As you can see from the first photo we arrived in Yining early in the morning. Even this little insignificant town has a grand railway station. The town was noticeably different to the other Chinese towns we have visited. More signs of Islam, different food, and a general air of "more broken down". In any case from here we started the 1-2 hour drive to the border and the town Khorgas. Along the way we travelled mostly on a very modern dual carriage way road, saw lots of agriculture include sun-flowers, and as we approached Khorgas, many many massive warehouse buildings, yards full of new trucks and new cars.

The actual border crossing is a somehwat complicated affair. From a terminal building (picture 3) in Khorgas we caught a bus to some vast buildings where Chinese exit processing took place. We could not help but notice the large number of people (I assume Kazak traders) with enornmous bundles of goods also going through exit processing. Picture 4 is one of the Chinese customs/immigration buildings. The exit processing was slow and it seemed harder to get out of China than it was to get in. Through this process we and all those traders had to carry all our luggage.

Once exit processing was done we got back on a bus (in theory the same bus, but not in reality) and drove maybe 1 km to Kazak entry. Here signs were in Kazak, Russian and maybe/sometimes English. This was a much faster though even more chaotic process. Again of course done with all our baggage.

After Kazak processing, even though we were now officially in Kazakstan, we could not be met by private vehicles. Thus we had to get back on that same bus for a drive to the town of Zharkent and again it was along a nice new dual carriage road.

Picture 7 is outside the bus station in Zharkent and is an introduction to Kazak driving. So many cars parked randomly in the street that the bus could not get into the bus station. That will become a hall-mark of the next couple of days (and maybe all our time) in Kazakhstan.

We finally got into the bus station, unloaded our stuff, met our local guide and stopped at a restaraunt (picture 6) for lunch. Interestingly there was finally some stuff on the table that I recognized as food (and that I was prepared to eat; but not without some reservations).

Finally, a long drive to our hotel which was located in an area where there are hot thermal springs. This area seems to have attracted local tourists because there was a cluster of hotels in this area. Ours was called Prestige. I wont detail its failings but surfice it to say the only thing Prestige about it was the name.

We are out of China and in Kazakhstan. Tomorrow starts a new adventure.

Post script - the yellow pipe in the second last picture is a gas pipe used domestically for cooking and heating. Its a lot easier to run them in the air like that than put them in the ground. Makes repairs easier also. Obviously a Soviet era practice - function over esthetics.