The Wheel – start in Khorgas
Finally I was back on The Longest Way, this time setting off at the border of China and Kazakhstan, the place where I had stopped walking the last time four years ago. Here’s how it came to pass.
It all started with a hangover.
I woke up feeling terrible. So I just lay there for a while. The ceiling was there. The room was there. The hotel was there. Everything was there. Nothing was missing. I was ready to go.
The border guards laughed when they saw us: the Caboose, the little red bike, and me.
Then they pointed to a gate.
And then I was through. The road lay open before me, I was neither in China anymore, nor was I in Kazakhstan.
That’s when it dawned on me: my walk through this country was over. China, with all her sunsets and her sunrises, with all her smiles and with my friends who lived there, China was behind me for good. I probably wouldn’t be walking through China for a long time.
I was hungover, and I was sad.
When I arrived at the other side of the border, a guard in a huge hat stopped me. He laughed when he saw me on my little red bicycle and said he wanted to try it.
I left it right there with him.
Blog post of this day: The Longest Way – bye-bye Zhongguo