The diary of a Scot in Amsterdam

Due to the Internet shutdown in Xinjiang, this story and a more recent one have been posted simultaneously. See above for more.

Having followed the white rabbit down the rabbit hole, Alice finds herself falling down and down through a surreal nothingness, before emerging into a strange and bewildering new world. Having descended through what has felt like just as much of a wormhole, to be spat out tumbling down the mountainside into the western frontier of China, I can understand how she must have felt.

For the route that has brought us into this country, almost at its westernmost point, has really felt like the back door, the most impossibly obtuse way to escape the clutches of the former USSR which have held us back for so long. But quite unbelievably, it has been the most logical and indeed the only option open to us.

The major culture shock of the journey so far occurred upon leaving Poland for the Ukraine. But, as I had expected, this one has been much bigger. Everything is different.

Firstly, the modest amount of Russian that I have learned during the past five months is suddenly not of much use any more, as the incomprehensible squiggles which comprise the Chinese writing system take its place. Curiously, there is almost as much Arabic script to be seen – although not the Arabic language, but Uighur.

Secondly, in contrast to the steadily wilder and more ragged state of affairs which has existed the further East we have travelled, everything is suddenly much more developed. Motorways, shopping centres, factories, and even street-cleaning vehicles which play “Happy Birthday” as they go are now present. I saw no street-cleaning machines of any kind in Kyrgyzstan.

And joy of joys, the most impressive change has been in the food available. I have only need to learn three words in Chinese – wǒmen chī sù – “we are vegetarian”, and we have been offered something different and delicious everywhere we have been. After months and months of fried eggs, mashed potato, and tomato-and-cucumber salad, this has been a fantastic breath of fresh air. Two courses mostly costs less than 10 Yuan (€1), and is accompanied by a huge kettle full of tea from which to help yourself. I just hope this continues.

Kyrgyzstan, beautiful land of mountains, seems very far away now. But I will retrace my steps back to Osh in order to explain what has been so strange about the manner of our arrival here.

We had read of and had been warned about the terrible road from Osh to the border, but such things only become real in the moment of your own experience. You can tell yourself “aye, aye, nae bother”, or else lose sleep over the thought of it, but in the end it is the doing itself which really lets you know what it is. I suppose that is really the whole point of this journey.

The first day or so out of Osh was a very gentle introduction, as the road (still excellent asphalt) climbed slowly towards the first pass of the route. It was here that the first faint glimpses of China became apparent – for the workers busy constructing the road which will eventually reach from Osh to Kashgar were mostly Chinese. In addition to the fact that they were working much harder than is normal here, the sight of them huddled in groups eating noodles at lunchtime made this obvious. It was also on this road that we first began to see Chinese trucks, although where they were going to is a mystery since I had seen none in Osh or indeed anywhere else in Kyrgyzstan.

And on this road, we also began to experience quite a disturbing phenomenon. The children playing in road, who had already been very enthusiastic in their waving at us up to this point in Kyrgyzstan, began to become quite hysterical in their behaviour. Screaming “bye bye! bye bye! BYE BYE! BYE BYE!” louder and louder as they ran towards us as fast as their little legs would allow, their faces twisted and their eyes wide, they would start making click-click motions as if asking if we wanted to photograph them (I didn’t). If you did not return their attention immediately they would continue screaming even louder and running even faster until we were out of sight.

I began to wonder what exactly was wrong with them. I guess since this is one of the few routes from Central Asia into China, they might see quite a lot of cyclists and other tourists, but this doesn’t explain the situation. Or perhaps it’s a sort of mountain madness. In any case, I was very glad when we began rising into the high mountains, to where there were less and less people.

After the first pass, the road did indeed become quite bad – although the worst was yet to come. On the third day after leaving Osh, we spent most of the day climbing slowly, slowly up innumerable switchbacks towards the Taldyk pass, at 3600m the highest point of the entire journey. Every few minutes, a truck would rumble past, throwing up a huge cloud of dust which completely blocked out the view ahead. We had to resort to wearing the surgical dust masks we had bought earlier in Bishkek to avoid choking.

When we had finally reached the top and had begun what we had hoped would be an easier descent into Sary Tash, we were dismayed to find that yet another pass first needed to be cleared. But thankfully this was the last.

And at the end of this exhausting day, we finally reached Sary Tash, the last settlement in Kyrgyzstan and the former Soviet Union. It was time for a final trip to a магазин, filled with the usual depressing selection of nothing much at all, and a stop at the only café in town for bread and some fried eggs, before heading east along the road to the border.

Sary Tash lies in the Alay valley, a high plateau at around 3000m above sea level. To the south rise the spectacular Pamir mountains, completely white with snow and rising in places to over 7000m. It was a stunning scene, and certainly a reward for all the hard work in getting there. Although it was never on our original route, I have no regrets at all about having travelled through Kyrgyzstan.

On our final full day in the country, six months to the day since we left Amsterdam, we found ourselves on a road yet worse than the day before – in fact it is hardly possible to call it a road at all, but rather a long and meandering scar where the side of the mountain had been stripped bare to reveal the hard rocks and grit below. We passed numerous large Chinese and Kyrgyz trucks which were moving even slower than we were over the tortuous terrain.

And then finally, at the end of the day, the road suddenly transformed into a sleek and modern highway of flawless asphalt which lead all the way to the border. It was hard to believe that such a road had been constructed, only to come to a sudden halt in the middle of nowhere. One day it will link up with the road to Osh, forming a proper link between China and Kyrgyzstan, but that day may be some time in coming and is in any case far too late for us.

On the morning of our final (almost, there’s still Hong Kong) border crossing, we set off very early. The Kyrgyz checkpoint was a predictably chaotic mess, with a horde of truck drivers (and us) crowding around a small window in the side of a wooden hut in order to receive an exit stamp in our passports. Thankfully enough the guards were nice enough to let us go first.

This was followed by a very wide, almost 10km, stretch of no-man’s-land, and the second Kyrgyz checkpoint. We then squeezed our way through the numerous trucks parked in the dust, as if all the victims of a massive motorway pile-up, before reaching the first Chinese checkpoint.

And it was here that this strange new world began. Everywhere were crowds of soldiers in the uniform of the People’s Liberation Army running around with great haste, enthusiastically moving wheelbarrows full of concrete. We were rather alarmed when two guards with rubber gloves, face masks, and riot shields approached us, although all that they wanted was to see what photos were on our digital cameras. Nothing incriminating thankfully, which was hardly surprising given that we had just arrived in the country.

We were then sent further down the road, to the Chinese immigration post. This huge building resembled something like an airport arrivals hall inside, a far cry from the dilapidated collection of huts and caravans on the other side. Here our passports were checked a further four times, we were asked to declare if we had any illnesses (of course not), and the contents of our bags checked, although somewhat superficially. Others were not so lucky – in front of us was a man with several huge (leaking) sacks of walnuts, each of which had to be individually X-rayed. Numerous boxes of sweets and catering-sized jars of instant coffee would follow.

At the desk where our passports were stamped, there was a little electronic box with four buttons labelled something like “excellent”, “good”, “checking took too long”, and “poor customer service”, by which you could give a verdict on the work of the poor clerk behind the desk. I did not find it necessary to push any of the buttons, although I later regretted not giving him an “excellent”. Although it is nice to see some concern for customer service after so long in an area where rudeness seems almost to be part of the job description, I would not like to be under so much pressure myself.

And finally, after less delay than I had actually expected, we were in China. We exchanged the last of our Kyrgyz Som for Yuan with a black-market money-changer, in full view of the police, before heading for our first taste of Chinese cuisine. As I have already mentioned, this did not disappoint, and was very welcome indeed after the monotonous fare we have been used to in Kyrgyzstan and before.

With the excitement of reaching China over, I became quite impatient to reach Kashgar, and see the country begin for real. This would have to wait, unfortunately, since a further three long days of cycling, thankfully over asphalt this time, would need to be completed first. But we got there.

Kashgar is quite an experience. It is a loud and chaotic collision of two cultures, Uighur and Han Chinese, quite literally next door to each other. In the old town, craftsmen are busy from dawn to dusk hammering at sheet metal, cutting up animal carcasses, baking bread, calling the faithful to prayer from the roof of the mosque (without amplification), carving wooden table legs, and even selling live chickens out of sacks slung over the shoulder. In the next street, high-rise apartment blocks are being constructed next to designer fashion outlets and coffee houses. It is hard to imagine that these two worlds can coexist without problems, which goes some way to explaining the recent unrest in this region.

Of this unrest we saw very little, besides frequent groups of army trucks parading slowly around town, filled with armed troops, and with large banners displaying messages in Chinese and Uighur hung on the sides. Needless to say, the subtleties of inter-ethnic relations in this area are invisible to us foreigners.

And we were certainly not the only foreigners in Kashgar. Paradoxically, given that this feels so much further from home than ever before, we have found ourselves as only two of many. This may be because the authorities require that non-Chinese only stay in approved hotels, which would tend to cause all foreigners to be clustered together.

We are not even the only cyclists. We met an Austrian couple, a French couple, and an Englishman, all of whom had come as we had on the one-and-only road from Kyrgyzstan. In many ways it is very nice to meet up with individuals who have shared many of the same experiences, but it also made me feel a whole lot more ordinary. But I was never kidding myself that we were really pioneers.

As mentioned, and in great contrast to Central Asia, there is plenty of everything – clothes, vegetables of every kind, and even proper jam (it’s been a while). In the centre of Kashgar, buried underground beneath a shopping mall, is the most enormous supermarket I have ever seen. Filled with a dazzling selection of food, most of which I was unable to even identify, it was truly an assault on the senses. To add to the visual extravaganza and array of exotic aromas, various assistants yelled special offers into hand-held megaphones, a trick that I had earlier also seen on the street markets elsewhere in the city. The megaphones even seemed to be operable by remote control and capable of playing endlessly on repeat, since they continued to blare out messages even in the absence of any human operator.

The Qini Bagh hotel was comfortable and affordable, and a very welcome point of rest after the road from Osh, but soon enough the feet became itchy and it was time to move on. It is a long, long road from here around the Takla Makan desert, and further yet after that.

One task remained before leaving. I had been unable to buy any real (not instant) coffee since Bishkek, and was running very low. This was a source of great concern, given my addiction to caffeine, and the fact that the shops in this country, the home of tea, stock only Nescafé. Thankfully, the very friendly Japanese owner of the bar next to the hotel, also a cyclist and appropriately named Hero, was willing to grind and sell some of his precious supply for a very reasonable price. He explained that doing business right now is rather difficult due to the Internet shutdown here, of which there is no sign of an end. Of course, it will also mean that this post will be rather old by the time I can send it. Meanwhile, we will continue our journey in blissful ignorance of the outside world.