London to Mumbai by Road 2016 – Revisited
Day 31 – 27 September 2016
Entering China – A Day of Patience and Paperwork
Last night, Team Kontiki and Team USA gathered together for one final dinner in Kazakhstan. It was a relaxed evening filled with conversation, laughter, and anticipation as we discussed the challenges and adventures that awaited us across the border.
Today was the day we had been preparing for over many months.
Today, we would enter China.
The alarm clocks rang early, and by 7:00 am we had checked out of our hotel in Zharkent and were heading towards the Khorgos Border Crossing, one of the busiest and most important gateways between Kazakhstan and China.
After a 45-minute drive, we arrived at the Kazakh border.
The gates, however, were still closed.
Like many other travellers, we waited patiently until 8:30 am when the border finally opened for processing. The Kazakh exit formalities were relatively straightforward and took around an hour to complete.
Soon afterwards, we crossed the neutral zone and arrived at the Chinese side.
This was where the real adventure began.
We passed through several security gates before eventually reaching a large customs and immigration complex. Everything was highly organised, extremely efficient, and noticeably more formal than any border crossing we had experienced so far.
Once inside, we contacted our Chinese guide, Abby, who soon arrived to meet us. From this point onwards, she would accompany us throughout our journey across China, a requirement for foreign vehicles travelling through the country.
The customs procedures began almost immediately.
One officer approached us and asked detailed questions about the food we were carrying in the motorhome. After inspecting our supplies, several items were confiscated, including our ginger, garlic, plums, potatoes, and onions. Fresh fruit, vegetables, and certain food products were not permitted into China.
It was a small sacrifice to make, although we were sorry to lose some of our cooking ingredients.
Next came the luggage inspection.
All of our bags and personal belongings had to be removed from the motorhome and taken into the customs building for screening and clearance. While Ramesh and Dayal dealt with the luggage inspection, I was instructed to drive Kontiki through a series of separate checkpoints.
Over the next few hours, the motorhome was subjected to various inspections, document checks, and verification procedures.
At one station, both Kontiki and Kunal’s Nissan Versa underwent a detailed vehicle scan. At another, officials checked permits, passports, vehicle registration documents, and temporary Chinese driving approvals.
Then came the most frustrating part of the day.
At the final inspection station, I was told to wait.
And wait.
And wait.
No explanation was given.
For nearly four hours, both vehicles remained parked while officials processed paperwork somewhere behind the scenes. Meanwhile, the rest of the group were waiting in a completely different area with no idea what was happening.
With no common language and no information available, there was little we could do except remain patient.
Eventually, movement resumed.
The final requirement was to drive our vehicles onto a weighbridge before receiving the last customs clearance stamps. Once this was completed, the barriers finally lifted.
After what felt like an eternity, we were officially cleared to enter China.
The sense of relief was enormous.
Months of preparation, visa applications, permits, guide arrangements, and paperwork had finally paid off.
Team Kontiki and Team USA were officially in China.
After regrouping with Abby and the rest of the team, we set off towards our first destination inside China—Yining, approximately 100 kilometres away.
Naturally, after such a long and tiring day, we managed to make one final mistake.
Somewhere along the route, we missed a junction and ended up travelling considerably further than intended. What should have been a relatively short drive became a journey of nearly 150 kilometres before we finally found our way to the correct hotel.
By the time we arrived, it was already late in the evening.
Team USA and Abby booked hotel rooms for the night, but Team Kontiki decided to stay true to our motorhome roots. We simply arranged parking space and settled down for the night inside Kontiki.
After such a demanding day, we were more than happy with that arrangement.
As we climbed into bed, we reflected on what had been one of the longest and most exhausting border crossings of the entire expedition.
Yet despite the delays, inspections, confiscations, and endless paperwork, we had achieved an important milestone.
We had crossed from Central Asia into China.
A whole new world now lay ahead of us.
Distance travelled: Approximately 150 km inside China
Route: Zharkent (Kazakhstan) – Khorgos Border – Yining, China
Border crossing time: Most of the day
Major milestone: Officially entered China with Kontiki and Team USA
Challenge of the day: Multiple inspections, customs checks, and a four-hour unexplained delay
Night halt: Hotel car park, Yining, China (sleeping in Kontiki)
Mood of the day: Exhausted but delighted to finally be in China
Join us tomorrow as Team Kontiki begins exploring China, a country we had dreamed of driving through for years, and starts one of the most fascinating sections of our epic London-to-Mumbai road journey.
