Left not long after sunrise as we’d been told this stretch was pretty horrendous but would be OK if we drove slowly. Petrol stations are few & far so we filled up in town (after eventually finding the petrol station), we had no GPS so we stopped a few times in town to ensure we were on the right road. There are very few road signs in this country & practically non existent in towns.
At a town called At Bishy we decided to use the balance of our Kyrgz som on petrol as we only had about 160 klm to travel & there didn’t appear to be any more towns along the way.
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| Changing fuel filters on dusty roadside: interest from young boy & his horse |
I gave the attendant 700 Som, counted it out, pointed to the price section of the pump and then checked on the suspension. Then discovered that the idiot had been yacking and carrying on with his mates and had filled the tank and now wanted 1035 Som.
Huge argument involving him, his boss and spectators, closest I have come to violence on this trip, shouting, screaming, grabbing hold of me etc. Managed to jump in and drive off with hands holding onto me. Drove for half an hour to ensure we were not being pursued.
Then………………….More problems, fuel starvation and surging !!!!
Changed all fuel filters and improved but eventually ground to a halt in the middle of absolute nowhere.
Road was bone shaking, car and soul destroying Now ignition problem wire fallen of ignition switch. I hot wired and still could not get spark, checked inside distributor and forum thin wire on points to condenser had parted company. Not having any more spare points, I tried to mend it but in the end, not able to fix. I noticed that our elec fan ( cooling ) was about to fall to pieces so we decided to get trucked / towed to Kashgar to then ship the poor old Puce Goose home, just too much damage to continue.
This dirty rough road, with snow next to it had almost no traffic heading in the direction of the border, by now about 30km away. Plenty of huge Chinese trucks heading to Naryn & Bishkek etc, just stared and drove by. Stopped one truck who was headed to border, I thought he would tow but he got back in and drove off. Now situation looking rather grim.
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| Road leading to China |
Then……..a local car comes along containing passenger Sawut, a Swedish national who was born in Kyrgyzstan and spoke local languages and some reasonable English.
He was trying to get to Kashgar and had been turned back as he had no Agent / Guide waiting on Chinese side. He was interested that we had one waiting and agreed with his driver to tow us to the border, $50 for the local driver.
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| Stranded 20kms from Chinese border: not much traffic going our way but plenty of Chinese trucks heading into Kyrgyzstan |
A slow tow through the cold & snow we eventually got to the border. After much amusement & corruption by the Kyrgyz authorities (had to bribe them to get Sawut through) we got to the first Chinese post. The road here was so bad that we had to get out push the tow car thru slippery mud to keep going. A disgrace of a road in name only. There was a lot of to-ing & fro-ing about whether the local driver could tow us to the next checkpoint, about 4.5 klms away.
After much discussion, a soldier jumped into the tow car & we were towed through.
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| Rolled truck close to Chinese border |
The next checkpoint was a Customs Post. What a dirty, cold disgusting place. As we arrived so late, our waiting guide had returned to Kashgar so we had to spend the night here. We were taken to a shabby place which purported to be a hotel. When I asked where the toilet was, the guard took me outside & pointed to a mound of dirt…filthy. No shower but they lit a small wood & coal burning pot belly stove. Very hard beds but plenty of quilts & pillows which had never seen a wash! This room was shared by us & Sawut & half the Customs population came in through the night to chat & sit by the fire.
We were able to boil water with our immersion heater to make up some packet soup.
One of the guards brought in 2 bread rolls which were as hard as rocks. We purchased 3 small bottles of water & a bottle of beer. Should have had a dozen beers, maybe it would not have seemed like such a nightmare.
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| A dirty & dusty woman in the "0" star hotel at the Chinese Customs post |
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