| I look closely into to the dark brown eyes. No sign of emotion. The mouth is twisted into a forced smile…but it does not reach the eyes. He looks slightly bewildered. A puff on his cigarette…curly dark hair is short and a bit sweaty in the midday heat….why did he do it, why did he act that way?.. Maybe because in his reality there was no choice. Wonder what reality is that…Ten intensive days. Abdul was always helpful and a part of the team. A good sport and not at all a bad rider…so why? Kashgar is a hectic city. A mixture of many things and a growing city. Officially 350.000 inhabitants – in reality much more. A Muslim old trading centre with a growing Chinese presence. A brand new and gigantic statue of Mao. A veiled Muslim woman with her little daughter dressed in the traditional Uigur dress. Hundreds of small handicraft shops. Seems like nothing has changed in five hundred years. The teahouses look like from an old movie - local men sitting , sipping their tea, perhaps munching on a piece of bread. They sit there for hours every day, with their traditional white dotted square like hats on. 
The only woman to be seen is an occasional tourist. Local women nor have time or the interest ( read: it is not suitable..) to spend their time in tea houses.
The old Muslim city I very alive until around 10 pm. Then everything dies out. Very quiet. Outside the old city life continues. Brave new China is pulsating on. The huge Chinese shopping center with its round place is filled with blinking neon lights. And on this plaza or square the crowd moves to the sugar sweet tones of contemporary Chinese pop music. That is often an American hit – signified version. One can hardly recognize the original Half of the crowd – approximately 150 people perform some kind of line dance and the other 150 dance in pairs. No individualism here, everything goes according to a well known routine. At least , it seems so. Big signs with the text “ welcome to beautiful Kashgar, our city in the world”  This is a city in transition..
Our hotel is boring and the staff does not understand a word of English. It is just on the brink of the old City. We have been here for almost five days – sorting out things, preparing for our next big leg., documenting the life here on both video and stills. Definitely enough. Time to head west bound. Unfortunately there are no direct flights out of China from here. Kashgar has no international flights. Not yet Two possibilities – either by air via Urumchi, 1500 km to the North East and then the following day by plane to Bishkek…or then take a jeep via The Torugart pass to Bishkek. 28 hour drive through mountainous terrain on mostly unpaved roads. By plane would be tempting, only problem is that there are very few weekly flights to Kyrgyzstan…so there was a dilemma. It suddenly hits us that we do have a problem with our visas. We did forget to tick in the box for multiple entries to Kyrgyzstan. Checked with our travel agent and Chinese partner Guo in Urumchi and with Margarita in Bishkek…” yes you can get a paper visa – but processing takes two weeks..” Paper visa? What is that. Or aren’t all visas paper visas. Never seen a plastic visa… A paper visa turned out to be a transit visa…and our flight to Europe was/is from Kyrgyzstan. Two weeks..? Everything takes time here and things are so bureaucratic. Does not suit my temper. If you want to hassle we people then hassle with the rest. Not with me.. J So this was a case for Heikki, fix-it-all Auvinen. Heikki is working on EU project in Southern Kyrgyzstan, in a dump called Batken. He does not take no for an answer. Lot of calls back and forth. The phone connections to …and within Kyrgyzstan are lousy To say the least. a bit like it might have been for Mannerheim hundred years ago….hello, can not hear you....hello!.. A fragment here a fragment there. After what seems like a dozen attempts, we understand that he is trying to fix a “ paper visa “ - to be faxed to the Torugart border. That is good enough for us. We will try, and good old brother bribe might work too. We call up John – his real name, is something totally different and book the jeep. He owns a western style internet café-restaurant-travel agency in a hotel that used to be the Russian Consulate. Same place where Mannerheim stayed during his four month stay in Kashgar. 
John's joint is not the only western haven here. The “real” one is called Carvan Café – owned by an American who runs it with a couple of other ex-pats. All of them have lived in Kashgar with their wives and children for several years and are highly respected in the community.
Caravan café is the real hang out for westerners’ here– latte , carrot cake, tuna sandwich, smooth jazz… Johns place is in comparison a Chinese variation on the same theme. But he is better at fixing travel arrangements. A well connected guy. 500 USD for a trip to Bishkek. A bit salty, but works for us. We try to get hold of Guo by phone. No luck. Then we inform him by email about our new plans and ask him to give us the exact sum that we owe him +his bank account number. This, our last day has almost passed with this hassle . Time to go and have a bite of something. Our Chinese driver takes us to a Sichuan restaurant. Very simple joint. The waiter looks like she would be twelve. But you never can tell…she might have been …eleven? The ordering is really a carousel. We do not know what we have ordered. Only that the list she has written down looks like five items. Seems to be good. Abdul orders something from the neighboring restaurant. He can not eat Chinese food. It is not Kosher. I mean Halal. Even if that expression does not exist here. The meaning is the same. So there we sip on our luke warm beers and wait. One dish is delivered….noodles in a dark , spicy sauce A few moments later a second – mushrooms and vegetables in a similar sauce. Did we order this.? We look at Abdul who in a funny way says yeees. Then my phone rings. Must be Guo. Nope. “ Haii, its Jooohn, you can not go to the Torugart border tomorrow. Poliiice called and said there is something unclear with payments…” Police called and said that? I am getting suspicious and ask John to specify. Who has said what and who had been in contact with the police? No clear answer there, but I concluded from his mumbling that Guo is behind this. Strange. I try to call Guo again. No answer. And when I come back to table I see that it is filled with dishes. Different seafood dishes, rice in various forms. Must be at least ten. The table is over loaded with food. Urs, Kristian and I, we are all as surprised. Our two local guys do not seem surprised at all. This amount of food would be enough for a dozen. In a by sentence, I pass on the information about our changed travel plans. We finish dinner and Hu, our driver gets a lot of doggie bags - he can feed his family for a couple of days. He does not seem surprised. This is very strange. We head back to the hotel. To make a new strategy Next morning , after breakfast we ask for our passports. Our passports that we left at the reception, after a request. According to Abdul – passports are needed also when checking out. They do not have our passports. What? Phone calls, nervous talks…. Then the receptionist gives the phone to me. To my surprise it is Abdul at the other end. Where are our passports?. Long silence. Where are our passports…damn it? “ my boss has them…we have to go and meet him. You have to pay 13500 USD and you will get them back..” His boss, that translates into Guos local guy. What a charade. What a setup. What is this? We never refused to pay. Our trip was just 40% shorter that what Guo &co had expected and wished for. But our agreement was clearly that the grand total is dependant on how long this Chinese part is. No misunderstandings there. But now these guys want it all. Steals our documents .Blackmails us. This is China , they say. Sure. It seems to be… Still Guo does not answer the phone. Kristian presses Abdul to call him. Who first says that he can not call Urumchi. He only has a local card. Bullshit. He calls. Guo answers. He is not at all cocky. Because he is not a tough guy. He lets his under dogs do the dirty work. We refuse to deal with his staff. Only way to settle this is to fly to Urumchi and talk with him tet a tet. Sigh.. So there we go – have to make the detour via Urumchi anyway. And waste a few more days in China.. Two days later we sit in our hotel room in Urumchi with Guo. He is so, so sorry. He just wanted his money. He got his money – but less than what he would have got if acting correctly. We lost a few valuable days. And we still have a good deal of our equipment in his storage. Worth more than his fee On Friday morning we finally leave China –after a bizarre farewell dinner, hosted by dear Mr. Guo I am still pissed at him and disappointed with Abdul. Abdul was already a member of the crew. He wanted so badly to join for a long leg next year. 
When I asked him why – the only real answer he gave me was - “This is China “.
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