29/8/25
At breakfast with met with Asier, and also his friend Elsbieta. She had bailed out of eastern Xinjiang on account of the irritating road closures and anti-foreigner measures. Elsbieta and Asier were heading to Pakistan. By around 10:30am we managed to get away and fought our way through the electric mopeds. Bicycle lanes obviously not for pedalling traffic, they were full of momentum interrupting speed bumps.
Reaching the west of Kashgar we found ourselves on the inspiringly named Karakoram Highway. Known as the G314. It was also the third of the “Eight Wonders of the World” we’d seen so far in China. Far from holding up the romantic notions that the name had induced, it was a dual carriageway from hell. Faded lane markings made it a merge fest. Luckily there was usually a hard shoulder, apart from over the odd bridge.
Leaving the G314 at Shufu, we cut the corner off the Highway and took some smaller roads. Some were busy but some were quiet. Traffic wasn’t too unkind. We rode past fields of corn. Slender trees often providing shade. Weird little police checkpoints were on every side road. The people appeared to be Uyghurs, heads often rested on their desks. Petrol stations were well guarded. Police officers manned the barriers.
Surrounded by extremely dry, dusty land we periodically saw green-yellow peaches for sale. Typically vigorous speed bumps made us weave from road to cycle lane. We stopped in Tashmiliq for cold drinks, nectarines and bananas. The people seemed to be unwilling to engage in anything more than exchanging the odd glance.
We left Tashmiliq heading west, crossed the Gaizi River, so named for its greyness, then turned south onto the Karakoram Highway once more. People were friendly enough. Smiling, waving and giving us the thumbs up. Single carriageway with a wide shoulder, but busy. Trucks raged past, horns blaring. No patience. Cones separated the lanes. Presumably to deter overtaking. The road was now as we’d expected. Perfectly slick black tarmac. Gradually, constantly, climbing.
Suddenly, what we thought were clouds, revealed themselves as snowy peaks. The Pamirs lay ahead of us. Alongside us were gigantic rippled sandstone mountains. A few kilometres further and we stopped in Oytagh. Not really more than just a visitors centre. Content with our progress we gave into the luxury of the hotel. More expensive than we’d have liked, twice the price of Kashgar, but better than trying to find any other shelter from the burning Sun.
They seemed used to cyclists. Bikes could go under the stairs. For dinner we walked to a line of nearby restaurants. A pack of young children swarmed us as we were waiting for our food. “My name is China”, they repeated inexplicably. They couldn’t read Mandarin or speak or read Uyghur. The new generation of Mandarin speakers had been born. We ordered tofu and got jellied bean curd. A vegetable dish we’d assumed was only greens was actually full of egg. We did our best to pick round it.