It is the final stretch of China, and I am not one for prolonged farewells. Today’s ride is a reasonably long one through the plains of Xinjiang to a scenic lake near the border with Kazakhstan.

Today’s route in blue

The day started late, as rush hour is ~9:30-10am in Urumqi, and Ducati dealership (where my bike was getting a service) opens at 10am. I was keen to avoid rush hour as I’ve found that drivers in Xinjiang are particularly unfriendly towards motorcyclists. They try to cut you off from lane filtering, and are unreasonably aggressive.

At the dealership I was presented with a reasonably clean Sandeep, with a fresh set of tires and a few loose ends fixed. There was someone else there riding a Multistrada headed the same way, but I wasn’t in an overly social mood so I told him I’d probably see him on the road and set off.

Post glow-up

Then followed hours and hours of straight highways, lots of traffic, and uninspiring views of agricultural fields and industrial areas. I rode quickly through these stretches to stay engaged, stopping only for fuel and toilet breaks (and a red bull).

One of the more interesting sights; what looks like a lake is actually a solar farm…

Fuel stops were fun - as they require a Chinese ID card to be swiped for fuel - I could either wait for my tour guide to catch up, or ask someone at the station to borrow theirs. i was impatient each time and ended up not seeing my tour guide all day. People are surprisingly okay with helping me out with their IDs, which is not what I expected. “Hey, I’m a foreigner. Can you please swipe your ID for me to fill up?” “Okay!” Then some chit chat about where I’d been and where I’m going.

What looks like either a dust cloud or extremely localised rain in the distance

It was heavy rain.

By the time I got to the lake entry point it was ~6PM, so I waited for my tour guide and driver for dinner (ordinary Sichuan food; as I prepare to exit China I am preferencing the food I like vs interesting food from the ethnic minorities), to collect my luggage, and then to buy tickets and enter the area itself.

Sandeep post a shower

The lake itself is massively overrated.

Saryam Lake in the background

The actual lake (quite blue in sunlight)

It is a nice lake with a circumference of ~90km and nice views, but there are SO many tourists here that it feels overhyped and not as amazing as everyone says it is. “You have to see it, it’s such a unique colour, one of the most beautiful places in the world”. It is beautiful, yes, but probably not as nice as some of the sights in NZ, or Lake Titicaca, or a spontaneous views along the Mekong to name a few examples. Car after car travel around the one lane ring road around the lake, with people dressing up for photoshoots and picnicking on the grass surrounding the lake.

Myself and mr Multistrada

I stopped for a few pics, and bumped into the Multistrada rider from earlier…and encountered an annoying photographer and tourists, who insisted on posing with my bike (for way too long! Like 20 minutes non stop), even picked up my helmet and dropped it.

This was take 15 for the second person in their group

That was probably the most annoying interaction I’ve had so far. It’s nice when someone takes interest, but not great when they don’t respect your property and space and tima.

Moving on to Mr Multistrada…

By ~7:30pm I reached the evening’s accommodation, which was a glamping type setup, only to be turned away because they didn’t have the systems set up to register foreigners!

The accommodation I was rejected from

I wasn’t in the mood to find alternate accommodation because (1) it was very expensive and didn’t look good, and (2) I was a bit annoyed about getting rejected from the first, so I didn’t want to jump through any more hoops. I decided to ride around and figure out what to do next; either to go to Horgos (about 110kms away) or to pitch my tent somewhere and hope for the best. My guide cautioned against this, after checking the registration requirements (and discovering that it wasn’t possible to register for today anymore), so I decided that I would “see how” and ride around.

Within 1 KM I spotted a group of people pitching their tents so I stopped to chat. “Hey, did you guys register to camp?” “No…we didn’t know you had to do that” “Do you think they’ll check?” “Ah they’re about to finish work! It’ll be fine, no one will check”.

Safety in numbers. The daylight was fading and the sun was about to dip below the westward mountains, so I quickly went about setting up the tent. This was my first time, so I spent a few minutes staring at the sparse instructions (very unhelpful ones), looking at each of the components, before fitting things together.

Motorcycle Camping…a dream I’ve finally realised

Pitched next to my tent were those of two couples from Urumqi, quite a few years younger. One of them - a fellow rider - was particularly keen on chatting. I felt very flattered, because I got the sense that he thought my trip (and bike) was quite cool, and had a lot off things to say.

Here was a missing piece to what I had observed earlier in Turpan; the utter lack of practiced Islamic conventions among Uyghurs. Why did they (all) drink alcohol? Why did they not do the daily/Friday prayers? Why did they not dress conservatively? Why were there no calls to prayer?

It turns out, that after a series of Uyghur <> Han Chinese violence in the early 2000s (the sorts of terrorist attacks that happened in the west over the last 10 years or so), the Chinese government cracked down on religious freedoms for this ethnic group - specifically in Xinjiang. According to the new friend, this meant that many traditions were disallowed, and those practicing devoutly would be referred to the local police.

Extend this for long periods of time, and people eventually start a new way of life. Paired with economic growth, new opportunities, and changing societies, and what was common 20 years ago becomes a distant memory (much like the poverty from pre-industrialised China, which was not THAT long ago vs the lifestyle of today’s youth!).

What is even more intriguing to me, is that this treatment definitely wasn’t the case in Qinghai / Xi’an where I saw the Hui ethnic group practicing their religion in a manner similar to what I have seen in other parts of Central Asia. It feels like “if a bad bunch do X, everyone loses the privilege to do Y” at an absurd scale.

Before the cold

Eventually, the night got a bit too cold to stay outside of the tent, so I finished my cigar while curled up in the sleeping bag. The beer was too cold to finish (it wasn’t intuitive to me, but the only thing that is warm when you are camping is the warmth of your body, and once you start to get cold…no bueno).

Sunset at Sayram Lake

Overall I was quite happy about an unexpected obstacle (not getting let into the accommodation) turning into quite a fun and nice experience. When a door closes, another opens!

Tomorrow; Horgos

Some stats:

• 580KMs traveled
• 45g coffee consumed
• 7 unique interactions
• 48.8L fuel added

Altitude map of today’s ride

Route to date