We’re on a mission to share what travel is really like in the countries that we’re trippin’ through–and that includes sharing the bad along with the good. We admit it: we didn’t like traveling in Xinjiang, China. Here’s why.
If you’re traveling to Xingjiang, or anywhere in China for that matter, make sure to get a VPN before you go. We used and recommend ExpressVPN when you travel to China. Check out ExpressVPN here for the best deals.
We left western China after only three weeks of travel.
The original plan was to travel around western and central China for two or three months. We’d enter from Pakistan, kick it in Xinjiang for a bit, get as close to Tibet as possible without having to get permits or be arrested, then exit through to Kyrgyzstan. We entered with high hopes, excited to explore a country that is so saturated with ancient history it’s fit to burst, that has a culture completely unlike any other in this world.
As the days progressed, we realized our expectations were too high. The China we imagined was far, far to the east, and Xinjiang province was more of a tense territory taken from other countries, rather than a true extension of China. Our days turned into drags, and we spent more time being frustrated, bored, and whinging about lost funds than actually enjoying ourselves.
Where’s the fun in that?
Hiding out in a hostel because sights are beyond our budget.
There was no point in forcing ourselves to enjoy something we found mediocre when so many other places were calling our names. We decided to throw in the towel on China for now, and save it for another day when we have more time, less of a Central Asian agenda, and have acquired several million dollars via a lottery/inheritance from mysterious distant relatives/getting a sugar momma or daddy.
Until that magical moment when we become millionaires (sugar daddies, take note) we’ll stick to blogging. And what kind of bloggers would we be if we left you hanging with a vague “we peaced out because it sucked”?
Please.
We’re not the kind of travel bloggers that spout lies to convince you of our “perfect” lives—we’re here to keep it real. Here are a few more reasons we didn’t like traveling in Xinjiang, China. Keep in mind while reading that these views aren’t necessarily true for all of China–this is just us venting about Xinjiang itself.
Traveling to Xinjiang from Kyrgyzstan? Check out this post on crossing the border between Kyrgyzstan and China!
Despite being a functioning mosque, the Id Kah mosque in Kashgar entrance fee was equivalent to one night of sleeping.
Money in Xinjiang
The Chinese government loves money. They love it so much, they’ll charge you up the wazoo for everything and anything. And I mean everything.
Oh you want to see this purposeless little building? That’s 45 RMB ($6.50) please. An active mosque? 70 RMB ($10). This lovely mountain lake? That’ll be 200 RMB ($28.50).
We don’t mind spending a bit of money on sights, but when you have to empty your pockets for literally every single pointless pebble, we draw the line.
Add in the facts that a train to anywhere costs more than our daily budget, a bed in a dorm costs the same as a three-star hotel in Georgia, and active religious sights actually cost money unlike the million and one epic religious sights in Armenia, and you begin to see why western China wasn’t our flavor of the day.
No love, only stares.
People in Xinjiang
We never felt particularly welcome when traveling in Xinjiang. People’s attitudes ranged from indifferent to downright hostile. The most common response we got when we asked people on the street a question was meiyo!–no, not possible–and a wave of the hand. Begone foreigner! You’re not wanted here. Just give us your money and leave.
Rumor has it that the local Uyghur population is usually very kind, but our experience was different. We never felt particularly welcome walking around Uyghur neighborhoods. In the true old town of Kashgar, no one would respond to our greetings.
People in Tuyoq Valley refused us entry into streets and shrines with cold stares. When hunting for lunch options in Kuche, people just glared at us as we moved towards places to sit, not turning around until we had grown uncomfortable and moved on.
It might be a side-effect of the suppression of Uyghur culture and people at the hands of the Chinese government – which has only gotten worse since we left – or perhaps we’re just scary lookin’ folks. Who knows? Everyone has their own experience, so yours may be different from ours.
The last remnants of the old Old Town of Kashgar, the rest of which has been demolished in favor of a new, more polished “Old” Town.
The Disneyfication of tourism in Xinjiang
China seems hell-bent on destroying its sights. The process for developing tourist sights in the west seems to be:
- Realize something is worthy of tourist visits.
- Build a hideous 5-star hotel right next to it.
- Demolish any authentic buildings around it, and rebuild new ones made to look old.
- Construct a huge fence in a 10km radius around the sight.
- Set up a mandatory bus line from the fence to the entrance of the sight. Charge people 100RMB to ride the mandatory bus.
- Require tourists to have a guide. Make foreigners’ lives a bit worse by making the English-speaking guide 5 times as expensive.
- Install a million CCTV cameras to track tourists’ every movement.
And this being China, some literal Disneyfication as well.
In addition to the charmingly Chinese development process, there’s also the issue of the way the historical sights are presented. Most of Xinjiang, the “far west” of China, is basically land that China laid claim to in recent history. The museums and sights are filled with propaganda, re-crafting Uyghur history and culture to fit the Chinese government’s seemingly happier (and more Chinese) narrative. Xinjiang? Xinjiang is China and has always been China. Uyghurs? No, they are simply Chinese… with a slightly different ethnic background that we will choose to ignore.
Local folks waiting to go to the three–yes, three–security checkpoints to enter the train station in Urumqi.
Chinese officials are mindless drones
What’s the most deadly article you’ve carried on you while traveling?
For us, it’s deodorant.
Forget the pocket knives, toxic bug spray, and baton-like selfie stick–the ever-so-clever Chinese security deduced that spray deodorant was our weapon of choice. Multiple cans of our deodorant were confiscated because ??? We might kill someone with freshness? Craft a bomb with our B.O.-begone? Do I look like fucking MacGyver to you?!
China doesn’t want citizens to be independent, self-thinking, or critical–it would be dangerous for the Party. Instead, it has created an army of mindless security drones who refuse to do anything except following paper orders to a T. And these totally arbitrary security restrictions drove us insane. Even more so than security in Pakistan (and that’s sayin’ something).
Paper says no drinks on the bus platform, so no drinks on the bus platform. The fact that it’s 40 degrees and you’re on the verge of dying from dehydration is irrelevant–the paper has spoken. The fact that there’s a vending machine for drinks on the platform is also irrelevant–you still cannot have drinks there.
Paper says no suspicious objects on the bus. You have shampoo in your backpack. Your shampoo is very suspicious, despite the fact that it is in a bag with conditioner, razors, soap, and other shower products. Suspicious objects are not allowed on the bus, so you are not allowed on the bus.
Paper says groups are not allowed to intermingle at the border. You must stand by your bus, and stop speaking to the person in line before you. Shouted conversations across the compound to said person are acceptable, however–the paper says nothing about that.
Before the rant ends: a caveat about traveling in Xinjiang
Traveling isn’t always going to be fun, and it’s easy to get sucked into a negative mindset. It’s important to remember that traveling is a privilege not granted to many, and we should be fortunate for what we do have, even if it is really fucking annoying frustrating at times.
So let’s end this on a positive note, shall we? Despite the frustrations and pains, there was one shining beacon of excellence throughout our time in Xinjiang: the food.
Yes.
Oh yes.
Yeah baby.
The grand finale: EGGS. AND DUMPLINGS. ALL AT THE SAME TIME.
At least we can say we left China with contented bellies.
Heading to China soon. Check out this post on things to do in China.
Have you ever traveled to a country, only to leave disappointed? Which country? What happened?
Hi, guys, next time don’t miss the south of China, the amazing karsts (conical cliffs) in Xingping and the lovely city of Guilin. And I travelled from Beijing to the south and just met very nice and helpful people. China is now one of my favorite countries, and I love Chinese people. You will not be disappointed again
High expectation travling to Xinjiang? why you wanna harbor such feeling in advance. When you are not happy traveling to a certain place, it is better to reflect by youself, what happened to myself? sometimes high expectation is not a matter of fact attitude of travelling. Xinjiang people is not living to make you happy, if you don’t like it, then don’t choose to again. Traveling is more a new opportunity of discovering new staff than being made happy by the local people.
I (from Taiwan) just came back from Northern Xinjiang. I’ve to said that, at the peak season now, I see no Western tourists.
I can tell you that, China government don’t welcome Westerns to visit Xinjiang. China are afraid that you reveal the dirty things they have been doing. The Uyghurs or other races, they are not like Chinese. They are just being strictly controlled and are scared of the China government. You won’t know how they will be punished if they be nice to you.
Sorry to hear that you couldn’t have nice encounters with the Uyghurs. I’ve met some Uyghurs in eastern and southern China and they were the nicest people around these places. In Xinjiang, I can only assume that the Uyghurs are scared to talk or interact with you. Every move is monitored with cameras and I saw in some interviews, that it’s kind of dangerous for them to interact with foreigners. It’s very sad actually..
my only comment – don’t travel when you don’t have money 😉
the Chinese charged me money, cry cry. The Chinese took away my deodorant, now i smell like rotten cheese, booho boohuhu… I saw a dwarf statue, this place must be Disneyland copycat. NO!!! I want the fictional silk road where people dance and welcome me into their home and treat me like king. why are people staring at me? cry cry… what a pathetic whinner.
thanks for the story. Is it safe a muslim woman with hijab to travel alone there?
I really want to visit Xinjiang for nature, food and culture. I hate current political issue.
I am aware that China is not nice to traveller (expecially if you can’t speak and read Chinese). I like Shanghai but I had bad experience when I was in Beijing. Crowded, costly and difficult to commute.
I completely agree with you re: the coldness and unhelpfulness in China. (I have never been to Xinjiang– just Beijing and Shanghai). I found the people in India and other parts of Asia to be much warmer, much friendlier, and much less automaton-like. I was really surprised, as I went in thinking China was going to be amazing– at the very least with people as friendly as India/South-East-Asia.
Hi there:
I am sorry to hear that you do not like Xinjiang, but I want to know that do you try to know a little bit thing about Xinjiang before you going there?
Xinjiang is totally a different province from other part of China, and from some of your words I can see that you were there with your prejudice. About the government, you described it as a monster, but do you know that without soldiers everywhere, without cameras everywhere, you would be killed while no one knows. Xinjiang is dangerous, and in some way it is because there are some foreign power inciting Xinjiang independence, believe me, that is ture. Hence some people in Xinjiang are “fighting for their freedom” and you guys call them “freedom fighter”, but these kind of people kill people in Xinjiang, even kill people in other parts of China. I do not really understand why you guys would consider the terrorists as fighters, consider a country which wants to safeguard national unity and security as unreasonable monster. So thanks for the cameras and policemen everywhere, you were not killed, and cameras really do not care where were you going and what were you doing. Also thanks for the security measures, because of that, though Xinjiang is dangerous, this place does not have as many terrorist attacks as other countries do.
When you blamed everything to the government, of course everything is unreasonable for you. Because before you going there, you already had your answers.
Xinjiang is not really ready for tourism, though it tries to but it is not ready. It is good that you want to have an adventure there (yeah we called that adventure in China because even Chinese dare not go there alone, thanks you freedom fighters!), but it could be better if you tried to search for more things before you going, when I mean more things, I do not mean more things from western media.
BTW, the best thing in Xinjiang is landscape, not the commercial place you went. That’s why I mean Xinjiang is not ready for tourism, for the best things, it is still a little bit hard for you guys to discover since you are not native so you do not know how to get there and what is right way to have fun.
Just wondering if the locals are fearful of talking to foreigners due to the secret police interrogations. You also have to expect a 100% language barrier resulting in the ‘No’s. In fact in other parts of China this was often the case – we were ignored by taxi drivers – the whole language barrier is just too much for them, and quite time consuming.