A mail from Clément Lefèvre contains some short but important information about the situation in Xinjiang.
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218 Road
Well, six county are closed to independant travellers in Xinjiang, 5 of them
in the Ili / Narat Valley and one in Pamir near KGZ. Official reason is due
to the fact those are Semi-Military Areas.
Option are, as far as i understood from Police/Travel Agencies:
-Get a Travel Permit at Urumqi Police 50 RMB
-Get Caught by Police, pay 500RMB max, the receipt can be used as travel
permit.
Started from UMQ to Balungtai then the 218 to Yining no problem till we got
arrested near XinYuan.
300 RMB/person to be "punished for Having Broken Chinese regulation for
Foreign Travelers"
Road To Tibet
Yecheng to Aqmit (/Aqmeqit)
After Aqmit pass we tried to reach Tashkurgan. But due to landslides, it
takes now 5 days carrying your bike to pass this road.
KKH
The Chinese part will completely paved in August 06 according to the Yang Lu
Ren.
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I was in Pakistan in July and August
Some basic info.
The Khunjerab is still not cyclable and you still have to put your bike on the bus in between Sost and Tashkurgan.
The search of bags on the Chinese side (Tashkurgan) is much more thorough nowadays.
In between Besham and Shatial, there are almost daily skirmishes and on top of that armed robberies, which make the police and army to gather convoys travelling here at night. I.e. it may not be a good idea to cycle here at night, when not even the buses go there without heavily armed guards.