John & Mick's BIG Adventure

Korgos

Day 32 to 33 – 0 kms

The two hour time jump into China is odd, so we still woke at 6am, body time, but 8am local. Just to confuse things a bit more, officialdom operates on Beijing time but the local businesses run on Kazakhstan time…
Little was open, and the few cafe’s we tried for coffee, were unable to provide it. Cash points are ample though, so obtaining the extra funds now required by customs, (1,500 RMB), will be OK.
This money is for the agent that will deal with the import.
Only appointed agents are allowed to deal with customs… or so we are told.

There are dozens of people walking around with large wads of cash, offering to exchange Tenge and Yuan. There are so many of them though, they seem to outnumber the tourists. One wonders how they can make a living at this, their rates aren’t that different to the bank. However, the local branch of Bank of China seems to be the best rate in town at 9.9 for a Euro.

With little to do but kill time, we waited till 10, when shops open and bought a T-shirt each, (all our stuff is still on our bikes in customs), a phone charger for John for 20 Yuan (2 Euro), and haircut for Mick (10yuan).
We found an hotel bar, called “Starbucks” which does serve decent coffee, but for 20 yuan per cup, rather than 1yuan in our hotel of pre-packed Nescafe stuff.
Bottled water is more expensive than Kazakhstan, which explains why there were bus-loads being moved through the border. Its their equivalent of the Brit’s “Calais-run” for wine.

We met up with some Swiss travelers who are doing the reverse route to us, but in two vans, taking over a year. We spent the evening swapping tales and as all restaurants were shut when we realized the time, they introduced us to the night-market, where you pick skewers of the food you want and then “fondue’ it in a giant wok of spicy bouillon. Five of us ate for 33yuan (3.5 Euro).

20 June

Following an email last night, saying documents are ready, we expect to get moving today. A call to the guide says the man with the documents will meet us after lunch. However, our only achievement is to be able to move the bikes 100m to a safer place. Documents are still not ready and we now have to pay a customs agency 1500yuan to do clearance – new government directive allegedly. Only an approved agent can deal with the customs officers.
We are also informed that part of the Karakorum Highway has been washed away by the river and is closed until July 15… we will see.

The next installment is here

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