KAZAKHSTAN - CHINA

Arriving at the Chinese border was exciting but ended in disappointment. Getting trough the Kazakhstan side was easy, it took some time but that’s because they shut down the border during their two hour lunch break. When we finally drove over to the Chinese side we were stopped by the most polite English-speaking guard. “May I see your passport? Thank you sir... I’m sorry, you need special permission to drive in china…..and I am afraid it takes a very long time to get”. We had to drive back with 5 days left on our Kazakhstan visa.
We made camp 20km from the border and started talking about our options over a bottle of vodka. The best camping experience I’ve ever had. Sunny and warm during the day and a big fire at night, good coffee, good food and 15 pages written on White Snow Ep2. Three nights later we came back to the border, it was closed, lunch. We spent the two hours finding a place to put the car before crossing over on foot. We wanted to buy horses and ride to Beijing. After crossing in to china we quickly we found a taxi and tried to explain that we wanted to buy horses. 20 minutes and 3 phone calls later we talked with a woman who understood English, “you want to leave earth on horses?”. “19 kilometers” the girl on the phone told us. 90 kilometers later on the worst road ever made, in a taxi that had the earliest in tricycle suspension, we arrived at a mountain village. The driver found 3 horses and their owners. After talking with them for a while, the original 20 000 NOK for three horses became 15000, but still way too much for 3 horses when we paid the same for 188. We spent three days in the border town, located in the “XinJiang” region. A region China has “grounded” without internet and without the possibility to call anyone outside the region. This is because 100 or so people have died in terrorist attacks during this summer. Since we’re not backpackers we resist public transportation. So for the 700 km to Urumqi we hired a taxi. A Chinese taxi may be comfortable for Chinese people, but for us the legroom didn’t exist.. We drove during the fog filled night and our driver was sleepy, but it didn’t stop him driving 180 km/h. By the way, 700 km in a taxi costs 900NOK.