Day 21 - Through the desert

Scout Tour: From Venice to Shanghai (July 24th to August 19th)
12.08.2017
Dunhuang/China

We had a four hours night stop in Kurle and after breakfast we continued our driving to the deep of China. The Gobi desert had been waiting for us and prepared a stormy wind. It was really complicated to drive fully loaded car through the 45 meters per second side wind. And it was especially hard to overtake big trucks, because the pressure from the wind to the car changed immediately and you need to drive much more with accurance. But if you and wind move in one direction - it`s possible to decrease the fuel consumption down to 3,5 liters per 100 km when speed is about 120 km/h.

If you like meetings with the policemen - the Xinjiang province is your place, because here the police is everywhere: at the gas stations, supermarkets, in hotels, on the streets and, of course, on the roads. They stop every car and check documents, speak with our guide, mr. Wang, and sometimes ask us to go to the police station for checking photo and verifying our documents. After eight times, leaving the car, it was boring us, because it took much time. And it will take time, when we start our world record driving from Shanghai to Venice.

Another serious thing is the Internet. The speed of connection even in best hotels on our way is too slow and lots of social media are blocked by Chinese government. That's the reason, why do we have some delay with uploading our videos and photos to the website.

If the internet is not most progressive thing in China, in transportation it's two steps up from Europe. We have already written about electric powered scooters, we met a lot of big trucks with LNG (liquefied natural gas) powered engines. This system is the most ecological solution for big trucks right now, but the Europe still prefer traditional diesel powered engines. One more unique thing about Chinese trucks is the double size of trailers. In Mexico you can meet two trailers in one chain, in Australia you can meet up to three trailers and one truck, but chinese trailers are “all-in-one super XXL size”. One trailer can take on board up to 25 cars

At the end of a day we found antoher monument, dedicated to Silk Road times. It's was the fire tower building, that was used for alarming Great Wall soldiers about enemy. It was made with clay, wood and sticks at 8th century. And it still has been staying! Now have more than 3000 km to Shanghai, but today we decide to park our Volkswagen Tiguan at Dunhuang and stay here next day.

#Shanghai2Venice

http://www.tiguan-silkroad.com

Author: Dmitry Makarov

back