WESTERN CHINA 🇨🇳 - Driving Australia to Scotland - Episode 62

Rewinding back to our China crossing..

Not to miss a section of the journey, this episode covers our journey through the Xinjiang province of China; starting from the Khunjerab Pass (4,693m) crossing at the North of Pakistan to the Torugart Pass (3,752m) at the crossing to the South of Kyrgyzstan.

When travelling with a car or motorbike through China, you’re required to be escorted by a tour guide which unfortunately is a costly exercise. Sharing the costs with another couple, we were required to pay US $1800 per vehicle for our 5 day dash across China. The scenery in this part of the world was extremely beautiful, the food was delicious and the people were friendly. We would of loved to have been able to stay longer though at that price 5 days was as much as we could do.

Checking into China was a tedious task, as anticipated, though with a bit of patience all went smoothly and we were in (at least through Customs anyway). Immigration was another 120kms down the road in the town of Tashkurgan. Due to “internet difficulties” we had to leave the vehicles in the Customs yard for the first 24 hours until they’d been cleared. The next day whilst we waited we were able to wander about the local area and check out the stunning wetlands and food market.

By the time we were able to pick the Troopy up it was too late to be leaving to Kashgar, so the following morning we set off on the 300km journey. The drive itself was incredible; we wound our way down from the brisk temps of Tashkurgan (3,094m), traversing past frozen lakes, meeting “double camels” and flying through valleys over crazy bridges, to the city of Kashgar (1,270m).

Kashgar has served as a trading post on the Silk Road and has been a strategically important city on the Silk Road between China, the Middle East and Europe with its history stretching over 2000 years. In 1986 the Chinese government designated Kashgar a "city of historical and cultural significance" and have recently completed renovations on a small section of the old town, which we explored on foot on our day off. When walking around the beautiful old town, it was easy to feel like we’d been swept away to a place in history some centuries ago, though with a quick hop across a road we were back in the modern CBD of Kasghar to the reality of today. There’s a lot of reading to be done on this part of the world, though I’ll leave that part up to you.

With our short trip through China finished already, we head off to the Kyrgyzstan border crossing ready for a new, un-guided adventure.

Thanks for watching!

Jolie and Mark