Horse trip in Xinjiang
As the Chinese Government opened Xinjiang only recently for individual travel, there were only very few guidebooks available in which we could find information about the way we wanted to take. We had seen only very few pictures and had no clear idea how the Tien Shan mountains would be like. So our journey was a real discovery for us. Also the people on our way were very surprised to see foreigners and invited us over and over. Here are some more details about our ride.
The horses
We bought four nice horses from Kazakh people in the mountains near Urumqi. In Mongolia we had realized, that we had too much luggage for one packhorse. This time we had less luggage and one horse more to carry it, so we hoped to be able to travel a bit faster.
We bought three brown horses and one black. The black horse we named “Kara” which means “black” in Kazakh language, in fact this horse was named like this also before by the former owner. Kara was Heiner´s packhorse. He is very strong, and likes walking. Only if there was good grass on the way and we stopped for a moment, he would not like to go one more step, but eat. He is always hungry and can eat very fast, almost like a camel. He does not like corn so much; his favourite food is green grass. He is a very brave horse, not afraid of nearly anything.
The horse Heiner was riding we named “Zottel” (“zottig” in German means “shaggy”). He had very long hair, this was one reason to call him Zottel. There is also a verb “zotteln” in colloquial German that roughly means “to walk slowly”. This meaning also suited him very well. When Heiner was walking in front of Zottel, the horse only liked to walk very slowly most of the time and had to be dragged a lot. Sometimes he got slower and slower and in the end stood still. When Heiner was riding on him Zottel walked also slowly but very steadily and therefore he was the perfect horse for taking pictures while riding. He likes the company of the other horses and never wanted to be alone.
My packhorse we named “Ali”, a common name in Xinjiang. He is not afraid at all of the luggage or the packsaddle on his back, even if something of the luggage is moving, but he is very afraid in cities and towns, probably he has not seen so many cities in his life before. He likes walking and he likes to stay with Kara and Zottel.
The horse I was riding we named “Kobold”. He is the fastest horse we have and always eager to walk. He is very aware of everything, what happens around him. He is always the first to stop eating and nevertheless he did not get much thinner during our journey. Unfortunately he is very afraid of many things, especially of his saddle, when it moved a bit on his back or when the saddlebags were bumping against his stomach. Because of this he ran away three times. Twice he got rid of the saddle, part by part and stopped finally, but the third time the saddle and the saddle bags stayed on his back, and being afraid of the saddle bags all the time he was running away more than 15 kilometres on a newly built motorway with four lanes, where cars were not yet allowed to drive on. We were very happy that we found him again, each time he had escaped. We tried to prevent him from going mad by fixing the saddle as firm as possible. When we tied him somewhere, because we wanted to eat or to buy something, we always put hobbles at his forefeet and put down the saddlebags.
The way
We travelled from the mountains near Urumqi, which is the capital of Xinjiang, to a small town in the area of Ili, not so far from the border to Kazakhstan. It took us about six weeks and in this time we covered about one thousand kilometres.
Instead of riding all the time in the flat irrigated farmland west of Urumqi, along the big main highway to Ili, we decided to take small unpaved roads through the mountains parallel to the main highway, when it was possible to do so. These roads were wonderful. The landscape was changing every time we got over a mountain pass. We came through alpine valleys with pine trees and creeks, through dry colourful canyons with steep, high walls, and also through hilly grassland reminding us of the steppe of Mongolia. Further west we had to cross a desert area with the horses. Once, for 100 km, in an area where there was no water and food for the horses, we transported them on a truck. Then again we could take a small mountain road, which, for a long distance, was only passable for motorbikes, horses or on foot. This road followed a river, which became a small creek, when we got higher and guided us for about 100 km to a big lake in the very west of Xinjiang near the Kazakh border: The Sayram Lake at 2000 m altitude. We rode along Sayram Lake for two days. It was still covered with ice when we came there, but during the two days we travelled there, the ice was melting and a big part of the lake was free of ice when we left, shining in deep blue. From the lake we planned to take a mountain-path over a mountain pass and then down to Ili. The pass would have been about 2.600 m of altitude. But already at 2.300 m there was still so much snow on the path, that we could not proceed with the horses and we decided to turn back to the big road.
For most of the time we were travelling in the mountains. So the roads were mostly going uphill or downhill, and thus it was often necessary to walk instead of riding. We walked a lot on our own feet, covering about 30 km a day in an average in the mountains. In the flat land around Ili, we walked and rode 50 km per day, two days in a row. It was the biggest distance we covered in one day during the whole trip.
The roads in China are well signed - but of course in Chinese. We had a map to compare the characters on the map with the characters on the road sign. The good thing was that even the small mountain road had a stone every kilometre, with the number of the road and the kilometers on it. So it was easy to know if we are on the right road or not.
Along the big new roads and motorways there are often still the old roads left for the slower vehicles like bicycles, donkey-charts, tractors and horses. Just at the edge of these roads there was often a path, which was perfect to ride on. Apart from the noise of the big road beside, these roads are great for riding and having conversations with locals. Near Ili we once rode in trot for about 5 km, when a small tractor with three men on it overtook us. They were all weaving their hands and shouting at us. We stopped our horses and they pointed on the saddle of Kara. We realised that under the saddle, which was in place, there was no saddle padding any more. We were shocked and thanked them for the warning. Then suddenly they were waving with our saddle padding. They laughed and said that we have to pay 20 RMB (about 2 EUR) for it. [Note: One Euro is about US$1.20, so 20 Euros is $24.]
To play the joke with them, we showed them the money, but of course they refused to take it. We wanted to give them a pack of cigarettes, but also this they threw back on the road, when they drove on with their tractor. When we untied the saddle, it was the very light packsaddle, with only sleeping-bags and tent on it, we were very happy to see the horse’s back still all right and also happy, that the men helped us and we did not have to go back the five or however many kilometres it would have been, to find the padding.
Some parts of the big motorway from Urumqi to Ili were not yet finished. Then all the truck traffic was on the small road beside the newly built motorway. These parts were very stressful to walk. Another hard time for the horses was to go through the city of Ili. Our horses were not used to cities and so Ali, Kobold, and Zottel were afraid of bicycles, shops, big mirroring windows in which they suddenly could see four other horses appearing. Only Kara was very brave and quiet even in the biggest traffic. Near to Ili the road was new and paved but there was no small road beside. There especially the buses were extremely dangerous. They would never break; just blow their horn continuously if there was someone weaker on the road. And if you ride on a hose like Kobold, who is afraid of a bicycle standing beside the road and does only like to pass it with at least three meters of space between him and the bike, but is not afraid at all of a bus, which comes from behind with a speed of 100 km/h and is blowing his horn, you better walk.
The weather
We started the first of April and at this time the weather was already really nice: Sunshine and about 20°C [68o F]at an altitude of nearly 2.000 meters. After some days the weather changed and we came into a snowstorm, had to stay for one day in a little village in the mountains and then still could not continue because of too much snow on the pass on our way. In the end we backtracked and took another road. In lower altitudes it was already spring, blooming fruit trees and popular trees were just getting their leaves. End of April, at the Sayram Lake, there was still ice on the lake, which melted during these days. In the region of Ili it was already like summer in the beginning of May. All the fields and trees were green and it was about 30°C [85oF].
The food
For the horses we tried to find hay or dried corn plants everyday. That was not so easy, because the villages were often 20 km away from each other. People living in the mountains without a neighbour did not like so much to sell us their hay. They did not know if there was more snow to come yet and they would need it for their animals. In the villages it was always possible to find someone, who had a bigger store and sold some hay to us. Out of the mountains in the flat irrigated area it was more difficult to find hay. There we often only could find dried corn plants. In the beginning, there was no grass yet. Later, at the end of April, there was already enough green grass, so that it was not necessary any more to get hay. Also most people had no more hay left. We also gave the horses corn seeds. It is what most of the people in northern Xinjiang feed to their animals, not only to their horses but also to their cows, sheep and chicken. So nearly every one, who has animals, has some corn at home and we could buy it in every village. We gave each horse 2-3 kg [about five pounds] of corn seeds every day.
For us we had some milk powder and oatmeal with us. We had this in the morning and in the evening. Often we were invited to have tea. Kazakh people usually have milk tea, similar to the Mongolian milk tea. They like to put some butter or other kind of fat, like cow fat or sheep fat into the tea to make it better. We liked it. With the tea they have usually a lot of bread or Worzoga –balls made of batter and fried in fat, which we also had already tasted in Mongolia. Bread seems to be the main food for Kazakh people. Early spring is of course the most difficult time for food. There is not a lot of milk. It is not the right time to kill an animal for meat, because they are very thin after the long winter. In addition the dried pieces of some kind of yoghurt, which Kazakh people call Kurt (in Mongolia: Arul) and the dried meat they had for the winter is nearly finished. But still we were invited by Nomads to a slaughtering meal of a sheep and we got the best part of the sheep: the eyes, one for Heiner and one for me.
In small towns, of which there were only three on more than 300km in the mountains, there were food stalls, where we could order food like Pilau: rice with sliced carrots, meat and raisins in it, or Laghman: freshly made pulled noodles with a sauce of tomato, sheep-meat and other vegetables. This food we also had several times, when we were invited for dinner by people, of whom we bought hay. When we were invited to have breakfast with them, they often fried some eggs with green vegetable, garlic, onions and a bit of dried meat and we had it with a lot of bread and of course milk-tea.
The equipment
We used local saddles, which we bought in Urumqi, once or twice folded felt as padding under the saddle, which we used to sleep on during the nights. We had a tent and good sleeping bags with us. We did not have a cooking-stove, but made fire from dung or wood some times. It is very difficult to find good maps of China. We had a detailed road map of Xinjiang, which we bought in China. It was quite helpful, because also the small roads were shown on it. And the names of the towns were printed in Chinese, so we could compare with the road-signs. Additionally we had more detailed Russian maps 1:500 000, but they were only available on CD as scans. We wrote down the coordinates of some important points and on the way we checked with a GPS, if we were still on the right way. In the beginning we had a laptop with us, but then we gave it, together with some other luggage, to a Uighur friend.
We had a head-torch (flashlight), which was really helpful. And we had two more, which we bought in Beijing to have a gift for very nice people. It was the best gift, we could make, especially for people in the countryside, who have to go out during the night to look after their animals and often have to fix a fence or a rope using both hands.
In China mobile phones are working in many areas. Along the big roads they work nearly everywhere and even in the mountains they work some times. But we ran out of battery and we did not like to ask people to charge our phone in their home. They had only little electricity themselves. There was no electricity network in the mountains, but most people had small solar panels and a big battery to have light in the evening or even to watch TV. Apparently the Chinese government helps people in remote areas to buy these solar panels.
The people
In Xinjiang there are living a lot of different peoples: Uighur, Kazakh, Hui, Mongol, Kyrgyz, Tadjik and also many Han-Chinese people.
The Uighur people speak Uighur language, which is a Turkic language and very similar to Kazakh. Nearly all of them are Moslem and live in the irrigated farmlands and in the oases of Xinjiang.
Hui people are speaking a dialect of Mandarin; they are also mostly Moslem and are also living and working in the irrigated farmlands.
For most of the time we travelled in areas where Kazakh-people live. The Kazakh language is very similar to Uighur, they can understand each other. We tried to learn Kazakh and soon got to know the most important things and could tell them what we like, where we come from, where we go to... It helped, that Heiner had studied some Turkish before and I had studied Persian (Farsi), as Kazakh is also a Turkic language and many words are the same as in Turkish, some other words are as in Persian.
Kazakhs are mainly living in the mountain-areas, with their sheep, horses and some cows. Once a Kazakh man asked me, if there are mountains in Germany, and I said: Very few, just in the very south of Germany. Then he asked me if we had sheep in Germany. I answered again: Yes, but very few. After that he asked me if there were Kazakh people living in Germany. I told him: Yes but only very few. He nodded and said: Of course, there are only few Kazakh people living in Germany, if there are only few sheep and only few mountains …
Most Kazakh people have nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyles. Most of them have a house, where they live during the winter. During the summer they go higher up into the mountains with their animals and live in yurts. Some live in yurts all year and move several times.
Most Kazakh people are also Moslem, but the majority takes the religion not as serious as many Hui or Uighur people do. Many Kazakh drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, and the women in general are very free and don’t wear head scarves. But there is one thing they are very serious about, this is their hospitality. So we got invited to their houses to have tea many times, when we were just riding by. Once a woman explained to us, after we had thanked her a lot for the food and the tea she prepared for us, that we don’t have to thank because it is a good deed in front of God (“sawab”) if you give food and tea to a traveller. Many evenings we were invited for dinner or someone brought us even some bread and food to our tent. People often invited us to stay in their home, but we knew they could get problems from the police, if someone, especially a foreigner, stays in their home. So we always stayed in our tent. It was nearly impossible to pay something for the food, they gave to us. So we were happy, that we could pay for the hay and corn for the horses, for which we were willing to pay a good price. And we always gave some gifts, like good cigarettes, tea, dates, or for special occasions a head-torch. Many Kazakh are extremely beautiful, both men and women. And it was a pleasure for us to take pictures of them.
We also met some Mongolians. They were happy that we could say hello to them in Mongolian language and we were happy to hear once more some Mongolian. They live like Kazakh people in the mountains with their animals.
Han-Chinese people, who came from the eastern cities one or two generations ago, live mainly in bigger towns or in cities like Urumqi or Ili, Altai and Kashgar.
On the whole trip we felt very safe. We think that China in general is a very safe place to travel. The police are quite strong and people respect the rules. We sometimes asked people, if there were some thieves around and if we had to watch out that our horses will not be stolen during the night. Nearly always they said: No, don’t worry at all! and we did not. We also did not have to worry about our horses or bags, if we had tea or food in a restaurant. Nearly always someone of the restaurant stayed with the horses, while we were eating and we always trusted these people to take good care of the horses and of our things. In fact we never had any problem and every day again we were amazed by the great hospitality of the people we met, no matter if they were Kazakh, Uighur or Hui people.
The police
Beginning of March we wanted to buy horses near Altai, in the very north of Xinjiang, close to the Mongolian border. Our Visa was nearly finished so we had to go to the police to ask them to extend it. They asked us a lot of questions, we stayed the whole day in the police office and in the end they said we are not allowed to buy horses in Altai, because it is a border area, and for our own safety, they would not allow us to buy horses here. In addition they gave us only 10 more days of Visa. After inquiring in Urumqi, if we could buy horses near Urumqi and people told us that it was no problem, we flew to Hong Kong to get a new three month Visa. End of March we bought horses near Urumqi. On the way we saw many police cars and police men, but they seemed not to be interested in us. When we came to the first bigger town, after about 500 km, a man in normal dress coming out of a normal four wheel drive car stopped us and said: “police - please wait - ten minutes”. He called an English speaking policeman and he controlled our passports, asked about our way and in the end he said: “Whish you a good journey and take care of your belongings.” We got checked another time near Ili, that time the policeman again wore just normal clothes, driving a normal motorbike. So at first we did not believe him, that he is a policeman, since he did not have a card as a proof. We insisted that he should prove, that he is a policeman, and finally he took a handgun out of the right pocket of his trousers. If it would have happened in any other country in central Asia, we probably would just fled, but since it was in China we believed him and showed him our passports. He also let us continue without any further questions, after we explained to him that we knew about the location of the “closed areas” (closed for individual travel) and do not want to enter one.
There are closed areas in Xinjiang, where everyone who wants to go there needs a permit. We knew this and asked in Urumqi about the closed areas, so that we would not travel into one. The places where we were checked were always near roads which led into such a closed area.
In the area of Ili, where we wanted to finish our journey with the horses, we knew a family, where we could stay for some days to find a solution what to do with the horses. We knew that if we wanted to stay with a family we would have to register at the nearest police station. So already the day we arrived, the police came to the family and stayed some hours asking us, what we did, where we come from and what we like to do next. But as they could not speak English it was very difficult. The next day we had to come to their office to register, which took again two or three hours. The third day one policeman and one policewoman came to the family where we stayed. The woman could speak English very well and interviewed us for about five hours. Then she wrote two reports, which we had to sign on every single paper even with fingerprints. She informed us, that we would have had to register every day, at least after 72 hours at the nearest police station, even if we stayed in a tent. And that we would have needed a permit for our “own provided means of transportation” (she meant our horses) as if we would have had our own car or motorcycle. We did not know before, that we needed a permit like this, as no one we met and who rode a bicycle through China was having one. But the lady explained us that riding a horse is “too free for aliens”.
In the end the policewoman was very nice and said, that on the other hand she thinks we are good tourists, because we did inform us about the closed areas, and we did register when we came to this family, so she would not make us pay 500 RMB (50 EUR) for every day, we did not register (which would have been more than 30 000 RMB (3 000 EUR)). This would be the normal fine, she told us. We only would have to pay 400 RMB (40 EUR) as a warning to register the next time we come to China. To pay this fine we had to go to the police station the next day, sign more papers, go to the bank together with the policeman, pay the money and sign again. The policemen were very correct and friendly. On the last day, after everything was correctly signed and every paper in its right place the policeman even drove us to the bus station in his car.
About ourselves
We, Heiner Tettenborn and Monika Koch, are from Germany and for a long time we have been dreaming to ride on horseback from Mongolia to Germany. In Germany Heiner worked as a lawyer and me, Monika, as a veterinary doctor. In November 2003 we left Germany and started travelling. From December 2003 to May 2004 we worked for a small German NGO in Afghanistan and travelled around in the country. In July 2004 we came to Mongolia, visited the Naadam Festival, bought horses and started riding to the west. Unfortunately we were not able to take our Mongolian horses over the border from the west of Mongolia to the province of Xinjiang in China. So we hired a truck and brought our horses back to the place, where we had bought them and let them run free with their old friends and family in December 2004. In March 2005 we tried to buy horses near the Mongolian border and finally found some nice horses near Urumqi and rode them across the north of Xinjiang to Ili in the very west of Xinjiang, near the Kazakh border. There we left them with a family. In May and June this year we travelled again through Afghanistan and met our friends from last year. This winter we plan to make presentations with slides of our travels in southern Germany: One presentation about the trip with the horses in Mongolia and western China and another one about our journeys in Afghanistan. So we will try to earn some money and hopefully will be able to continue riding with our horses towards Europe next summer.