China Part 1 - Korgas to Urumqi

I arrived in China at last! It was instantly completely different, not just because of the new alphabet, language and peolple's looks. I felt like I was back in civilisation for the first time in ages. Korgas, the border town was developed, clean, had loads of food in the supermarkets and great places to eat. I checked into a hotel and went to explore. The first night in China, I had a delicious noodle stir fry and for breakfast the next morning I had a massive pile of delicious meat dumplings for 80 pence. I left Korgas in the early afternoon and cycled down a road built especially for bikes next to a dual carriageway. It was great to whiz along perfect tarmac for the first time in ages, with Chinese people on bikes and electric scooters for company. I found an apple tree with the best apples ever and ate 3 then found a wood and decided to take a break. I woke up 3 hours later and it was quite late so I took a well deserved evening off and put the tent up. I got going early the next day. Early is now 9 instead of 7 - the whole of China operates on Beijing time so I have short mornings now, but long evenings because of a 2 hour time change from Kazakhstan. I got some boiled water from a shop and bought some snacks, not much choice though. I joined a brand new dual carriageway and cycled up the hard shoulder. The road is half finished so a lot of the time there is an empty carriageway which I can lift my bike on to and have my own private road! The road started climbing into the mountains and I got my first glimpse of the unbelievable scale of development. The new road they are building is a massive undertaking. There are long tunnels and an absolutely massive bridg spanning a whole valley. The bridge wasn't finished so I climbed the old road, dusty and bumpy to the pass at 2,129m. On the other side of the pass is Sahram Hu, a huge and beautiful lake surrounded by Kazakh nomads living in yurts. This part of China is historically not Chinese, the population is mainly Uighur Muslims, who look more Kazakh, eat differently and speak Arabian, so all the road signs have two languages on them. I found it difficult to connect with them, although they were very nice, it didn't seem possible to stay with families in this part of China, I asked a couple of times for places to camp or stay but they always pointed me towards expensive tourist hotels. Unfortunately tourists aren't allowed to stay in cheap hotels in Xinjang province so I mainly camped or slept in drainage tunnels under the motorway. The tunnels were great, concrete and usually very clean, with a roof and out of view of drivers they were a perfect place to sleep and it saved having to put the tent up. From the lake, I enjoyed a 40 mile descent, I saw camels and overtook lorries until I reached the desert plain at the bottom of the mountains. I stopped at a village for lunch and got a plate of excellent hand pulled noodles. I watched the chef make them, he starts with one short, fat noodle then passes the end from hand to hand, stretching them out by bashing them on a steel worktop and repeating this until he has a pile of long and thin noodles. Halfway through the meal, a coach load of Chinese tourists pulled up and ordered food. The restaurant went crazy, all the staff were worked off their feet. The table manners were appalling! Spitting on the floor, unbelievably loud slurping of the noodles and soup, people were shouting. It was crazy and I liked it! My chopstick skills were improving too! After a night in the tent in a wood by the roadside, I got going, did a couple of miles then found a restaurant for breakfast. I was ushered in and sat down with a group of 6 19-20 year olds. One girl could speak English OK and translated for me. I had tofu and pumpkin soup and when I left the girl asked her parents how much I should pay. She was upset that they charged me 10 yuan (about 1 pound) for the food and went off to buy me some pepsi to make up for it. I tried to pay her for it but she wouldn't take it and said that she was sad her parents had tried to charge me. It was a lovely gesture, it seemed that the young generation in China were generally very nice. I was struggling to connect with the older generation. For some reason, the sign language and the pointing at pictures that had worked so well in Central Asia didn't work at all here. It seemed that when they saw a Westerner approach they instantly shut down and assume there is no way they can communicate and don't try. It's a shame because I don't think they are being rude, maybe they are shy or it's just a massive cultural difference that I don't understand. Maybe it's just this region of China. It happened a few times when I tried to ask directions, I was completely blanked, even when pointing at my Chinese character map. Another odd thing is that when you manage to start communicating and don't understand something, they often write it down in Chinese characters and are surprised you can't read it. Anyway all this contributed to a pretty lonely few days, I was looking forward to meeting my cousin Phil in Urumqi in a few days. The next few days, I just got through the miles on the motorway hard shoulder. It was boring and I listened to music but I made good progress and ate great food. One morning I woke up in a tunnel and there was a thunder storm outside. I got about 3 miles to a petrol station and was completely soaked. I went into the shop and they sat me down with a massive breakfast until the rain stopped. I also got a free massive dinner a couple of days later, two portions of laghman noodles and ice cream for dinner. I was absolutely loving eating well again! Unfortunately my phone was nicked from a cheap hotel room when I was in the bathroom so the music dried up and I rode the last couple of days into Urumqi very bored. Not much to report and I arrived at Urumqi late in the evening. I tried to follow a map but it was impossile with the map scale I had so I just wondered in and stopped on a random street at a random cheap hotel in a neighbourhood I liked the look of. Urumqi is the capital of Xinjiang Province and is massive! There's about 1.5 million people there and it sprawls for miles. The bit I was at was great though. I went out to the street stalls in the evening and ate 44 kebab sticks with meat, veg, seafood and all sorts of other stuff on them. It was a huge meal and it cost 2 pounds! I had a rest day in Urumqi and spent time sorting stuff out, buying another phone and gorging on delicious food. I had planned to visit the SOS Children's Village in Urumqi but unfortunately the Government permission for me to visit hadn't arrived so I wasn't able to. Hopefully I'll be able to visit the one in Beijing. The following morning I packed up and cycled off to the airport to meet Phil. I was guided out by a guy on a fancy road bike and waited for Phil to arrive. He appeared looking tired but normal and I think he was a bit shocked by my appearance! I haven't had a haircut for 6 months and needed a shave. We put his bike together and hit a cafe for lunch before heading into Urumqi. Phil's brake broke, maybe something happened to it on the flight so we stopped at a bike shop, bought a new one, then headed out of the city and camped in a big grassy area off the side of the motorway. We had to put a pipe over the end of a spinkler so it didn't squirt us in the night! It was great to have some company and we caught up then went to bed. I was looking forward to cycling as a team for the rest of China.