We left the big city of Kashgar and its thousands of electric and silent scooters that have replaced bicycles to travel 260 km in the direction of Yecheng, where we arrived for lunch, along a sandy road and particularly soporific. We had to spend the afternoon in the hotel waiting for the police permission to continue towards the border with Tibet. The problem lies in the hours.... We are in the extreme west of China, but all government offices, transport and hotels run under the Beijing time, ie the local time + 2 hours .... This has resulted in some confusion and misunderstandings with our guide and driver….

The guide told us that we start at 7.30 am ... 5:30am Chinese local ... We have about 500 km to go with a first mountain pass at 5300 m, the average will not be quick and there are not many villages where we can stop overnight. We did stock up on fruit, biscuits and water, we were recommended to drink and eat a lot, we will stay for ten days over 4000 meters of altitude.

After traveling 360 km, we were stopped at a police checkpoint, one of many, that prevents us from going up to our intended destination, 130 km from here. The reason is that "for our security is better to stay here until tomorrow morning," under control in short terms ... The next day we'll have a second wake-up call at dawn to travel 130 km more than expected. But we will enter Tibet, and intensify the controls. Looking good…. For the time being we will rest a bit, we had enough climbing three mountain passes at 3200, 4969 and 4090 meters. To pass over 5000 it is postponed until tomorrow, but we suffer from headaches as well.

At the end of the first month of travel, we passed two symbolic milestones: a mountain pass at 5000 meters above sea level, and  10.000 km from home. It was a very long day, twelve hours and half, it began with the opening of the military barrier at 8.45, instead of the 8 (Beijing time course, 6:45am for us), and continued with the climbing of 6 mountain passes, including three at over 5,000 meters (5,380 to highest), with a hail thunderstorm at 5000m, and the bike that does not exceed 40km per hour at 3000 rpm ... .. We arrived well tired in the hotel, quick dinner because it was already late, and straight to bed, tomorrow we continue with three more passes beyond 5000 metres and the motorbikes with signs of hiccups .... The day is however ended well with the arrival to the Bangong lake, with the sun.

After 385 km and three passes over 5000 m we arrived in the beautiful Forest of Zhada Earth, a huge nature reserve of different geological formations, formed millions of years ago when it was still ocean. Tomorrow will go over one hundred kilometres in the opposite direction to resume the main road and head towards Lhasa.