Day 32 Kashgar

Today was spent sending emails to get something done about the car permit.

Late in the afternoon we went to the Customs Authority. After speaking to the Customs officer who had our actual file, he understood and advised that we could have a declaration made that our car would be shipped to Shanghai & taken out of the country from there whilst the other 4 cars would proceed to the Nepal border from Lhasa.  This according to him was very easy.

He then telephoned the woman who prepared the documentation to get the cars into Kashgar. At this stage we believed she was a Customs officer. She was in fact an agent for our main travel agent although we did not find this out until the next day. She was dismissive and refused to assist, continually berating us for being in China with a broken car and saying it would take 3 months to amend the paperwork.  We were then ushered out of Customs and prevented us from going back up to the third floor where the co operative Customs officer was located.

Dinner was at the rooftop restaurant adjacent the main mosque--- No beer.

(posted from the Victorian head office of the Blog - Noel)