We had a great Stephie-Rai plan to reach Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan) via the 3750m Torugart pass near to the city of Kashgar in Western China. Unfortunately the weather on that cold Monday morning had other ideas. It snowed and snowed and snowed...Chinese immigration were not doing much apart from clearing the snow in the car park. The problem lay further up the mountain 100km away on the Kyrgyzstan side where the road was completely blocked by the snow. And apparently they only have a big shovel or two to clear it! So after twiddling our thumbs for 7 hours, Chinese immigration told us there was 0% percent chance of the border being opened. So we reluctantly headed back to Kashgar. And next day same story from immigration with an important addition: the pass would be closed for at least 1 week and obviously they were closed at the weekend for relaxation time.
Sooo the next day we tried the Irkeshtam pass further south. This time Chinese immigration told us that at least 200 people were stuck a the top of the pass because Kyrgyzstan had no way of clearing their roads. And once you stamp out of China with a single entry visa there was only one way up: -a very difficult 5-6 hour journey through a kind of no-mans-land to the top of the pass and with the heavy snow it was unlikely we would reach it even with the 4x4 we had rented. So we would have an exit stamp of China but no entry stamp into Kyrgyzstan. And from the horrible weather forecast we estimated it was going to be a horrible cold wait of 4-5 days at the pass before we could get down the mountain on the Kyrgyzstan side.....shite.
Sooooooo all direct overland entries into Kyrgyzstan were closed. We thought about catching the train in Urumqi and going via Almaty in Kazakhstan and getting a bit of the Ali G feeling but we had no transit visa and the Kazakhstan Consulate in Urumqi would be closed for the whole week due to National start of spring holidays (thank you Navrus). The long visa wait in a typical boring Chinese city like Urumqi would be too painful to imagine!
It was game over for us. The overland plan had come to a grinding halt and we had no choice but to purchase an expensive flight. Finding space on a flight was another matter. We finally found a flight a few days later that would take us to the southern Kyrgyzstan city of Osh. In the mean time we chilled out in the wonderful Silk Road outpost oasis of Turpan: famous in China for three very different reasons - the hottest place in China (luckily we were there in spring), the lowest point in China (over 100 metres below sea level) and the best place in China to buy and eat grapes! There are also some wonderful ruined cities dating as far back as 360 AD and you can eat tasty kebabs and Uighur style noodles without having to wear a Goretex jacket (like we have been doing for the last few months!)- see photos!
We had a great time in Turpan even if we felt slightly cheated by the bad weather and our bad luck in Kashgar! I am sure our luck will change once we hit the slow road again towards Western Europe. Bring on the spring sunshine and the t-shirt weather!
Who said that travelling in Central Asia is difficult. It's getting there in early spring that seems to be the challenge!
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