Xinjiang - The Roads

Xinjiang in Chinese means ‘New Frontier’, and it feels like it. It is China’s biggest province, and yet barely feels like China at all. The language here is not simply a different dialect but is from a completely different linguistic family, the people look more Turkish or Central Asian than they do Chinese, and the food consists of lamb kebabs and bread rather than Kungpao Chicken and rice. It is also largely made up of vast amounts of desert.
This was, by our reckoning at least, supposed to be the hardest part of the trip. The distances involved were enormous, the areas through which we were travelling were extremely remote and we had heard that the roads were bad.
As it turned out, it was nowhere near as hard as Qinghai had been. The distances were indeed vast, it took us five days from our first stop in Xinjiang to reach Kashgar, however although much of what we drove through was extremely isolated there was always a convenient little oasis town which popped up at just in time for us to stay the night. Also, apart from some rather hairy roadworks some of which pushed the bikes (thankfully only temporarily) to breaking point, the roads were largely extremely good.
Actually, when I say the roads were good, I mean the road surface was good. After about an hour of ceaseless desert the scenery does become a little monotonous. Look left, endless sand. Look right, endless sand. This for hundreds of kilometres. The only rest bite from the monotony came from oases. One minute we would be surrounded by sand and rock and nothing else, and almost instantly the oasis would emerge and there would be green trees, crops and even people. The only life we ever saw in the desert proper consisted of lizards and, once, a herd of camels.
Another thing that was not good about these ‘good roads’ was the driving. The driving in China is universally poor, but there are varying degrees of poor. In fact the driving in Xinjiang would be better described as catastrophic. Out in the desert there were so few vehicles that this was largely not an issue. When, however, we hit those oasis towns the driving beggared belief. Herds of goats, cars, motorbikes, auto ricksaws, peddle bikes, lorries and pedestrians became a heaving mass of varying speeds and trajectories. Having someone try to kill you became a daily occurrence.
Having said this, it was my own stupidity that led to my only serious crash of the trip. In the monotony of the surroundings and the straightness of the road concentration did sometimes wonder. In such an unthinking moment I set off after a break with my side stand still down. Pryd noticed and pulled up beside me to make me aware of this fact. Instead of stopping, flicking the stand up and continuing I stupidly tried to put it up while driving. But it wouldn’t go. I looked down to see what was going on and took my eyes off the ball just long enough for the bike to have drifted right to the edge of the road. I lifted my gaze to see the drop down the embankment coming towards me extremely quickly. I jerked the bike back on course, but by this stage I was already on the gravel by the side of the road, and any quick movements on a motorbike on gravel are highly inadvisable. I swerved, fell and bike and I slid down the road for a number of metres.
Considering that I was travelling at about 60km/h it is remarkable that the bike and I escaped largely without a scratch. The bike had a few bent pieces here and there, but nothing serious, and I was completely fine, not a bruise and not a scratch. It just goes to show what a difference some good kit can make.
Needless to say, I will never underestimate my side stand again.