Kuqa – Aksu – Kashgar

The next morning, motivated, I get on my touring bike and leave the town of Kuga for Aksu. After only 4 km I am followed again…. 300 metres behind me is a grey car „without licence plates“. Suddenly I change my direction of travel and head straight for the pursuers. Hard to believe. It’s the same two men as yesterday brining me to the Schumacher. So now I experience at first hand, how the surveillance system works here in the autonomous district of Xinjang. Somehow I am impressed by this precision and yet somewhat speechless. I ask the two men what they intend to do and why they are following me permanently?  We accompany you for your one safety. Don’t let us disturb you. After another 30 minutes of driving, I come to a village and suddenly the statesmen have disappeared. But shortly after leaving the village, a new team is ready for action. I constantly continue my journey. Sometimes with followers and then some few kilometres without the surveillance government officers. Apart from these escort rides, the progress through the Taklamakan Desert is rather monotonous. The asphalted national road G 314, the sand landscape, wind turbines, electricity pylons, roads with little traffic, sparsely populated.

Unfortunately, I can’t find any accommodation in the village of Aqialexiang. That’s why I decide to have dinner now and afterwards to continue the journey. By chance a group of teachers is sitting in the restaurant. The young people all originally come from far-away places in China. Now they are in this remote town in the middle of the desert for a year to teach. As they see me alone at the table, they spontaneously offer a seat at their table.  An intensive exchange takes place and, to my delight, the speak English. After a while, a civil servant appears in the restaurant and approaches us directly. He speaks to the group and then asks me to come with him to the police station. There a policeman offers me accommodation (a cell). Oops, I don’t like that at all and luckily I just discovered a rat! I can give him a good reason (pretext) that I prefer to pedal through the night than to share it with rats.

Ok, he says, they will now call a transport to take me straight on to Kasgar, 350 km far from here.

Thanks to my persistence and the absolutely firm conviction that I want to and that I will ride every kilometre on my bike, he came up with another idea. There was a hotel somewhere in town, but it was closed for renovation, but he could put me up there. He said he wanted to help me because Angela Merkel was a person who meant well for China….I thanked him for his willingness to help and let him think I was a German.

Next I drive a good 3 km behind his black car without plates and yes the hotel is indeed closed. He speaks briefly with the owner. She immediately assigns me a room. Five minutes later there is a knock on the room door. Another civil servant is going to stay in the room opposite and keep an eye on me. His message is: You are not allowed to leave your room without my permission. Here is my telephone number. If you need help, call me. I am here to protect you. In the morning at 09.00 I call him and now I want to travel on. I’ll accompany you as far as the motorway. OK Sir, that suits me. Once there, we have to wait. What for? A vehicle will soon be arriving to take me to Kashgar….. I immediately intervene and complain that he should call his boss (the senior civil servant). A little later the boss is on the spot. Now everything starts all over again….  After what seems like an eternity, I finally get my way and am allowed to continue riding on my tour bike alias CREDO. Thank God.  Scenes like this are repeated again and again until Kashgar! However… The entrance to Kashgar is like a triumphal ride for me. At the town sign I throw up both my hands!!! I did it !!!  YES!!!! Conclusion: It is possible to cycle through this desert, but only with persistence, a lot of patience, the firm belief and the iron will as well as the conviction to master the distance under one’s own power.

Now it’s time to relax for a few days and enjoy life as a tourist at this place, which was strategically important in the past, where caravans of the Silk Road from China met to travel on to the Arab countries, Europe or India. Here in the Central Asian city of Kasgar, unfortunately, one can hardly move freely. On a single day, I have to present my passport 9 times as a pedestrian. I have never encountered such a high police presence anywhere else on earth. On Sunday, during a visit to the cattle market, I am amazed and impressed by many farmers and shepherds in how they are haggling over cows, horses, donkeys, goats and sheep. There is a tense and turbulent hustle and bustle.