China

Aksu

Apparently, the driver insisted, he'd been this way six months ago as we stood in front of the dam blocking the canyon.

The point was to take the more interesting side road rather than the efficient but dull main road. As it turned out, the guide's sister ran a restaurant near Bey and we got some free tucker and to meet the family.

Thanks to wrong turns and roadworks avoiding detours the 250k became close to 350km but otherwise a pleasant enough ride.

Aksu Ying Bin Hotel, Aksu: n41 9.976 e80 15.513

Kashgar

The driver wanted to start at 6am which we managed to defer to 7 (which was still 10mins before the sun comes up) to avoid the traffic on the main road. It had been ugly overtaking trucks for the last 50km yesterday so no-one wanted to get stuck in lorry hell. As it was we seemed to miss virtually all of it for a six hour run for the 450+km into Kashgar.

I'm now sat inn the (Lonely Planet) famous John's cafe slurping a beer using the free Internet. This is far and away the highest concentration of Westerners I've seen in China (less than a dozen at any one time).

Seman Hotel, Kashgar: n39 28.232 e75 58.044

Self-Drive Tours of China

The rules say that if you're self-driving you must have an escort. You can't sneak about quite so easily as certainly the Customs and Immigration people already had copies of the vehicle documents when we arrived. If you can manage to avoid them maybe you can make it about without too much police hassle. The guide vehicle was stopped a lot but I was only stopped once by an (seemingly) 11-year old policeman who realised his mistake as soon as I said hello. Almost no-one in this part of China speaks English.

On a motorbike, the guide will need a car so I've been stung for a fortune. $2900 for the nine days (plus $50 for some visa documents plus $35+$45 for hotel and guide costs because I turned up a day late). I've also had to buy some food, petrol for approx. 3000km and I realise I'll have to give the driver and guide some tips ($50 each? The driver certainly deserves it, we've had two twelve hour days on the road). If we knock off tomorrow, a rest day, then my $3100 over eight days is...a lot. Far and away the most I have paid per day for any holiday. Nearly double Bhutan!

However, as noted, almost no-one speaks any English. You can clearly get a room for the night, there are plenty of signs for hotels in English (even if the staff don't speak any) but getting food would be a nightmare. A menu in Chinese and no English translation. Now order some food.

You might think some universal hand gestures might be in order but then you might not have travelled far, there's no such thing. Waving your hands in front of your mouth indicating eating food would translate but then you're in a restaurant already.

When some onlookers were looking at my sheepskin seat cover I did point at it and go "baa baa" (rather than "cough cough" but that's another story) and got a good laugh from the crowd. I assume they also understood it was a sheepskin...

Food and Lodging

Officially I've been in 3-star hotels and yes, the facilities match the 3-star rating guides but see below under hygiene.

The restaurants we've been going to have been roadside cafes on the whole. There's possibly an element of that because of where we are that's all there is and possibly an element of keeping costs down. Food and beer is not expensive in China, a plate of fried noodles (with veg and a smattering of meat) might cost Y9 (about GBP1) and a beer from a shop Y3 (30p for 650ml) although it might cost triple that (at this John's cafe, for example!).

I've not had any problem with the food other than becoming a bit blocked up by the constant ravages of a meat rich diet and a bit of dehydration during the day.

See the hygiene section again.

Service Culture

On the scale of service culture China ranks at the brusque, surly and indifferent end of the market. The only person who's paid us any attention and, indeed, even smiled, was the guide's sister and she may have had an alterior motive.

Like India and Pakistan, there seems to be a lot or arguing/shouting over the ordering of the simplest dishes. I've no idea what people say, perhaps they're debating the precise length of the noodles or something. You're left to shout for you tea (for drinking) and regularly obliged to find your own chopsticks and tissues for tidying up.

Often there'll be no acknowledgement that you asked for anything (note this is never me asking for anything, always the guide or driver) and you just wait a bit and see what happens.

The food itself has been fine even in the dodgy kebab shop (the Uyghur claim the word kebab) the driver took me to where knuckle, gristle and fat constituted the majority of the "meat."

Here at John's they are a bit better but they're very clearly tourist oriented (just look at the prices).

Hygiene

Ho ho ho.

Certainly what's underfoot is not a concern here, in the hotels or restaurants. The FR famille reported when they were here the first night in Kashgar the children's room's floor was littered with fag ends and wrappers and who knows what. They complained and asked for it to be cleaned then headed out and came back to find them watering the floor... Vacuum cleaners are not widely used.

In restaurants you probably want to be first in when the floor is clean. After that consider each table as being piled with food then having some fire-crackers set off on the table creating a mini-bomb site all around. What was left on the table is wiped onto the floor ready for the next customers.

Food and god knows what on the walls, fag ends on the floor plus general detritus and this is the hotel rooms.

People

The people in this part of China are quite distinct from the rest of China. They are a multi-cultural mix of Central Asian races (Tajiks, Kyrg, Mongols, Persian, ...) in fact virtually anything except Han Chinese (the Chinese you're most familiar with).

The result is a group of people that I would mistake for Eastern European in physiology as well as dress. The men dress vaguely normally, noting that this is a Muslim corner off the world so a few men wear prayer caps but most wear a peculiar "square" cap (for want of a better description. It's like one of the Marquis of Bath's (?) multicoloured bead covered round caps but squared off. (Yes, GD, I'm going to try and get you one!)

The women, however, are straight out of the East European stock. The Islamic code requires that they're mostly covered, here usually a headscarf, long sleeve top, then long skirt with leggings or those tights/leggings that end in a couple of inches of lace plus a pair of tights and then almost universally, an awful pair of shoes. Usually of the pixie boot style with a lot of the material cut away (a bit like a gladiator shoe) but sparkly. They do like a bit of sparkle (skirts, tops, headscarves). Anything, presumably, to take your eye away from those shoes.

Han Chinese look like Western women, or in this case like Japanese women.

Culture

A bit hard to tell the culture especially as the Uyghur are so distinct. The TV tells me they like China's Got Talent and war films involving prison scenes.

Presentation

This is a bit hard to describe. I have the feeling that there is a lot of effort put into the initial presentation of things but then is let down badly if you take the slightest peek behind the curtains.

Electric Scooters

These are very popular. Unfortunately, you can't hear the buggers coming so you have a quarter of a ton of metal a flesh appearing out of the blue. Luckily, some are getting on a bit and you can hear them rattling up behind you as they threaten to fall apart on the owner.

Environment

Electricity is not cheap and, as you know, less than a quarter of the leccy pumped in reaches the end consumer so all those electric bikes... The pollution must appear elsewhere.

That said, I've seem very little pollution of any kind. Xinjiang is not a densely populated area and so correspondingly industry will also be less dense but where it is is is nothing like as polluting as India (or to a lesser extent Pakistan). One dirty smoke stack, that's about it.

Where there is engineering works for trucks along the road side there are the expected piles of tyres and metal but not so much litter and certainly no oil spills or stinking pools.

There lots of effort to plant 10m of poplar trees either side of the roads where there is water to sustain them. How environmentally sound this is I'm not sure but any kind of vegetation will help reduce desertification which is a good thing.

As ever, where there is water, and there is always a surprising amount in the desert, there is plenty of crop growth and I recall on entering the oasis near Moyu (on the way to Hotan) the temperature dropped almost 8C immediately. Very nice!

Kettles

A peculiar one for us bikers. There is an almost universal aversion to filling motorbikes direct from the pump. I've not yet managed to get the guide to translate directly the reasons they give but I'm shouted away towards the motorbike filling area (off to the side away from the pumps). There's been some suggestion the necks of the Chinese motorbike tanks are too narrow and something about there being electrics underneath where you're filling the tank. What do they think happens in Europe? I don't suppose they care.

Anyway, the net result of this safety initiative is that a large kettle (think camp fire jobbie) is filled at the pump. This open container is then lugged over to the motorbike filling area where if you're unlucky you'll need to use a funnel (or a cut-off water bottle) or if you're lucky the kettle will have a piece of hose attached to the spout -- which is, of course, even wider than the pump nozzle that filled it. You then do your best to glug the open container of fuel into your tank. Usually, twice in my case.

We've found three places, I think, where we've filled directly from the pump and I think in two of those we caught them by surprise.

Summary

It's certainly an experience but one I think you can easily have at less than $400 per day.