Crossing the Kazakh-Chinese border

On the day we crossed the border our initial plan was to camp about 20 km before the border and enter China the next day. We wanted to have sufficient time for leaving Kazakhstan, and thus Central Asia, and entering our 6th country on our journey. In the middle of the day, however, we decided spontaneously to enter China on the same day. The last few days were cold and we were really fed up with the poor food we had on the road. We imagined China, precisely Korgas as the first Chinese city behind the border, as our food paradise.

So we rushed to the border. We didn't know the business hours of the border station but we had something like from 7 am to 7 pm in our head. At 2 pm we were still 30 km away from the border. Suddenly we remembered that China has only one time zone, Beijing time. As Beijing is 2 hours ahead of Kazakhstan, so was Korgas. We were afraid that the Chinese would close the border at 5 pm. So we pedaled even harder. In total it was a 90 km ride to the border with a constant 1% climb on the last 30 km.

At 4:40 pm we arrived at the first Kazakh border post. They told us to hurry up. The border station would close soon. At that time we knew our assumption was right. From the first border post it was still about one km to the second Kazakh border post. The chief officer stopped us and contacted somebody on his walkie-talkie. We could pass but again we were told to hurry up. At 4:45 pm we arrived at the customs and passport handling. We handed over our registration card and got our departure stamp. At the customs they were expecting us. We were the last persons passing through the customs. Nobody showed any interest. They simply waved us through and the closed the border on the Kazakh side after us. The last Kazakh officer told us that the Chinese border would close in 10 minutes time.

On the Chinese side we were stopped by two border posts. The people at the last border post tried to explain that we couldn't go further to the customs and immigration building that was only 20 m in front of us. We didn't understand why and made an innocent face. They looked at the clock that showed 4:55 pm, didn't know what to do, sighed and let us through. The customs and immigration building was a modern building with all the security devices that you would expect at a border station. When we saw all that we realized how poorly equipped the Kazakh side was.

The Chinese customs officer were very curious but friendly. They were interested why I look like a Chinese, what my parents' name are and what they do. They checked our bags thoroughly. Very nice people!

We believe that our very late arrival made the border crossing very easy. Everybody wanted to go home what was to our advantage. There we were in China. We left Central Asia without paying any bribes! Yippiee! A new chapter has started with China and Southeast Asia.

Right after the border skyscrapers, very good roads and many cars welcomed us. What a difference! Only some minutes ago we still saw donkeys. We stayed a night in Korgas in a nice and cheap hotel and took a long shower. That night and the day after we ate at Chinese street rerstaurants. It was definitely the best food since we left home! We are finally in food paradise!

A sleeper bus took us 700 km over night to Ürümqi, the capital of the Xinjiang province. The beds were small but still ok for us. Standard Europeans would very likely have problems with the size. In the morning when we woke up, we were already in Ürümqi. Somehow we were sad that we missed that part of the road. What we had seen in the evening from the bus, had looked like a really nice road to ride by bike.