John & Mick's BIG Adventure

Break for the Border

Day 42 – 301kms. (12,384 kms total)

Up at 6am and still very dark, the result of moving west and south. We are now further west than Almaty, but running on Beijing time – weird.

there’s no hot water to shower, so we sit around waiting for light, so we can pack and go.

A map at the hotel shows the start of the KKH as being along the road at the next roundabout. The exit is blocked, so we take the main road which leads West. An early stop for petrol is a surprise, as usually they aren’t open till 8am. 93 octane is the best we can get in these parts but at 4.5 yuan/litre, it’s cheap.

They also do 90 octane in places, as well as 0 and -20, whatever they are.
We hit a diversion and arrive on a new road, which is amazingly the ‘G314’ that we had been traveling on since Korla! and part of the Karakoram Highway.

This section of the KKH is quite spectacular. We approach the mountains and the views are fantastic. Mick stops to take a photo, only to find the camera battery is dead. Result of a faulty charger which has left the spare dead too – no photos for Mick today !

We rise through the mountains, with snow peaks and glacial lakes. Streams pour across the road and small rockfalls litter the surface every now and again, so it stops us racing round corners with any gusto as we can’t see what’s ahead.

The high point of this section took us to 4120 meters. The road runs between two peaks of 7719 and 6760 metres. The fact that the road is built in a wide valley just adds to the scale of them. This is the Pamir Range that leads into the Karakorum Range.

We arrived in Tashkorgan at 13:30ish.


Tashkorgan lies at around 3000m and is much smaller than we expected. We expected similar to Korgos, but it seems nothing but a border stop, a few shops hotels and official buildings.

We trundle through town and someone stops us and directs to the customs house. We go but it is closed – lunchtime.

We go and find petrol & then food in a small local Urghi café, where we ask for a few things in the phrasebook, and finally they nod at “fried rice’. Ten minutes later, we get wide noodles with beef & chilli, not too bad, but meat is chewy. 10 yen is fair price though.

We finish and go back to customs building, where a man in uniform informs us it is only open from 11am -1pm. Its now 2pm. That’s it until tomorrow then at 11am Bejing time

We drive round and pick the Stone Hotel to stay in.

Exorbitant at 280 yuan, but there’s not much in town and its clean and presentable.

We find an Internet café, but it is dog slow, so much so that John gives up trying, Mick returns later to do this update. Fed up with stews and mutton in this part of the world so have a pic-nic in the hotel room.

The embassy call back but are not much help. As Xinjiang Province is autonomous. He says the laws could be different regarding guides etc.
Well, we shall wait and see what transpires at customs tomorrow. Mick fiddles with the camera battery charger and manage to jury rig it to charge, so at least he can do photos tomorrow.

The next installment is here

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