Entering China - What could possibly go wrong…..?
- 10 minutes ago
- 7 min read
When we planned this part of the trip we had read that it is only possible to enter China with a foreign vehicle and travel through the country with a tour company guide. We had been given Drive China's name as a company that many overlanders use, and at the time not being keen to take the transit from Kazakhstan through Russia to reach Mongolia, we found this company offered a 5 day transit across the north west corner of China into Western Mongolia. This region of China (Xinjiang) is little visited by foreign tourists so we were curious to see what it is like.
Drive China had sent us lots of helpful information about entering and driving in China. We were being met by our guide at the border who would help us get through all the formalities of getting Lolly registered with Chinese plates and Chinese driving licences for us. We felt relaxed knowing we had someone to guide us through the process, taking away the stress of entering a new country with unreadable language.
We pulled up outside the modern immigration hall and were met by a young lady who told us we must go into the immigration hall to complete customs paperwork and passport control. We had been given the phone number of our guide, Abdullah, and we had been asked to get a customs person to call him to let him know we were there. We asked an official, but he said he could not make the call for us. We looked at the Chinese forms that were on the counter, but they were very different to the specimen forms Drive China had sent us. There was no-one at the counter and we hung around not quite knowing what to do. Several coaches had pulled up by now and the drivers were getting impatient, so when a young girl finally appeared at the counter she was harangued terribly by them. A young boy came to her assistance. We explained our vehicle was outside, but they asked us to wait. One of the coach drivers did phone Abdullah which was a relief.
We struggled to convince them we couldn’t bring all our belongings from Lolly into the customs hall to go through the x-ray machines, but eventually Colin went outside to Lolly with them, to show them inside and make it clear why we couldn't takes our belongings out. Our guide Abdullah joined us at this point, so we breathed a sigh of relief that things should get much easier now.
I was sent off to go through the passport control in the main building which was pretty straight forward, while Colin had to take Lolly to a customs area outside where she was to be x-rayed. This is where things started to go awry and Colin sat in Lolly for nearly 3 hours not knowing what was going on.
I was joined by Abdullah outside the immigration hall, where there seemed to be an increasing number of people gathering. Abdullah eventually told me that there was a problem with the computer system and all the vehicles were being held while it was fixed. The people around us were people from the coaches. I got chatting to a lovely Kazakh lady who lived near the border and was offering me some of her bread.
Eventually vehicles were starting to be released, but as Colin go to the front of the queue he was told that he didn’t have the right paperwork.
Abdullah turned out to have the final piece of the paperwork jigsaw, but as Colin walked over to the gate where we were waiting a customs police dog launched at him from nowhere (it was hidden in a shelter so Colin hadn't seen it coming) and he had two bite wounds and ripped shorts. Abdullah said they would clean the wounds up for Colin, but I was furious and said he must get rabies jabs. We both had a course of rabies vaccinations in the UK, but this only buys you extra time to reach a hospital to have further treatment after an animal bite.
To be fair they agreed rabies jabs were required, and a young customs policeman said he’d take us to the hospital for treatment and rabies jabs. He even offered to buy Colin new shorts.
Colin had to drive us all to the hospital (at least it hastened our exit from the border) where he was seen immediately (unlike the 6 hours it would take in a UK A&E unit). He had two injections and was told he should have the next one in a weeks time, then a further one after that. We pointed out that we would be in Mongolia in 5 days time, but they said he could only have the follow up jabs in China as the serum used in Mongolia may not be the same.
We have a vaccination card which we hope we can present at a hospital on 1st September when we re-enter China. We hope the chances of a police customs dog having rabies are low, but I'm happy to say Colin isn't frothing at the mouth yet (well no more than usual...).
What a day! Abdullah directed us to a hotel in the city centre of Khorgas. We had planned to sleep in Lolly through our 4 nights in China, but it was very hot and we were shattered after an intense day, so thought an air conditioned hotel room for £20 was money well spent.
Abdullah took us to the city centre which was actually lovely and lively - a real contrast to the characterless streets in Almaty. We had some delicious food (yes, the portions were huge) and met some friendly locals
The following morning should have been just a case of having Lolly inspected for road worthiness and collecting the Chinese driving licences. We drove to the vehicle testing centre where Lolly failed a test on a rear brake that they said wasn’t locking properly, but they weren’t testing her on the proper equipment for a 4x4 truck.
We took Lolly to a truck workshop nearby where they removed the wheel drum and all looked good on the brakes. He adjusted them for us and kindly charged us nothing. .
We then went back to the testing centre where she was tested again - this time successfully.
Colin then had to watch a very gory film on road safety in China, showing real footage of blood and guts accidents caused by bad driving.
Then Abdullah got into a real pickle with the paperwork for the licences. It became apparent that while he may have acted as a guide for tourists, he had no experience in processing foreign vehicle paperwork. Colin said the guy in the licencing office was being very aggressive and unhelpful with him which was making him even more flustered, and he was sent away. We watched him struggle to lay out all the papers he had - it was painful to watch. Eventually a man who had been in the office looked like he was trying to help him, but we suspect he asked for money and wondered if it was a set up between him and the official guy in the office. By the time everything was resolved it was too late to set off so we agreed to have another night in Khorgas.
Colin and I had a walk into the central area and had dinner in a place near the hotel with Abdullah which was pleasant but the portions were still too big
We now had only two days to drive 1,200 kms to the Mongolian border. We were later setting off than hoped after waiting for our Chinese plate and driving licence to arrive.
The good news was that the Chinese roads are in immaculate condition - the best on our trip so far (including Europe). We passed under and over an amazing bridge showing the Chinese engineering skills.
The main attraction today was Sayram Lake which sits at 2,073 m and covers roughly 455km². It’s known as “the last tear of the Atlantic Ocean”, because it is said to be the furthest eastern point reached by moisture from Atlantic weather systems. We were supposed to be driving around the lake to get views from all sides the previous day, but we had to skip this and whizz past on the highway. The road around it was very busy with Chinese tourists.
We were on the highway all day which was smooth and uncongested. Chinese drive much more sensibly than the Central Asian madcap drivers, probably helped by there being cameras everywhere.
We pulled up at a hotel in the city of Shehezi. We opted to take a room again for air con. Colin’s leg was very sore and swollen today.
We had a walk around the centre and found the night food market street which had some tasty and some scary looking offerings. We played it safe with some vegetable sticks which were really nice.
With another 600km drive the following day, we had an early start skipping breakfast.
The first part of the day was on the highway which we eventually left and went onto more provincial roads which were still in perfect condition. This is a sensitive area and permits are required to come off the main road. There were numerous tolls to go through - the lady in the red jacket had a lot of trouble reading our car passport. There are barriers on the fuel stations and Abdullah had to scan his identity card to get us in. We started to see camels and wild horses in the distance.
Abdullah had booked a hotel about 90km from the border which we weren’t initially pleased about, but it was in a nice rural place and only £18 for a very comfy room. We had our last dinner with him. The 4 days has whizzed by.
The 90 km drive to the border the next day was incredibly scenic in the warm morning light
Abdullah wasn’t the best at communicating what was going on, so when we stopped about 14km from the border and a large loud Chinese guy got in with us we had no idea what he was doing, especially as we were then directed down back roads away from where we thought the border was. We ended up next to a coal mine where we were told they were doing the customs paperwork - we were still no clearer what we were doing here.
We left the big shouty guy there and retraced our steps back to the border road. It was now 11.30 - so much for getting across early. Luckily we were waved past the queue of waiting trucks. We said our goodbyes to Abdullah as he wasn’t allowed into the border zone, then we had to go back to him to take him his bag that he’d left in Lolly.
I went through the passenger hall while Colin took Lolly to the customs area. The Chinese customs were quite thorough, but we said we couldn’t lift our roof boxes down that hold our spares as they are too heavy and Colin has a bad leg.
So our first mad dash through China came to an end, but we will be crossing back into China on 1st September when hopefully things will go a little smoother. (Yes, I am well behind real time on this blog). Watch this space.
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