to call Kashgar, the most Chinese city in China. Because of its proximity to Central Asia's ethnic composition is very diverse. This tacky, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Uighurs and the Han Chinese (actually Chinese).

The city is an uproar in different languages, but to distinguish Chinese from any of the Turkic languages or Persian on hearing a snap. In addition to cars, at the entrance to the city there is a huge number of mopeds. A distinctive feature of China and Southeast Asia. Local residents like the hard-core fatalists, helmets, nobody wears the moped can go 3,4, 5 people. Quite a common sight when the Pope rides a moped, on his lap, her 2 year old son, sitting in the backseat 5 year old daughter, for her side (!) mom and another son on the lap of my mother (!). If only all this complex structure has not fallen, otherwise, victims can not be avoided.
Then begin to get the first experience of driving in the moped swarm. The one rule is generated and remains valid until the end of the trip: don't make sudden movements, loud honk your horn, turn where it is necessary, you'll see. All with interest consider us tourists in their cars here are apparently very, very rare.

In my view Kashgar was supposed to be a kind of big village. And quite poor. Imagine my surprise when we brought Novostroy the semi-million city (by Chinese standards it certainly is to the status of full city is not). Novootradnoye high-rise buildings, roads, bridges and so on. Although sometimes it is seen that more recently, it was almost deserted place. Moving across the bridge with one hand you can see the high-tech building, the other will be a clay hut, which had not yet carry.

One of the main attractions of the city, is the world's largest statue of Mao Zedong.

The hotel is better than I expected. It is such a Chinese 4 star with all amenities. Once in a Chinese hotel, this style will never forget. It's such a specifics: some outlandish gadgets made to make life easier (usually not working), not to the place made things (for some reason a huge the icon “Apple” in the bottom of the holder towels) and everything else is flimsy and unreliable, in short Chinese. We are happy to get to rest. Our dusty cars parked at the hotel entrance, look for combat.
Morning meet with our new guide, Ali, that he will be with us for almost a month in China. Ali is an ethnic Uighur, talking on a classic Chinese dialect of Putonghua and the Uygur. Speaks perfect English and good Russian (I was especially happy about the fact that will not have to spend days to translate everything).

In China you cannot move your car without the following things: Russian rights plus book full translation (international law), rights of temporary Chinese temporary Chinese registration numbers, Chinese technical inspection and in the case of motion on Tibet consistent of the permit. In addition to all of the permit and Russian documents issued in Chinese GAI out of town. Pass technical inspection for agorasia for some unknown reason the brake lights give several packs of cigarettes. The rights themselves also do not so long. Fortunately, all the documents we sent in a few months. Finally everything is ready. I consider an outlandish documents and find that part of the rights is made for people which don't control the car, and part of a potential truck drivers now without Chinese rights. Ali listened to me quietly utters one of the best phrases for the trip, "Alex, don't worry, you all Chinese look alike". And indeed, later on we made sure that you any documents to show we are no different. So we traveled all over the country for three driver's licenses, while behind the wheel have changed more than 5 people.

And we now have a real Chinese room.

Brought to mind once again the shock absorbers for Navara, buy everything you need for Tibet. In the evening explore the town, surprised the whole row Very much afraid of electrometallurgy. They move silently, and importantly, to conserve your battery without the light. Even in the night. Several times we froze when we where Novozymes surfaced flocks of local residents on these miracle devices and barely audible rustling the tires raced past. Interesting, unusual. Here is the first of the restaurants with Chinese food. We like it. Starts the real drive of the discovery.
We are ready to move on to the next city Echeng. The city itself is very very small ( 300 000 inhabitants), there is nothing remarkable. Funny hotel name “Yecheng electricity hotel”. What is this fancy name of wanted to say the owners, remains a mystery. May be there is electricity (which is very good), and maybe it belongs to the electric company.
The morning starts with loud Chinese radio, apparently transliruemie as we once something combat the Communist in the spirit: "Good morning comrades! Start a new working day! Last month workers of a certain factory made so it began, the farmers have collected so much grain, etc." From this day on, we understand what a real Chinese Breakfast: roasted salted peanuts in oil, half-baked loaf of tasteless undercooked dough and what should be a mess: weird taste paste. All. So now it will be at any hotel to Lhasa. In a half-hearted attempt "to give me tea...", we received the answer that the water ended. All the following Breakfast, we will come with their products. That's better.

My attempts to take video of the main street almost lead to scandal. Only I mounted the camera on a tripod and recorded a few standapol, as here, the phone rang Ali: "Alex, get away, the police arrived swearing obscenely. We have a problem". I barely have time to put equipment in the car, from the hotel there are some local guardians of order and sent to me. "No video!" I say batting her eyelashes and making large and kind eyes like the cat in Shrek. Really, looking in the car they find nothing suspicious. Because the suspect already buried deep.

The hike to the evening food market causes mild surprise. What is not sold there... it's Hard to convey in words, but often it sounds like "strange creature cooked in different ways and it seems they eat them". We in Asia and should get used to it.
In the morning we begin movement. Today we are approaching a mountain range kun-LUN that surrounds the Tibetan plateau in the North-Western part. We have some hurts one of the largest deserts in the world: the Taklamakan desert.

Its monotonous scenery starts to change. Kashgar is situated at an altitude of about 1,300 m. above sea level. Here ends the settlements and begin the roadblocks. Tibet, the most problematic region of China. Since his accession after the second world war, he haunted the Chinese authorities. So, everything here is extremely strict. Before the first rise of the first verification of documents. Lasts an hour. The following posts will be every 50-100 km.

We start to take off rapidly on the Tibetan plateau.

Winding road and hard that leads us upstairs. The quality of the road is beautiful: new pavement, wide curves. Height increasing: 2000,3000, 4000, and finally a record of 5,200 metres.

For us that's unusual, our previous record high in Tajikistan 4655 m beaten. The views are unusual.
Stop in the town of Mazar right around the Creek. Theoretically, with the nearest pass, overlooking the second highest peak in the world K2 (Chogori) is located in the Pakistani Karakoram. But I thought to see this is unlikely: 200 km line of sight. Can only be to the naked eye. The camp is relatively low, 3800 m. We have fun, enjoy life. And rightly so, because this is the last quiet night, all next week will not go according to plan.

Today have a very very hard day. The most serious passes. You need to overcome 500 km. According to reports, Vladimir, for autumn 2011, here most difficult part. Dirt. But for half a year the Chinese are doing incredible. They are inhuman pace build highway G-219 connecting Kashgar and the capital of Tibet Lhasa. Build well and efficiently: sometimes it's just the same arrow black highway forward

In places where the highway is not ready yet, it is a heavy detours over bumps and pits.

To work on the construction of the highway attracted by the huge (by our standards) strength. At each site swarmed by dozens of people. A lot of things done or half-manually or fully manually. The private mechanization is a truck, a shovel and a scooter. The faces of the builders almost completely covered with bandages. Everywhere dusty, and the sun mercilessly scorches.
The highway itself is narrow, only two lanes. Don't need more! Traffic here is almost non-existent. Sometimes we go for hours alone, no one to meet. Anyone around...

The situation becomes even worse. We are approaching the most difficult of China's territory. The fact that China has a number of unresolved territorial disputes. With India, China challenges two areas: Aksaichin (is under control of China) and Arunachal Pradesh (controlled by India). In 1962 these countries even fought for Aksaichin It is in him we now enter.
Translated as "Axicon" means "white stone desert Rank." Really unusual spectacle: the desert surface at an altitude of 5000 meters. No permanent residential settlements. Small hills mountains. Vegetation is almost none. Sometimes there are wild animals. See the military in large numbers. Sometimes towards the moving column of military trucks, sometimes seen military bases with tanks and howitzers.

Posts more and more, mainly the military, and we each stay.
The views extraordinary! Some unearthly landscape. Bright blue sky, yellow sand and different shades of the mountains, it all cuts through the black thread highway.

All feel good, only Jeanne starts the first signs of altitude sickness – headache. We take a new height of 5200 meters. Genuinely happy, and even arrange a competition who will press more. Competition does not cause discomfort, except for the fast pulse. I'm worried that with a high pass (over 5300 m.) we will overcome in the dark. And I wanted to capture this historic moment. However, since then, our plans start to change: for the next post, we report that no information they have on do not miss. Documents can come not earlier than tomorrow, it's 7 PM and no one in Lhasa is not working.
We decide to set camp. A little back and pitch the tents on the lake shore. The only thing that bothers me is the height. According to our altimeter Garmin 62st we are at the height of 5084 m
Not a good place to set up camp. Just remember the rule mountaineers, "Walk high, sleep low". But sleep does not work low. The near future is low, it is at least 200 km. back. All suggest you take drugs to mitigate the effects of lack of oxygen. Go to sleep...

Wake up at night with a feeling of complete emptiness. For 3-30 hours. Headache. Do not want to sleep, drink, too, is not desirable, go anywhere you do not want, nothing I want. A strange condition. Shifting into a sitting state and only in it half an hour later a little sleep for a while. Following a four hour stretch as well. At 8 in the morning with difficulty getting out of the tent, you feel like you're experiencing severe withdrawal syndrome. But it's still nothing because there are people who significantly worse. Jeanne said, lies in the tent, her eyes shed tears. She said never in her life she had not experienced such headaches. Vova with a swollen face something unintelligible mumbles that he is a sporty person and does not understand what happened. The two of them are the worst. It has a very intuitive explanation: as the time they arrived in the Kyrgyz Osh and were not acclimatized in the Pamirs. Feed them different drugs. The rest of the face swollen, numbness and lack of strength. 100 yards to the Creek for water to go two by two. For these 5 liters are extremely heavy. Pulse even in a resting state goes above 100 beats per minute. Without a doubt I can say: this is the hardest day of the entire trip. We hope to quickly move forward, so there is a dead spot.
Vladimir can not leave the tent...

Night subzero temperature. Rivers freeze.
In the middle of the day, it turns out that today we can not go further, because documents not ready. Stay for one more day. One of the entertainment in this place is to get a small bag of something and see how it behaves. Package "Choco pie" and coffee bloated in a couple of balls and wieners.
Dry mixes in jars when opened just exploded showering unsuccessful "discoverer".
The fluid from all tubes and plastic bottles managed to squeeze out. The height of a terrible thing. For comparison, the highest point in Europe, Mont Blanc is 4810 m And we almost 250 meters higher.
The next day, realizing that so can not continue, armed with bribes bribe post. They agree to let us through, but with the condition that before the next post will be ready documents. We're finally moving on. Fall in the mountainous Tibetan village. We need to refuel, because the high driving mode, our machines consume 25-30% more fuel than normal height. The village is harsh, I think all drink. We try to eat, against indiscriminate drinking of the local police, who sings with us is photographed and vows of eternal friendship.

Hard to refuel car and go forward.
We meet something like antelope.

Today, we expect records. First pass of 5300 meters, and then record 5402 m.

It is the highest point where we had ascended in life. One of the highest automobile passes in the world.
Wikipedia listed two more high-pass in the Himalayas, but the difference is not significant, 100-150 meters. The machine begins to smoke black soot, the thrust has dropped to a quarter. But we must pay tribute, we are still going. And literally sky-high. Sometimes the clouds hang so low that you can easily to call them. Some literally cling to the highway Before reaching the village of Dormar (there post) stand in one of the small pits, in a dry riverbed, that the road we had seen. The altitude of 4600 m. for All becomes much better.
The period of the seat. We are constantly in touch with a travel Agency who prepares the documents. We are told that everything is almost ready, call back in an hour, half an hour later, "now, now, very soon." Go through the whole day this way, but nothing changes. We sit under the hot blinding sun, a strong wind blows.
At the end of the day we inform our agent that he did anything. We're going forward, we're running out of water, and two men in bad shape due to altitude sickness. The legend about the disease had to come up, so we had a reason to go further.

When we went on the road, it was blocked by Chinese workers. There were a few dozen and they kept coming.
It turns out that when we were off the road to camp, we damaged some tile drainage. Therefore, the workers in China require us to pay 1000 yuan. After a tough trade and our proposal to meet at the police agree on 300 RMB on this part.

Dormer is dull dusty village in which is located a military base. The base is large enough, there seemed to me no she a hundred soldiers. At the entrance to the village the next post. We are allowed to leave the car near him, but to call for a barrier anymore. As a host, we specify "hotel", inconspicuous building.

After the examination of the "hotel" we are together he assigned to one star. Concrete floor, bed, covered with inscriptions in the plaster on the walls, known as the working Chinese TV. Amenities are in the yard, you need to be very careful in order not to fall into these same facilities under the ground. I have the feeling that the facilities are burned, they put out nothing and decided not to repair.
Everywhere open doors to "rooms", where in the middle of hanging clothes, socks and steaming Chinese noodles Chinese workers live. Kind of reminiscent of an Asian Dorm. But most importantly, it's clean. We have no choice, stop in here.

From the window of the hotel visible to a military base.
In the next hut situated several institutions. On the area of 30 sq. m. is a shower, a brothel, a room for gambling. A dozen friendly soldiers see us and try speak to us. I show a map of our journey that causes genuine amazement and admiration. From all amenities, we are only interested in a shower. We are not the first time we notice that in almost every military unit has a brothel. It looks like the government cares about the condition of his army.
On the walls downstairs find records of Vladimir and Denis. That's really true surprise. Dinner is quite decent, that we were pleasantly surprised.
At midnight, the diesel generator turns off and the hotel is plunged into darkness...
To accelerate our liberation we begin to simulate severe mountain illness in two participants. Local authorities trembled upon learning that their small town could break the international row over the denial of medical care to two foreign citizens. We are allowed to go to town Rotwk where is the hospital. According to rumors, there should be a lovely hotel and generally have a civilized city. The hotel there was indeed large enough. He is 5 years old told us Ali. But when we got inside, it became a bit uncomfortable. First, under the stairs, we saw a peaceful head of a RAM. It was the head, for the sheep have not had, and aesthetics of this spectacle left much to be desired. The hotel itself was like a place of looting and uncontrolled orgies: broken doors, hardened floors, broken furniture, tattered curtains, and the smell of the landfill, peacefully buzzing flies. We confided that there is no hot water, which in General did not surprise us. And the question about the smell, staff reported that cold water, too, and never will be. We seem to spend the night here definitely will not. Make camp not far from the city on the lawn and heading back to the city.
Where we mngovenno okrugina young locals.
The rest of the day having walked in the cafe. Despite the difficulties, the mood is quite combative.
The owner of the cafe prepares cocktails (today comes to local party members on the booze).
The recipe is simple: sooo much vodka, and herbs to taste.
The restaurant is the rest of the day. The owners of the restaurant after learning about our situation, offered us to spend the night right here. When rugs are laid on the floor, sleeping bags spread out, there is the local police, which someone told me that we were going to spend the night here. The problem is that you can spend the night in one of the authorized for foreigners, the hotels, other is strictly prohibited. We have to pack and move the camp. The rain, the dark street, but we are still a couple of hours having fun lying in tents. In spite of everything, life is beautiful!

The next day, after lunch, we finally given permission to move to the next town, Ali, or as it is called Ngari. The guides describe it as: "center of civilization in Tibet, where there is electricity and other benefits". We've been waiting for this moment, and with great enthusiasm, rushing there. At the entrance to the town we were met by local police and escorted us with lights flashing to the city centre.

Compared to those places where we already visited Ali is really the source of civilization. A village with a population of 50,000 people. Building the same, boring. Everything is now Chinese. It just so happens that in this town we have to spend three more days until all documents are ready. During this time we have time to explore the entire city inside and out. See how harsh the Chinese welding without any eye protection. Slowly and quietly begin to hate this city. On the other hand well immersed in the local lifestyle and habits. Its certainly interesting. Look at us as aliens, as foreigners are almost there.
Daily, at 5 PM the staff starts charging the group.

All employees come together from the hotel and the music warming up. To our question why do it, Ali explains that it strengthens team spirit. It's possible that so, but we are infinitely fun, and the staff confused.
And in the meantime we are making our mark and having fun exploring the city.
On the second day of me with Ali called in the police. We receive copies of any documents. The originals will arrive tomorrow on the plane. That's all serious. Looks like tomorrow we are going on, finally! We were waiting for it ;-)
To be continued...
The second series of the film "the end of Eurasia 2013". China: Xinjiang, Tibet