*****
We were wondering how a 700km journey would take 24 hours on a bus from Kashgar to Osh, but as we found out yesterday, the Chinese have it sussed out impeccably. We arrived at the station in time for our 9pm bus, but the driver needed a further 2 hours to get his documents in order. Then we were off! For maybe 10 minutes. We pulled into the side of a gas station and spent another hour and a half doing something or the other. Tire problems? Engine falling apart? Who knew, but we were off again to the border, arriving 5 hours later through some of the most spectacular scenery I have ever seen: red and black mountains, green valleys and winding rivers, sheep and horses, it had it all. Definately ranks in the top 3 bus trips of all time. Then we arrived at the border.
We spent 5 hours at the border, unloading and then reloading the bus, passing through three unneccessary checkpoints (out of the bus, tick us off the list - again, proceed to next checkpoint, repeat), and finally passing through the Kyrgyz border post after several rumours that it was closed and that we would be spending the night in no-mans-land between China and Kyrgyzstan. Nevertheless, after a bumpy ride in a too-small-for-whitey berth (by about 2 feet) and a dinner of half a bag of raisins I arrived in Osh 24 hours after leaving Kashgar. Awesome.
*****
These are all the countries I have visited (the only criteria is that I must have stayed for at least 24 hours), which works out to only 14% of the world. I have a lot of travelling left to do...
1 comment:
I can't believe you haven't been to mexico, it doesn't seem possible....
got your postcard the other day...get me a kyrgyzstan stamp.
xo adrian
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