As the present now will…
Sunday night, a windy day, a quiet day. Cam left a message asking if we were leaving China soon, and we are. If everything goes according to plan we should be leaving here either Saturday the 29th or Sunday the 30th of April. Chooch’s visa will be up on the 14th of May, and while we can extend that another month, we would like to be out of China by then.
The current plan is to head down to Hotan, a 15 hour bus trip across the Taklamakan Desert that Michael did last year by motorcycle. We will spend 2 or 3 days in Hotan (known to the Chinese as Hetian) looking at carpets and fossicking for jade. If we don’t find a 2 tonne jade boulder we will head from there to Kashgar (again known to the Chinese by a different name - Kashi). One of the other foreigners, Brendan, and our Uighyr friend Mohammed will probably travel with us.
Kashgar is a city which, unlike the prefectural capital Urumqi, has so far escaped the ravages of Chinese architecture. Famous for its market and the tomb of Abakh Hoja (Maziri) and the Id Kad Mosque - the largest in Xinjiang. Spend a few days here and then take the bus (7 hours) to Tashkurgan. At Tashkurgan we will try to take the bus into Pakistan over the Karakoram highway.
Since the September 11th incident international travel has been affected globally. We have conflicting information as to whether we need visas to enter Pakistan via the Karakoram highway. Most of the information is in Japanese as this route is much more popular with Japanese than westerners. As far as we can work out the decision as to whether one can leave China this way is mostly at the whim of the immigration officer on duty.
If we can’t leave China via the highway, then it will be a long train ride across country to Dun Huang where we can get a bus on into Tibet. From Tibet we will cross into Nepal and on into India.
Looking forward to a change in diet and some cricket. If we make it to Pakistan, we will be travelling in mostly safe areas. We have read the travel advisories put out by both the American State Department, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Ministry and Aotearoa’s own MFAT. Our travels in Pakistan will take us through one town - Gilgit - where we will change bus, which is advised against.
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