4280

Quiet morning at the hotel. Did get a bit late to bed after KTV and then midnight Skype with Mikkel's parents. Breakfast at the hotel with the usual funny Asian/Western mix of cake, noodles, congee, sprite and stirfry.

Left the hotel for a drive to Urumqi to visit a museum with mummies and then directly to Heavenly Lake for a yurt camp. Or that was at least the plan. 

In order to short cut a 550 km highway drive our trusted guides chose an alternative route. In the beginning it was just a nice drive and we enjoyed a very good lunch next to a river. Beautiful setting. The idea was still to continue and be in Urumqi in the afternoon to visit the museum. But the road started to turn into a steep mountain road and in the afternoon we were looking at snow covered peaks, the tarmac turned into gravel roads many kilometres ago. When we got to the top and crossed the mountain pass - at 4280 meters! - a little snow was falling. Going down was at least as impressive (or scary) as going up. At least ten switchbacks. Let's just say some were very excited about the ride - it was beautiful - others were scared (including one of the M's writing this blog) because the road was very narrow and the valley was far far away. 

After many turns and at a lower altitude we had a break to enjoy the impressive mountain view – and then there was more fun because we were nowhere near “down”. The gravel road continued for 50 kilometers at least driving through an impressive gorge. Traffic picked up a bit with other trucks going up and down, but the drive continued to be impressive and beautiful. Occasionally there would be smashed trucks or cars at the bottom of valley for those poor unlucky guys that forgot to turn at the right corner. But it was maybe the most fascinating drive of the whole trip (One of the M's would still have liked to be without the short cut).

We finally arrived at a hostel in Urumqi at 21:30 in the evening. Not according to the itinerary since we were supposed to yurt at Heavenly Lake but it wasn't possible to reach it that day. A long driving day done. Overlanding is full of surprises.

View from hotel

Asian breakfast

Nice valley drive

A bit of snow on the mountains in the distance

Closer to the snow on the mountains

That's the road we're aiming for

Looking at the mountain road half way down

KTV bar = Karaoke

Today we had another long drive through the desert from Aksu to Korla.

Our Chinese guide isn't always that good a judging how many hours a drive will take which meant we had a very late lunch today. Our guide Eioin decided to get the cook groups to shop for lunches for the next couple of days so we don't rely on getting into the town at lunch time or that we drive through towns where we can stop for lunch. There are far between the towns here.

We were supposed to stay a another hotel than we ended up on. But 20 minutes before our arrival the hotel called and told that the tourist police had decided we couldn't stay there. Apparently not such an uncommon thing to happen around here.

Mikkel and I went out for dinner with Kate, Muriel, David, Neill and Nico and after dinner we made a spontaneous decision about going to the hotel's KTV bar = karaoke bar. We got our own karaoke room and hostess who brought us beer, tea, snacks and fruit. We sang and laughed for 3 hours. I'm not sure any of us were good singers but the music was loud and everybody joined in so it was incredibly fun.

Break

Bob and Owen

Snack time

It's a whole new life now

Mikkel is trying to avoid the Kate-fluenza. Too late

One of the many factories along the road

Tired from all the reading

We have lots of fun

Would you like dish #3?

Who's middle aged and who's old?

Once again we eat with a lazy Susan

Nico and Mikkel in a duet

Nico, Mikkel and Malene

David and Muriel in a duet

Kate and Neil

Mikkel and Nico

Our fancy room

Beer and tea

Nice fruit platter

Our hostess is a bit bored after 3 hours

Kate and Neill

Long drive from Kashgar to Aksu

The title says it all. It was a long drive today through the Taklaman desert. You can't really say it's a spectacular drive so a lot of sleeping for many of us. 

We did have a service check on the truck when we had a break. Bob and Owen got the chance to get oily hands.  

We arrived late in Aksu. We were told not to walk around too many in a group in order not to draw too much attention to us. It's not really a tourist city. Since we learned that it's good to order food as a group and not a plate per person seven of us went to a restaurant together and ordered together. This time there were no pictures, they didn't get our Chinese signs we had from other menu cards so we decided just to point at seven different things on the menu card. Once in a while you're lucky. It was a fantastic dinner with seven amazing dishes and all very different. 

It's very light in the evening. We're on Beijing time - 6 hours ahead of Denmark - so it doesn't get dark until 10 pm. We decided not to go home straight after dinner and went to a nearby park with Kate (UK) to have a beer.

Gotta have some fun 

Smile

Cameron, Malene and Nico in front of our hotel

Out Chines guides draws maps for us - just not very accurate. They need Google maps out here

Always plenty of garlic and chilies

Cameron, David and Muriel

Not so good with the chopsticks

Ohhhhh - a bit spicy

Smile

Who says guards are strict or boring? No they'll happily lend their things to Mikkel