A long day of travel, and still not over…
September 4th, 2010 at 21:24
Leaving Ruoqiang for Korla at 10.00 this morning, the final plan was to find a way to reach Bayinbolak. After six hours through the desert we reached Korla and was recommended to continue to Hejing another 86 km north where they should have a bus.
In Hejing we bought ticket for departure 0700 the following day. Satisfied we went to find a hotel. This showed to be the hard part. After almost an hour and three hotels we ended up at the police station. Apparently was foreigners not allowed to stay in the city, nor travel in the district at all. Even Bayinbolak was restricted. One explanation why no one stopped us earlier could be that I speak Chinese and they don’t, strange enough, believe I am a foreigner before I hand over my passport. Then they realise they can’t host me. There are a lot of non typical Chinese looking here in xinjiang as it is close to central Asia and Russia.
Disappointed we had to return our tickets and get new ones, this time to urumqi on a sleeper which is just about to leave and arrive tomorrow morning, unless delayed due to the bad weather…
Update: the bus just rammed a herd of sheep. They covered the road and sleeping on the first row I had a clear view of how the bus tried to stop but slowly slowly went straight into them and you could here “bonk” after “bonk” as the sheeps when down like bowling pins. Luckily they all survived thanks to the slow speed and space underneath.
