The weather was very cold up at Irkeshtam, around -10C.

Goodbye to the truck that brought me up

The border only opens at 9am. Walked to the border at 9am and saw the Osh-Kashgar bus waiting behind the trucks.

The bus

After getting my passport stamped at the Krygyz side, got on another truck driven by a friendly Uygur guy to Chinese passport control area 1km away.
Crossing the border

There were a few young Chinese border guards, they were quite friendly and chatted with me. A guard spot checked my bag, looked over the photos on my camera and asked about the type of books I have with me. Security is still tight at the border.

Got back on a truck and traveled around 3km to the Chinese immigration checkpoint. Road on the Chinese side is better and buildings look nicer. When I got to the hall, I heard a familiar Chinese pop song and felt a sense of familiarity with the country after visiting a few non English speaking countries for the passed months. The Chinese border guards told me that I am the first Malaysian who is crossing the pass this year and maybe the last one for the year.

Finally China, this will be my 6th time in China and my first backpacking trip.

I was pretty impressed with the efficiency of the guards. At the counter, there was even a machine with 5 buttons to rate the quality of work of the immigration officer, there are options such as if the officeris too slow or rude… This was so much different from Central Asian countries where border guards were looking for ways to get bribes.

Got through the Chinese border at 10am which is considered quite smooth fast for crossing Irkeshtam pass.
Irkeshtam Pass at the Chinese side

Got on a small truck at 10.30am towards Kashgar (80 yuan~USD$11.5).
Small truck to Kashgar

Snow capped mountain

Mountain goats

Wild horse

Horse carrying hay

Stopped at a small town for lunch and there were only Uygur people at the cafe. I remembered an advice from someone saying not to sound Han Chinese so I spoke some broken Russian I learned from the passed weeks with the owner instead.

The truck driver then told me he was not going to Kashgar, so he put me on another taxi to AhTuShi then got on another taxi to Kashgar. Finally, arrived at Kashgar around 4pm after a 48 hours journey on multiple vehicles from Almaty.

Stayed at Hotel Tuman (30 yuan~USD$7.4 for a room with shared bathroom). 4 out of the passed 5 nights, I had been sleeping on different kinds of vehicles. 2 nights on an overnight bus, an overnight taxi ride and a cold night on a truck so I am looking forward to a sleep on a real bed.

My 30 Yuan room

Good to know that the place I am staying is able to resist bacteria..lol

Kashgar is one of the reason I thought about going through the silk road. I thought it’s an old, traditional caravan town but how wrong was I. The city of around 500,000 people is quite modern and well organized. Most of the buildings in the city looked new and even in Western China I can feel that Kashgar is a very enterprising and capitalist city. There were all kinds of shops, restaurants, many hotels and internet cafes everywhere. People in China are very entrepreneurial and China is sort of a capitalist country under a communist government. However I didn’t expect Kashgar to be the same way before I got here. It’s like if you are planning to open a business, someone might have already thought about it before.

There are many internet cafes in Kashgar but the whole Xinjiang provice can’t get on the internet since the riot in Urumqi in July. Only XinJiang’s internal websites are accessible. Some people might be horrified at the censorship and thought that communist China is violating people’s right to obtain information. However, I don’t think it’s that bad and controlling information is one way to prevent people from spreading rumours and inciting violence. Internet is an double edged sword and it’s easy for even an individual to spread wrong information and to create havoc. It’s also not possible to send sms using cell phone.

China has only 1 time zone but Xinjiang has sort of their own unofficial time which is 2 hours earlier. Even though most signs are in Chinese but not all Uygur understand Mandarin and Uygur speaks Mandarin with a foreigner accent.

Uygur meat seller

Id Kah Mosque

Uygur fast food

City View

Fried noddles for dinner (9 Yuan~USD$1.3)

Being adventurous and tried some lamb internal organs, I didn’t even know which part did I eat

Uygur family

hmm..the logo is a little similar to McDonalds

Didn’t expect Kashgar having a playboy store

Outdoor dancing at 8pm Xinjiang time, 10pm Beijing time. It’s around -5C but still many outdoor activities going on.

Outdoor badminton

Outdoor gym

Outdoor Ball room dancing

Square

Krygyzstan is still a poor country,
A typical house in the village

there aren’t any big industry in the country. On the road, I saw just animals husbandary but people here loves Mercedes and Audis, those cars were everywhere.

The taxi dropped some people off at Jalal Abad and the driver put me in another taxi to Osh.
View on the way from Jalal Abad

Arrived at Osh around 12pm and altogether, the ride from Bishkek to Osh took 13 hours.

There are a few options going from Osh to Kashgar. To Irkeshtam pass it’s around 240 km from Osh and another 250 kms from the border to Kashgar. Asked around for buses from Osh to Kashgar but no one seems to know about it. Later, I found out that there is another new bus station at the north part of town.
New Long Distance bus station in Osh

Took a cab there since I am rushing for time, paid the driver slightly more since he seemed like a good guy. Found out that the bus from Osh to Kashgar

runs only twice a week, Sunday and Thursday 8pm. The bus ticket cost USD$70+100Som.

There are also travel agencies that will arrange transporation from Osh till Irkeshtam pass for USD$180 per car. Usually they will leave in the day, stay overnight at Sary Tash then head to the border the next day. The road to Irkeshtam is very bad so I guess that’s why it’s so expensive.

Finally, decided to take a shared taxi to Sary Tash at 2.30pm,

managed to get a price of 400 Som~USD$9 after some haggling.

Along the way up the mountains, there were all kinds of animals on the road
Lambs

Cows

Horses

Scenary

Got to a cafe in the mountain

at 6.30pm for dinner, had lamp soup (100 Som~USD$2), this is my first meal for the day.

There were some truck drivers and the taxi driver helped me communicate to them that I need to get to the border. One driver allowed me to get on his truck.
Krygyz’s truck drivers

Tajiks and Krygyz drivers rest stop.

Tajiks look like people from Iran and Krygyzs look a little like Mongol and they sat separately from each other.

The road up the mountain is very bad and bumpy. Normal cars will have problem getting to the pass. Finally, got to Irkeshtam pass at 11.30pm. The driver slept in a guesthouse and I paid him my leftover Krygyz money to sleep in the truck.

It was so cold sleeping in the truck up in the mountain and I almost froze.