Entry to China - bureaucracy gone mad

Day 39 271 km ( 11824km total)

A good 3800m high level ride through the Torugart pass, then grinding to a halt with the most complex entry process so far.

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OK so first, how am I getting on getting through the Great Firewall of China?  

Well I am told the text of the blog I did last night has got through my 'special route' ok (though I can't see it myself of course), but without photos. I thought that might happen as I have been trying to email or message photos home and they are not getting through either. So back to the drawing board with that for a while.

In the meantime I will continue with text only and add photos as soon as I can, so I am afraid you will have to imagine the scenes until then - good excercise for your grey matter though ;-)

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Emerging from my bed in the yurt, still clothed in biking gear sure saves some time in the morning, probably not a habit to get in at home though!

I actually slept pretty well, it was cold and the bed was very hard, but I was quite comfortable in the frosty fresh air - maybe the lack of oxygen at 3800m helped, certainly had some interesting dreams that night!

Breakfast in the yurt tent was a lovely warming local version of porridge, more like rice pudding really, but great with some jam in. Russ doesnt do porridge, so I was able to have his also ... Yum :-)

We scraped the ice off the bikes, packed up & set off back over the stream crossing & down the track, which looked even more beautiful in the fresh morning air. A herd of yak were wandering down the valley and across the road, they ignore you until you are almost on top of them, then they bolt - so its important to keep your wits about you.

After 45 minutes we were back on the main road to the border, which was in excellent condition most of the way. There has clearly been extensive construction on this road in recent years, some still continuiing, mostly with chinese workers it seems, judging from the signs on the construction lorries.

Exiting Kzyrgystan at the border was uneventful, but then we had to ride some 40km past endless queues of waiting lorries to the chinese entry border, through a couple of army checkpoints and get there by 11am or it would close for 3 hours..  

We arrived at about 11:05 just as the gates were closing, but some fast talking between the Kzyrgystan 'fixer' we had hired, our chinese 'guide' on the other side of the gates and the border guards resulted in us being waved inside. We were now on Chinese soil - I think - as it all gets very confusing from here.

We had our passports and other documents checked and were then told to proceed to the next checkpoint, another 30 minute ride. This was customs and we had to unload all our bags, open the panniers and send the bags though an xray machine. More passport & document checks and then after an hour or so we were sent on our way.

We were definately in China and desecnding from the oxygen starved heights we had been at, the roads were fantastic sweeping down from the mountains, but I was conscious that I didnt have an entry stamp in my passport nor an import document for the bike - so it was evident the bureaucracy wasnt finished yet.

After maybe 70km of riding inside China we came to another checkpoint / border point. Here we had to have everything checked again, but here also was an actual passport stamping booth, so at least we were then officially stamped in. The bikes were another thing however.

It seems that the documentation that had been sent many weeks earlier to Kashgar officials, who after completing, checking & approving had sent onto Beijing (for further checking & approval) had not been returned in time and were not waiting at the 'border' point to compare to the actual bikes. So they were in-effect impounded until they arrived. This took about 3 hours to resolve, during which time we just had to sit & wait outside.

Two of our party of 7 were also informed that they would need to come up with $250 each as they were over 60 years of age. This was aledgedly to 'enable' approvals to be completed in a few hours rather than a few days due to new rules that had come into effect.

This pattern of complex (and sometimes non-sensical) rules, 'jobs worth' clerks & officers, apparent stalemate, followed by escalation to local or remote superiors, fast talking, or sometimes exchange of money resulting in re-evaluation of rules enabling progress, was to repeat itself time & time again.

Its all very frustrating, especially when you have been in the road for many hours, but you just have to remember it is their country, you are just a visItor & go with the flow.

So we left the final checkpoint & headed into Kashgar, just as it was going datk for our first night on chinese soil.

Day 40 92 km ( 11916 km total )

Such a frustrating day

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Today's task was to take the bikes to the police inspection site in a nearby town, to have them checked and verified against the paperwork (again) physically checked for roadworthiness, get our vehicle permits approved, chinese driving licences & insurance.

The site we needed to get to was less than an hour away from the hotel using the toll road - and here is another great example of the chinese system in action.

The seven of us who are crossing china together (to keep costs down) followed our guide/fixer out of the hotel car park in a convoy, attracting a lot of attention from the locals (big bikes are a very rare sight here, let alone foreign ones)

We navigate the city traffic and local roads and head for the toll road - our guide having previously told us he would try to get us in it if he can (bikes are not allowed on expressways)

First we had to get some fuel as we were all running in fumes by now. 

Fuel stations here are protected by fences, tank traps, barbed wire & a security guard - oh and bikes are not allowed in!

So we stop outside the first whilst our fixer tries to negotiate entry for us - no joy. Then to the next, better luck this time and we are allowed in to fill one at a time away from the cameras.

Apparently the issue is a concern that bikes are dangerous as they have hot exposed engines and so may spontaneously explode at the pump - or somethimg like that. The normal safety process therefore, is to park the bike 15m away from the pump & then dispense the fuel into a watering can or large tea pot and carry it to the bike to fill the tank - yes really!

Anyway our fixer managed to get us filled in the normal 'unsafe' way on this occasion. But this pattern has had to repated at every station we tried to use since.

Onto the police inspection site where we are told to park the bikes in the same order as the approval request list against a wall and wait for inspection.

Nothing happnes for about an hour and a half & then someone comes out with lots of documents to check our engine & chassis numbers. Then we are told to wait again.

Then they all weant on lunch break, which we were told would last 3 hours - and it did!

We finally left the site with the necassary approvals after about 8 hours of sitting outside waiting - the only physical action was the engine number checks, all the rest was apperantly paperwork, though unseen by us. Crazy!

So an entire day was spent getting fuel & approvals and it was dark again when we got back to the hotel. So much for seeing Kashgar, a historical silk road city!