The Triumph – stop in Khorgas

Posted on September 6, 2012

This was the day I finally arrived at my first border crossing: Khorgas, a small town dividing China and Kazakhstan.

I had walked for four weeks to get here from Usu, and I had made about 500km.

Much to my surprise, it had felt easier than ever.

Of course not physically. Some of the mountain ranges had been very hard for me to walk, and my feet had been a constant pain in the ass.

But I had fought hard, and I had done the incredible: I had somehow learned to control my temper. At least partly.

Sometimes the police would check my passport two times a day. Sometimes they would pluck me off the road and take me to their office for a little chat. Or they would come knocking on my door at night. And they weren’t always very polite.

But I somehow was. I smiled and played along, telling myself that I had a place I wanted to go to, and that place was Khorgas on the border of Kazakhstan. I wasn’t going to ruin this by getting into senseless arguments.

And I really did arrive.

I didn’t have a visa for Kazakhstan, so all I could do was just hang around at the border post and chat with the soldiers when they were on a break. They were nice guys who smiled a lot and were willing to pose for group photos.

I knew that I had to say good-bye to the Caboose though. That was a bit tough.

So I parked her directly in front of the border and did a little dance with her. We didn’t have any music, but we didn’t need that anyway. Soon there was a crowd, and then some Chinese uncles joined in.

We wobbled around. We laughed. We were happy.

Then I loaded the Caboose onto a truck and took her to a storage place. I wasn’t very sad though. This walk had been a triumphant one.

Blog post of this day: The Longest Way – Master Of The Wind

Here’s a little video of my border dance:

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