One of the reasons I was eager to visit the Xinjiang Uyughur Autonomous Region was to do the land border crossing at Irkeshtam/Sary-Tash, going from Kashgar to Osh. I read about this border crossing and not only was it supposed to be insanely beautiful but super complicated on top of it. The travel nerd in me was definitely up for the challenge. I was attempting the crossing from China into Kyrgyzstan which I think actually might make it slightly easier rather than going from Kyrgyzstan into China. You have to get started early because not only do both the border stations have different operating hours (China: 10:00-7:45, Kyrgyz: 9:00-6:00) but the Chinese border operates on Beijing Time which is 3 hours later than the Kyrgyz border. Then to top it off the Chinese border closes for lunch every day between 1:00-4:00pm. They are also both closed on the weekend, although it’s been reported that the Kyrgyz border will let people through.
The distance from Kashgar to the border is 234 km but there aren’t any buses that do the journey so you have to take a shared taxi and to top it off there’s actually two Chinese borders you have to pass through. One in Ulugqat and then again 175 km at the actual border. Interestingly enough the border in Ulugqat is the one that stamps you out. You can take a shared taxi to the Ulugqat border and then another one to the actual border. Once you clear customs you can then take another shared taxi to Osh.
I started in Kashgar at 7:00am because I wanted to get to the first border right when they open, I just figured if it didn’t work out from there then there wasn’t really anything else I could do. I went down to check out of my hotel and asked the lady at the front dest to call me a taxi to take me to the Ulugqat border. After a few phone calls and a conversation with the security guards she told me that the Kashgar taxi’s weren’t allowed to leave the city limits and that I’d have to go to the bus station to take a bus to Ulugqat and then taxi from there to customs. Fine. I was determined to cross this border, I had a hotel already paid for in Osh and I didn’t want to lose it. I got to the bus station and for some reason they weren’t letting people inside. There were about 20 people, all standing outside pissed off at the security guards who seemingly for no reason were only letting people depart the station. There were a bunch of taxi drivers standing around waiting for arrivals and I asked one if he could take me to the Ulugqat Customs clearance and he said he would for 400 RMB. I’m not sure why this one could leave city limits but whatever, it was still early and I had a shot at making it to Osh.
We left the bus station a little before 8am. Being that this is China were about half a dozen check points where they scan your baggage and run your passport. Even after all the check points I still made it to the first border at around 9:55. Five minutes before they officially opened. I got through the first part pretty quickly and then had to walk about 1km to the main customs building. Here they took a ton of photos of my passport and questioned me on camera. I read an article later that day published by the Guardian about people crossing the border from the Kyrgyz side and the customs agents asking to see their phones, taking them into another room and putting an app on it that records all their data and tracks their movements. Surveillance is pretty insane in China but in the Xinjiang Region it’s another level. Apparently they don’t do that to people entering the region from mainland China. Around 10:45 am I was released from the first border and they arranged a shared taxi to take me and a lady from Sary-Tash to the actual border for 200 RMB each.
After going through several more checkpoints and enjoying a gorgeous drive we made it to the actual border. It was now 1:15pm, the guards were on lunch until 4:30. I got some lunch at the border and hung out with these old Kyrgyz truck drivers chewing sunflower seeds while we waited for the border to open up again.
Around 4:30 pm the guards reopened the border and I was able to get through. Now I successfully made it out of the Xinjiang Region and had a 2km walk down the Irkeshtam pass to the Kyrgyz border.
I got to the Kyrgyz border and made it through with no problems. Easy peasy. From there I found a taxi to take me the 4 hours to Osh. There were no other people going to Osh so I had to handle the entire $100 USD bill myself but whatever, I was psyched I successfully made it through the Irkeshtam border crossing!
The next four hours through the Alay Mountains was incredibly beautiful. The landscape changed almost immediately and got very green, always with the snow capped Pamir’s in the background. This was a drive I’ll never forget. Definitely on par with the Canadian Rockies or the Swiss Alps.
It started to rain pretty heavily about an hour and half into the last leg of my journey. Going around a mountain curve there was a mud slide and my driver drove through it pretty fast but it sprayed mud and little pieces of rock up into the engine and knocked something loose. It was making some strange noises the last two hours and eventually broke down right on the edge of Osh, but we made it! My driver called a friend who picked us up and he dropped me off at my hotel.
It might’ve taken all day and had its ups and downs but I don’t regret any of it. It was an incredible experience and now I’ve gotta figure out how to cross from Xinjiang to Tajikistan and see those Pamir’s!!
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