Shaken and stirred

Well here we are in China. It's finally sinking in the scale of the journey we are on and that we've driven here all the way from London. Suddenly everything has become much more alien and unfamiliar. China is where all the creature comforts you know disappear, not needing to rely on and import branded goods, they simply make their own, from Cola, Red Bull, Oreo cookies to Mars bars and even Minis (cars), they have their own lookalike tastalike versions manufactured in the country.

Finding your way in China

The border crossing was the most long and drawn out so far, the pouring rain collecting in vast pools in front of immigration not helping, wading through with bags to be scanned for a second time and then waiting to find out what the next stage would be in the process. It was here we were joined by our local guide George who will be with us for the time we are in China. He eagerly awaited us at the border prepared with his trademark bum bag and umbrella. Once we were through all the formalities we'd hoped for an easy couple of hours drive into Kashgar but suddenly a line of trucks queued ahead, snaking around the steep mud cliffs laced with great cracks looking ready to fall at any time and further block the road. Our hold up was not a landslide but a river flowing down from the mountains and washing over the road, diggers worked furiously to try and stem the flow of water underneath the drain rather than over the top. A short while later traffic moved in our direction and we managed to pass through and arrived into Kashgar late in the evening.

Diggers getting stuck at the China border

Three nights in Kashgar gave everyone the chance to catch up on laundry, emails home, diary writing and for the crew to put Calypso through a Chinese MOT and get local driving licenses. We said goodbye to Cindy here for a month (just remembering to give her passport back in time), having seen much of China, she decided to head off to explore India and will rejoin us in Laos. Most ventured out to find the Sunday market, a sprawling undercover and surprisingly clean complex with everything imaginable for sale. Gaudy fridges, clothes, enough sellotape to wrap around the world 5 times, motorised scooters, Chinese herbal medicine including hedgehogs and snake skins. A small group of us struggling to find our way without a map decided a ride on a big old rusty ferris wheel would help locate it from above, which it did, and also nearly made a grown man cry with fear... If that wasn't enough the taxi back to the hotel was a ride in a small electronic cargo trike, more used to transporting watermelons, truck tyres or nuts and bolts than tourists, weaving in and out of the busy traffic, leaning into the corners, we made it safely back, with the addition of a few grey hairs.

Congratulations Rogan and Helen on getting their Chinese drivers licences (and Calypso's new Chinese numberplate)

Ferris wheel, Kashgar-style

Nick wasn't loving it so much...

Kashgar from the air

Keeping cool on the road - check out the innovative airconditioning, works even in traffic jams

Nick and his fans....  ba boom tish

Nick, Ryan and Rogan enjoying a taxi ride back to the hotel

Novel approach to construction

The old city of Kashgar, penned in by the new

Slow day in the market

Snake skins, anyone?

Food shopping and dining out will be an experience from here on and Kashgar was no exception, hidden away through a small entrance leading down to a vast underground supermarket, there didn't seem to be a chopped tinned tomatoes section, cheese counter, or bakery, predominantly rows and rows of noodles instead. This is just the beginning of the great food education on what parts of animals you can actually eat, that in the West we discard without further thought.

Delicious duck

Anyone for MSG?

Oi Oi Saveloy

Pigs trotters

Vacuum packed snacks

A two day 1,400km crossing of the scorching Taklamakan desert followed, Taklmakan meaning the place you go into and don't come out of, clearly we have as you're reading this, but we did come close to being swallowed up by it. At around 5am we were stirred from sleep at our bushcamp when the earth moved beneath us. Julia thought Jim was convulsing next to her, Di convinced Pip it was some cows passing through, Cher thought it was a dust storm, Chris put it down to wind and Rogs thought A: it was someone jumping about on the truck in an ill-advised attempt to interrupt the crew's sleep or B: cook group were up early having not set their alarm clocks to Beijing time, 2 hours ahead, and were attempting to pull the cooker out causing the truck to rock and sway, he leapt down from the roof ready to throw hot oil on and berate whoever was disturbing his sleep (not really, but the thought probably crossed his mind). Others managed to sleep through it completely, but it was most definitely an earthquake and a fairly substantial shake at that. A crack in the ground alongside the truck had appeared, well it was there the day before, but was now perhaps a little wider. If only Zaza, our local guide from Georgia had been with us he surely would have seen the signs and predicted the quake, often making some warning of imminent natural disaster or attack at our Georgian bush camps, flash floods, wolves, bears, snow and landslides, thankfully none of which came to pass. The news later confirmed the epicentre of the earthquake was in a mouintanous region of Xinjiang province and recorded at 6.6 on the Richter scale.

Earthquake fault-line in our bushcamp

Onward to Turpan, the second-lowest depression in the world at 154m below sea level, the Death Valley of China, with the highest recorded temperature of 49.6 degrees Celsius, we were blessed with an overcast drizzly day keeping temperatures well below this for our arrival. It steadily rose whilst we were there and afternoons were best spent in the shade of the hotel underneath trellises laden with grape vines, venturing out later in the evening to find the night market and some tasty local food. Some visited the interesting (and cool) Karez irrigation channels, a feat of engineering some 2,000 years old. Deep vertical shafts were dug into the water table and then channelled underground from the hills to the farmland making a habitable oasis in the desert.

Chris keeping cool in Turpan

Exploring Karez

John's Cafe, THE place to hangout in Turpan

Not sure John's going to win this one...

Dumplings at the night market

Ryan, John, Shelagh and Rogan practising their chopstick skills

Gareth's new look

Shady vine-covered street in Turpan

After Turpan we hit the desert road again, miles and miles of endless desert with occasional toll booths and service stations, the pale blue crash barriers lining the road turning to water in the mirage ahead. Trucks hammering past and now and then a few stalls by the side of the road selling nothing but melons, stopping for lunch under a bridge, the only shade for hundreds of kilometres. Managing to cover around 600km it was time to look for a gap in the fence so we could pull off the road and find a bush camp, which we successfully did. In previous trips China has never been easy for bush camping, but happily we managed to find a great place to stop for the evening, cook some lovely grub and enjoy one of our final nights under canvas. Bush camping is one of the highlights of these types of trip and it's a shame to be moving on to more the hotel side of things now, who knows, we might be able to squeeze a few more bushcamps in.

Bushcamp sunrise

Bushcamp sunset

Betsy

Gill and Rowan, up to something?

Chris and Jody

Moonlit camp

The final couple of hundred kilometres were slightly more bumpy than the previous section but we made it to Dunhuang in time for lunch. Passing an impressive wind farm en route we held a quick competition to make up a collective term for the turbines. Some creative suggestions from the group but we decided to go with Nick's “revolution of wind turbines”. Jeff a close second with “a flock of a lot of turbines”. Others were a bit less suitable for publishing!

Desert road to Dunhuang

We enjoyed our first taste of Buddhist art, starting off with one of the biggest collections in the world at the Mogao Caves, located on the Eastern slope of Rattling Sand Mountain. A system of 492 temples with Buddhist art spanning 1,000 years, the first caves being dug around 366 AD as places of Buddhist meditation and worship. The big buddha being the most impressive, housed in a nine storey building and standing at 34m high there were gasps as we entered and craned our necks to look up at it. By no means the biggest Buddha we will see on this trip, but not a bad start!

Mogao Caves

A couple of nights here in Dunhuang for further exploration, another exotic night market and a birthday. Bye for now.

  A friendly welcome at our hotel in Dunhuang again this year!