So now the promised long(er) update. I arrived in Beijing today and checked in into the hotel we had to check in anyway tomorrow. This now saves us the moving trouble and we know that everything is fine and we are on the list for tomorrow. Like the tittle suggests, instead of going to Shanghai we ended up in Hong Kong. After leaving Kashgar on the 20th we had a 24 hour train to Urumqi as planned. Upon arrival there we had about 6 hours to spare so we decided to check if I already would have my invitation. Oh yeah, I forgot to update that part as well. Just after we went to the desert, on the 19th of July, we printed the invitations for the Russian visa and soon found out that my name and passport number were wrong. This was a big problem. I therefore called Killroy to ask if they could change it... they couldn't. What I had to do was to apply for one online, which I did. The invite would be send to me the next day. Back to Urumqi; in the hours we had to spare I checked if I had the invitation. Instead I got a question from the website asking me whether I wanted the original instead of a copy since Shanghai doesn't issue Russian visas without the original. This came as a shock, since we would have a train to there in three hours. Half panicing we thought of the options and called around to see what we could do. The Shanghai consulate didn't want to help us (bloody Russians) so we had to fly back to Hong Kong. Going to the China Southern Airlines office we found that the cheapest option was flying to Guangzhou the same evening at 7.55 pm. We quickly bought the tickets and headed back to the train station to pick up our luggage which we left there and try to sell the train tickets to Shanghai we already had. There was a long line for the counter that handles refunds. While walking towards the line with my tickets in my hand some Chinese came over and asked for our tickets. Since we were in a rush we sold them our tickets for about 90% of what we paid for it. I guess not a bad deal since we didn't know how much we could get back from the actual office. And so, in the middle of the night after a 5 hour flight we arrived in Guangzhou...
The next day we took the bus to Hong Kong and arrived in the afternoon. We stayed there for four days and not much special happened. I met up with some people such as Patrick and Bart and finally got the Russian visa, along with the Mongolian. Yesterday (July 27th) we took the train to Beijing and arrived there today. The rest is basically history. What I forgot to type yet is the Camel trip story which we did in the Taklamakan desert 3 days before all the troubles started.
The desert trip started on monday where we were picked up in the lobby of the hotel by our driver and tour guide. We first went to the supermarket where we had to buy 40 (!) bottles of drinking water. We also bought some instant noodles and other light food and finally went on our way to the desert. On the way we bought 5 water melons for as much as 1 (!) euro. We arrived at the edge of the desert at around noon local time. The camel man told us that he didn't want to leave at that time since it was the hottest period of the day. Instead we had to wait 3 hours. We waited first at the artificial lake which borders the desert and made a round on a quad bike, which was very cool. After three hours of boredom we finally departed. Three camels were mounted with our stuff (drinks, food, tents) and we set off. The camelman was walking up front, pulling the camels, while the three of us were on the camel backs. We already noticed some heavy winds coming up that first day and one hour into the trek (and already surrounded by stunning sand dunes) a huge sand storm started blasting. Jamie immediately lost her cap and I had troubles keeping mine. Sand was getting everywhere; nose, ears mouth and unfortunately into our cameras, we noticed afterwards because both of ours stopped working. We ended up 3 hours later a local farm house where, due to the wind, we had to spend the night. That evening we had kebabs for dinner, because we decided to buy a goat from the farmer (10 euros only !). We then saw how the camel man killed it and stripped it completely to prepare it for dinner. It was quite a funny sight for some reason and the dinner was great! The next day the wind was gone and so where the clouds. This ment that it was hot! Not much really happened that day since we only walked for 7 hours or so. It was not only sand we saw since we were still basically ad the desert edge, but not and then we came into the 'classical' desert landscape which was very impressive (and again: hot!). That night we stayed in the tent, at least, that's what the intensions where. However, since only one tent was working the guide and camel man had to sleep outside. We then decided to do the same and so we ended up outside under the bright night sky where we saw the biggest amount of stars I've ever seen... how romantic...
The next day we got up early to head back to the camp. It was even hotter than the day before, but luckily we were back after two hours. At the camp we were picked up by a new driver and headed back to Kashgar. It was a very memorable trip and a good end to our Kashgar days. The next was my birthday as I mentioned, and everything went wrong, but right then, after the tour everything was very ok, as it is now....
So, next thing is the vodkatrain. The tour starts tomorrow as I mentioned, so hopefully (and most likely) our trouble days are now over. 20 more days till I'm back home!
bye bye!
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