Five Days Through Xinjiang

After two weeks bouncing across the empty expanses of western Mongolia, China arrived almost all at once.

The crossing at Takashiken should have been intimidating. As I rolled toward the Chinese checkpoint in my American-plated Defender, somewhere between ten and fifteen officers surrounded the vehicle. For a brief moment I wondered what I had gotten myself into.

Then the mood changed completely.

Most of them were simply curious. One officer spoke flawless English, explaining that his sister lived in the United States. He chatted with me while the inspections continued, making what could have been one of the most stressful border crossings of the trip into one of the friendliest. It was an early reminder that governments and ordinary people are rarely the same thing.

Xinjiang immediately felt different from anywhere else I had been.

The roads were immaculate. The scenery was spectacular. Everything seemed remarkably orderly. Yet beneath that order was something impossible to ignore. Armed security stood at fuel stations. Police patrols were constant. Checkpoints appeared with regularity. I never once felt physically unsafe, but I was always aware that I was being watched.

It was an odd emotional contradiction.

As an American who has also spent considerable time in France, I instinctively associate visible security with danger or crisis. Xinjiang inverted that assumption. The region felt peaceful—almost eerily so—but the peace was maintained by a security apparatus unlike anything I had encountered anywhere else on my 38,000-kilometer journey.

Ironically, the biggest challenge wasn’t the surveillance.

It was my tour guide.

After enjoying the freedom of driving alone across Mongolia, I had been looking forward to having someone to share the road with again. Instead, I found myself counting the days until I could travel independently once more.

She frequently made prejudiced remarks about other people. Conversations somehow drifted back to a French ex-boyfriend with surprising regularity. At one point she tried to arrange either a FaceTime call with one of her friends or a visit to their house for tea—an invitation that felt uncomfortably personal given that this was supposed to be a professional guiding relationship.

Rather than making the experience richer, she became a constant source of tension. By the end of the journey, I realized just how much a guide can shape your impression of an entire region.

Fortunately, Xinjiang itself kept reminding me why I was there.

Near Ulungur Lake, the landscape became almost oceanic. Massive waves crashed against the shoreline under freezing temperatures, making the lake feel less like an inland body of water and more like a stormy sea. It was wild, isolated, and completely unexpected.

Then came Sairam Lake.

I’m very, very small.

Those are the places I travel for—not because they’re famous, but because they recalibrate your sense of scale.

The people I met outside of my guide reinforced another lesson I’d been learning throughout the expedition. Drivers waved enthusiastically at the Defender as they passed. I had my first real conversations with ethnic Kazakh people, who struck me as relaxed, welcoming, and genuinely curious.

After five days, I reached Horgos and prepared to leave China. The exit was mostly procedural, although one official seemed unnecessarily hostile. I was also disappointed that my guide seemed reluctant to help during parts of the process, leaving me to navigate much of the crossing on my own.

Looking back, Xinjiang remains one of the hardest places from the expedition to summarize. It contained some of the most spectacular scenery I saw anywhere in Eurasia. It also contained the most visible security infrastructure I encountered. I left feeling admiration for the landscapes, appreciation for the kindness of many of the ordinary people I met, and discomfort with the atmosphere created by constant surveillance.

Those emotions don’t neatly cancel each other out. They coexist.