West China 中国西部 April & May 2005 孔思义 & 黄亚萍
 
Nigel Croft, an old Hong Kong friend, drove his own car through China as part of a year-long trip.  Jemi and I were lucky enough to get the chance to join him.
 
We visited some birding sites new to us and revisited some old ones, “joining up the dots” in between.  Nigel had travelled part of the Silk Road in 1999, but that part was new to Jemi and I. We had days that were mainly travelling days and days that were mainly for birding/general tourism.
We had very little birding information about most of the sites visited, and tended to explore as we went.
 
Nigel’s custom was to get going fairly early in the morning and to make sure we were not still travelling as darkness fell. Wherever possible he planned to park the car in the compounds of hotels and guesthouses we stayed at. As a veteran of drives across Africa and Asia, he had a tent and some camping gear, but only planned to use them if an emergency arose.
 
Choice of accommodation in Chinese Nature Reserves and nearby towns has improved greatly in recent years.  A first-time visitor would be surprised at the availability of comfortable, clean hotels in smaller towns for the equivalent of 10 – 15 euros. In the spring of 2005 we paid usually 100 to 200 RMB for comfortable – even luxurious rooms. We didn’t bother booking very far ahead and tried to stay flexible with timings although the basic route and permits where necessary had been agreed between Nigel and the Travel Agency in Beijing 北京.
 
A lot of money and effort is being expended to improve roads in western China.  For independent travellers, road journeys are getting less gruelling. However costs are rising – including admission fees to Nature Reserves and Scenic Areas. A few words of Putonghua (Mandarin) will go a long way. Fortunately for me and Nigel, Jemi speaks Putonghua pretty well.
 
ROUTE  OUTLINE
 
The route taken was from the Laos border in southern Yunnan 云南, then generally northwards along the edge of the mountains at the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau 青藏高原, through Sichuan 四川 and Gansu 甘肃 to Xining 西宁 in Qinghai 青海.  From Xining 西宁 we headed north to Zhangye 张掖 (back in Gansu) and turned west along the Silk Road towards Xinjiang 新疆.  The planned route left China at the end of May at the border with Kazakhstan.
 
Jiayuguan, Gansu  甘肃 嘉峪关
 
PERMITS...etc.
 
China poses more procedural problems than many other countries when people seek to drive through it.  In effect, the car must be registered and temporary licence plates have to be “hired”.  To drive in China, a foreigner must apply for a Chinese driving licence.  Nigel did all this through a Travel Agent in Beijing. Both Nigel and I applied for licences to drive. A significant part of the overall administrative expense was the agent’s requirement that we had to have a guide accompany us for the whole trip.  The options were to pay the Travel Agency US$50 per day and let the guide sort out his own accommodation, or to pay US$30 per day and pay for the guides’ hotel room on top.  We went for the former, and it saved a lot of hassle (The guide met Nigel at the Lao Border with the car plates, driving licences and portfolio of permits and departed with them at the end of the trip.).