China border

 Yurt camping is an acquired taste. They fire up the stove so you have a sauna when you deliver yourself to bed and then you gently cool down as the fire goes out, until you wake at about 2.00 am wishing you had put in an extra layer, but by then your body is already cold and no amount of extra layers deal with the insipid nature of coldness. Add to this the owners dog prowling around the camp and letting off a volley of barks from the time you had just drifted back to sleep and repeat this endlessly until the alarm goes at an ungodly hour and dress hurriedly without electricity, in the dark. Punishment such as this does not end there. You drive 2 hours in the dark in fantastically cold temperatures. Wind biting from every angle. No chance of the engine providing any heat, it is struggling to keep the pots turning. We froze. 

Arrival at the border, which we were promised would take 7 hours to navigate and indeed 7 hours was the time it took, and so began the merry-go-round of order and counter-order. We have learnt that the Chinese police are used to shouting at the likes of us, including with the use of megaphones, and the recipients are used to receiving this abuse. We are less accustomed to this. 

How many times did we present our passports? How many times did we show our V5s? How many times did we put our luggage through the scanner? 

But hey! We managed to get into China, which has been a milestone event in our planning. 

Notes worthy of mention: we drove past a 6km queue of lorries and it seemed that nearly half are car transporters bringing Chinese cars into the Stans. 

Pollution is terrible. Industrial chemical plants in a desert wasteland chucking out vile fumes. 

Traffic rules don’t apply. Unannounced U-turns with no indicators. 

And then the mighty Vauxhall threw another hissy fit and broke down. Same problem, enhanced solution. 

I write this feeling exhausted from the day and so it’s all you get. Maybe more tomorrow.