Getting to Kashgar

Day 1.

It starts with me realising that my alarm clock is out. We are late for the bus. Turns out the bus is leaving at 10 not 9. Oh, and it's not a bus - but a Russian van with improptu seating. 200 Som ($5USD). We grab some breakfast in a chayhana by the river and come back to find the 'bus' isn't working. Another one has come. We chat to an English student seeing her mother off. Turns out we've been ripped off by 50 som.

The road all but disappears outside Osh. 17 people are crammed into the van. I'm sitting on the spare tyre. Every change of gears is accompanied by a hideous grumbling. The engine stops. We have to push-start the van. Half an hour later, opposite some yurts in a valley, the drive shaft falls off the bus. We picnic on the grass and talk to a dude who's wearing striped black pants, striped black shirt and pointy shoes. He makes wedding videos.

Lunch is in a chayhana overlooking a pretty valley. Plov. Afterwards, the bus starts to climb up the steep valley, and causes the back door to burst half open, covering us in thick dust. After a few hours, we miraculously clear a 3620m pass. Sary Tash is below, on a wide plain with the Pamirs in the background - a 7000 metre line of white mountains.

As we get off the bus, we see another caucasian getting off a scrap-metal truck. Jason is from Sydney, and it has taken him 26 hours to get to Sary Tash from Osh. Our striped friend has a guest house. We stay there, in a pleasant Shyrdak covered room.

Day 2

There's not a cloud in the skies. The whole of the Pamirs are visible. We sit on the side of the road and wait for a truck to hitch on. Around 9:30 one stops. It's long and full of scrap metal. We share the cabin with two Kyrgyz guys going fishing and the 2 drivers. Our packs end up with the scrap metal. It's an amazingy scenic drive. It's also an amazing slow drive, but luckily it hasn't rained for 3 days. One of the two windows works and it's incrediby hot. At around 3500m we stop for lunch and get some Kumyz from a couple of nomads. Kumyz and vodka. Hmm... luckily I don't get the urge to explode as before.

4 pm we come to a checkpoint. It's closed and we have to wait for 2 hours. Jason's truck is there as are his driver friends. 2 more bottles of vodka are consumed. I'm seriously pissed.

We come to the border at night and our driver finds us a dorm with a bunch of old truckers - drinking, smoking, farting and playing cards until midnight. Irkeshtam seems pulled straight out of Mad Max - no running water, no toilet (old Russian trenches make an excellent substitute), skanky kids and dozens of trucks full of scrap metal.

Day 3

We get up in time to cross the border by foot. The officer in charge spends a long time deciding whether to try to extract bribes from us, then comes out with : "please tell people Kyrgyzstan is a good place." In the end my passport is inspected 6 times. We get on another scrap metal truck. The driver tells me about his time in Afghanistan, and how he constantly had an AK next to his gear stick, and how it would get so hot from firing that he couldn't hold it.

The Chinese side is closed in the middle of the day for 4 hours for "lunch". Getting to China is getting to civilisation - there's a temperature measuring gadget, X-ray, computers, and a road. Unforunately there is not bus and we're forced to get a taxi for the 300km to Kashgar ($12). Amazing change of scenery : no trees, no grass - just multicoloured canyons, and streams flowing over the road. When it all flattens out, there are tall white poplars, and people walking all over the road (Uyghur).

Kashgar is very Chinese, despite being full of Uyghurs - something I didn't expect, but which I'm not complaining about. Finally, decent food and not being able to figure out what the hell is happening.