Arabic, Cyrillic & Chinese Characters

  Urumqi, Xinjiang Uygur, China
Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Urumqi which is set in central Xinjiang has a population of 1.5million people. Its also interesting that at 2250KM its also the furthest town in the world from an ocean.
I had to ask myself a couple of times, 'is this really China?'. Due to its large Uighur population the city has a very different feel in some parts with the language being completely different, Arabic script and foods such as Kebabs, Nan bread (which is freshly baked and sprinkled with sesamee seeds, nice) all sold on the streets. It sometimes makes you feel more like you are in Central Asia rather than China.

Loading up the bus

From Urumqi I wanted to catch the Silk Road Express train but unfortunately this only ran twice a week (on Saturday and Monday) and the bus was alot cheaper so this is what I did.
I arrived at the bus station about 7pm when the bus was due to leave but not everyone was there so we had to wait. There were some very European people also waiting and they asked me in broken English/Russian where I was from, told them Ang-liy-ski (England in Russian) and asked them where they were from in Russian, they told me Kazakhstan and then said 'do you know where that is?' I told them yes and also that I was going, which they were all very shocked at as they gave me a perplexed look. We finally set off at about

My bag on the bus

half 8. We then stopped about 10 minutes down the road to pick up some more people and what looked like 3 truck loads of boxes. This was all apparently going to fit into our bus?! For the next 3 hours until dark they loaded every spare space on the bus with boxes, every compartment and then not content with that, the whole walk way inside the bus and also seats on the bus were piled with boxes ceiling high. In amid of shouting at others and trying to fit boxes into space they clearly would not fit, one huge Russian guy accused me of been communist as I was wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt and had longish hair.
We arrived at the border at about 9am the next day, which was in the desert and in the distance I could see huge snow capped mountains.

Welcome to Kazakhstan

I managed to get some rice for breakfast and then moved on to cross the border. All of the others on the bus were on a group visa (because if the Chinese Olympics) so they had to wait with the bus. Myself and this one Kazak guy who had kind of taken me under his wing in an avuncular way, made our way for the border on foot and then on a small bike. Unable to predict his ulterior motives (which I hate to say, but there usually is one) I had no real choice but to continue with a hesitancy and a certain abeyance. He may of been a genuinely really nice guy or just wanted me with him for novelty and comedy of having a westerner with him, but he may also of wanted to rob me blind and make me his bitch but unfortunatly in this circumstance I can trust know one,

The bus I got on through no mans land

especially as he asked me to carry one of his bags over the border which he was genuinely struggling with (but still a bit suspicious). We made it over the through Chinese customs and border control to no mans land, where I had to hitch hike to the Kazak customs as I had no Kazak currency and then through the Chinese border control and customs by about midday. In Kazakhstan we sat at the bus station waiting for our bus to follow us through. Hours past until it came to about 6pm, now with only an hour before then borders closed for the day I began to inquire as to the where abouts of

Me and Vicom

our bus but with no avail. We waited and waited but no bus, then the border were closed, I was now stranded in Kazakhstan at 8pm, the light drawing in and still 7 hours from the city and with no Kazak money! We finally managed to blag our way on the last bus going, although did see him give the driver a bribe, we sat on the back row on a load of luggage and finally arrived at 3am in the morning. Then my Kazak friend said he knew some where we could stay but I was not so sure as he was suspiciously on the phone to someone at 3 in the morning??

Where my F#*#in bus?

I asked many taxis's but none on then knew where the small student dorm was where I wanted to stay so I had to get them to drop me at the big hotel by the station. My Kazak friend helped me direct and even paid for the taxi, it turns out that he was a nice guy after all, but better to be safe than sorry I guess. The hotel which I was now at was way to expensive for me and I didn't want to pay for a whole night because I had to apply for my Kyrgyzstan visa at 9am in the morning. I ended up spending the night on reception floors (although she did say could rent the room buy the hour for a ridiculous price.)