Torugart pass crossing Q&A

[steven]

We welcome all your questions and reports about the Torugart crossing below.

We gather all travel intelligence in the Torugart crossing travel guide article.

[samsung]

Did a quick road trip Bishkek-Kashgar-Osh with flight back to Bishkek rhis month.

Local Bishkek driver dropped me in Naryn Sunday 15th of Sept. Intourist was 800 som, 1000 with BF. Working wifi.

Following day used local driver to CN border. 6500 som. As long as you have CN visa no need for border permit.

Left 0630. 5 min stop at first KG border zone barrier. Then some 30 min at KG border passing 300 hundred trucks after 3 days closure. Arriving at CN gate 0930, opening at 1030 ish. First one there. Starting filling up No passing before your CN guide shows up at Torugart. A RTW motorbiketeam of 12 bikers were the only ones who managed to pass before lunch break. I passed as the next around 1400. Caught up with the bikers 5km down at the first checkpoint, as they had loads of red tape. I travelled solo, with burner phone only and no luggage at all, making it all quick. First one to arrive in Kashgar that day in time for a great Uighur dinner by old town some 18ish+.

Contrary to Erkeshtam where you can cross wth no arrangements you must have a a prearranged guide at CN side at Torugart. 2 independant bikers had been stuck in between borders for 1 and 3 days (Swiss and Russian), and as well a german couple arrived making the stranded group 4- Last I heard when I left was that the border officer tried to help with some local guides to arrange the borderzome permission and guide. It looked good, but the same officer stasrted by saying impossible earlier on, si it remains to be seen. Not a situation I would put myself in. Given the remoteness and weather, as it started snowing on spot while waiting.

Exiting at Erkeshtam was a breeze. Left Radisson Kashgar 0630 KG time (and local time, while they howver officailly use Beijing time 2 h ahead). Checked out of CN precisely 1110, where lunch break starts 1130. With a non pro pick up he had to waut for me at the border zone gate about 18 km from border. From CN exit where I was the first I walked about 2-3 km to KG main passport control. The local taxi mafia claimed 1000 som to take me to last gate. They said my pick up should pay so not to worry. I declined started walking and offered 500 som. It came down to 700, and I offered 600 som last offer which was accepted. The Uzbek driver waiting for me drove like a maniac. Worst Ive ever had. He and his english speaking imam buddy, had to despite this driving stop for prayers at a local mosque. Got to Osh 17ish for some great sashlik, stayed private, and flew back to Bishkek the next day.

Main lessons are make sure your drivers can go to last gate at both sides, have guide in CN for Torugart (def makes Erkeshtam easier as well), and try to make the CN lunch break. My guide said going out he normally made it with small groups. Reason he was late on meetup was allegedly some power/computer issue at main customs . These hickups occur, and I talked with other guides during the 4h wait with different stories.

[samsung]

Main thing was that they only checked my cell phone briefly at main customs upon entering. No spyware, and according to my guide they stopped doing that 1 month ago after complaints.

[fuzzyfurs]

Reviving this thread:

I just crossed the Torugart border, 9 May, 2024.

There are buses that run twice every week from Kashgar to Bishkek but the schedules are not fixed and prone to change. So unfortunately, you will just have to ask around and check when they do. Luckily for me, I only had to wait two days for the next departure. Note that the border is closed on weekends.

From the main bus terminal in Kashgar, we left at 10am and were told that we would arrive in Bishkek at around 1 to 3am the next morning, depending on how smoothly things proceed at the immigration checkpoints. There were only 17 passengers on the bus. It was a fairly old bus but still comfortable (by my standards, at least). I was the only foreigner: I hold a Singaporean passport and speak Mandarin.

There were at least 3 or 4 checkpoints during the journey: two of them required me to exit the bus and show my passport while the other locals waited. Your bags will be scanned and manually checked. There was a lot of waiting time on both sides. At the Chinese border, we spent 6h (!!) waiting because there were other passengers who were not able to cross due to visa issues but thank god we finally left them behind and moved on.

Happy to report that there were absolutely no issues for me at all and border officials were kind and friendly to me.

Due to the delay, we ended up reaching Bishkek at 7am (Kyrgyz time: set back by 2h).

Additional info:
- the bus journey is cold as the checkpoint is high in altitude so be prepared. However, they do provide blankets on the bus. There was one meal stop and a few "restroom" stops.

- Upon arriving in Bishkek I took a mashrutka (#285, cost 30som) to the Korday border which was very speedy and easy, then finally a shared taxi that cost 5000 tenge and took 3.5h to Almaty.

[Renner94]

Hey Fuzzyfurs,

Thanks for this useful information!
Do you know if the bus stops at other destinations before Bishkek?
By the end of next month I want to cross China from Pakistan to Kyrgyzstn.
The plan is to take a bus from Pakistan to Tashkorgan, hitchhike to some spots of interests and finally to Kashgar.
As you mentioned there are really view information about how to get around in this area so we were thinking about hitchhiking to Torugart but with the bus it might me less complicated and more official for the chinese checkpoints

[fuzzyfurs]

Hey Fuzzyfurs,

Thanks for this useful information!
Do you know if the bus stops at other destinations before Bishkek?
By the end of next month I want to cross China from Pakistan to Kyrgyzstn.
The plan is to take a bus from Pakistan to Tashkorgan, hitchhike to some spots of interests and finally to Kashgar.
As you mentioned there are really view information about how to get around in this area so we were thinking about hitchhiking to Torugart but with the bus it might me less complicated and more official for the chinese checkpoints

Hey, no the bus does not stop at other destinations: it's direct to Bishkek but there were a few passengers (locals) who wanted to get off earlier at the Kyrgyz border instead and they told the driver so. So you can possibly do the same if it's on the same route.

I don't think hitchhiking is allowed in the Xinjiang region or it will be very closely monitored by the police who are likely tell you to take the bus... That's my take. It's a strict region after all. Besides, there is only one road from Tashkurgan to Kashgar and there is nowhere else to go from Tashkurgan really. We did pass by Karakul lake which was beautiful and you could make a stop here but I'm not sure how you can get to Kashgar after.

[ivyde]

We crossed the Torugart Pass on 16 May 2024, from Kashgar to Naryn by private taxis.
We asked several tour companies and only 3 companies had the right permits.
For the 2 of us, on the Chinese side we paid 2300 RMB and on Kyrgyzstan side US$170. If we had found more people making this journey we would have been able to share this cost to make it cheaper.
We really liked/chose the Torugart Pass because of how beautiful the scenery was and because the route was more convenient for our plan.

Chinese side:
Overall it was friendly except the last checkpoint/officers who were stern. No one checked through our phone.
We got picked up at 9am and arrived at the first checkpoint at 9:50am. Unfortunately the work hours start around 10:20-10:30am.

There are several checkpoints on the way to check luggage, take down our passport number and phone number, check visa and stamp the passport. The fourth and final check is at the border, which is at the pass itself, was to check the stamp and let you walk to the Kyrgyz side only if someone with the right permit picks you up.
Due to road works, the journey was very bumpy and took longer than they expected, but we were told they no longer close for lunch breaks.
We arrived at the border at 1:50pm Beijing time.

Kyrgyz side:
Only 2 checks but a lot more stern. The officer saw us take a photo which caught a building in the corner; they took real issue with it so went through our phone's photos individually, demanded their deletion and reprimanded repeatedly.
2 hrs behind in timezone so arrived at 1st checkpoint just before 12:00, which happened to be lunchtime, and had to wait till around 12:20 to pass through.
1st checkpoint was for the passport.
2nd checkpoint was a military checkpoint after a long, beautiful ride. The scenery and the climate on the Kyrgyz side is very different from the arid desert on the Chinese side. We did not need to get out of the car. Our guide took our passports to the military shack.
We paid $15 extra to take a detour via Tash Rabat which was about an hr extra, but very worth it.
We arrived at Naryn at 6pm.

[Marieke]

Hi, we took the same bus as mentioned before in this thread, from Kashgar to Bishkek on 22/07/2024. We are normally traveling by bicycle and could take them with us in the bus without paying extra. The ticket fare is €75 or 595 yuan per person. It was an old sleeper bus, which should have warned us, since we only arrived in Bishkek at 5 am. Do bring enough food with you because the bus only made one foodstop, in our case at 11pm when everyone was already asleep.
We had to stop and show our passports 5 times (one time extra for us because we're foreigners). At the junction we had to put all our luggage through scanners (not the bicycles, so our knife was safe in the framebag).
The road following the junction going up the pass, was one big construction site since they're building a railway connection with kyrgystan, which made it quite a bumpy road.
We only got the exit stamp at the Chinese border and not at the junction as we read elsewhere, which made us regret not trying to cycle the pass.
At the border there were signs that you would need a permit to cross. But we actually obtained these in our preparation. You can get them here: https://maps.apple.com/?address=Interse ... rminal&t=m
It's the same permit as needed for the Karakorum highway to cross the border from China to Pakistan. We did not need it traveling by bus, but if someone wants to try by bicycle, it seems worth it to have.
We especially found the Kyrgyz side very beautiful.
Good luck!

[Egor]

Hey Fuzzyfurs,

Thanks for this useful information!
Do you know if the bus stops at other destinations before Bishkek?
By the end of next month I want to cross China from Pakistan to Kyrgyzstn.
The plan is to take a bus from Pakistan to Tashkorgan, hitchhike to some spots of interests and finally to Kashgar.
As you mentioned there are really view information about how to get around in this area so we were thinking about hitchhiking to Torugart but with the bus it might me less complicated and more official for the chinese checkpoints

Hey, no the bus does not stop at other destinations: it's direct to Bishkek but there were a few passengers (locals) who wanted to get off earlier at the Kyrgyz border instead and they told the driver so. So you can possibly do the same if it's on the same route.

I don't think hitchhiking is allowed in the Xinjiang region or it will be very closely monitored by the police who are likely tell you to take the bus... That's my take. It's a strict region after all. Besides, there is only one road from Tashkurgan to Kashgar and there is nowhere else to go from Tashkurgan really. We did pass by Karakul lake which was beautiful and you could make a stop here but I'm not sure how you can get to Kashgar after.

I was hitch-hiking from Tashkurgan to Kashgar in 2019.Police saw me on the road and said nothing)).It took quite a few hours while the first car stopped and it was a local Uigur which took me all the way and through all check-points almost to Kashgar.Only when he wanted to make a shortcut through his village police ordered to put me on the bus at the main road what took place close to Kashgar.This year it might be even easier regarding hitch-hiking in Xinjiang.Also in 2018 I was helped by the policeman at Qinhai-Xinjiang border check-point to get on the truck which took me as far as Qemo.

[otis_rtePL]

Hey!
I crossed Tourgat Pass from Chiniese side on 22.08.2024, here's how it went:
Our initial plan was to cross via Irkeshtam to Osh by bus, but it turns out info on Irkeshtam thread is fake and no "Kyrgyz bus" goes to Osh on Thursday (the only day that fitted our internary) so we took Thursday Kashgar - Bishkek bus instead.
It is 700km journey and ended up taking 23h, prepare for the worst...

T+0:00 10am, Kashgar bus station, bus nearly full - sets off, no sleeping hamoocks or beds, just casual, generic bus with only some seats declining, few stinky, drity blankets available, soon to be used as it turned out

T+0:30/0:45 first checkpoint, police one - passports taken from all foreigners (us 4 - Polish, one Kazakh grandpa and elderly couple from Singapoure)
took about half an hour

T+1:30 - max 2km after police checkpoint, big customs terminal, no stamp out yet, but bags of all passengers get screened and whole lot of cargo carried by the driver, took about 2 hours here, exact location: 39°46'14.1"N 75°35'34.9"E

I am not going to mention all the checkpoints we went through, just know there are at least 7/8 till reaching Border...

T+6:00 - lunch and toilet break (40°09'50.0"N 75°19'32.1"E)

T+10:00 finally reaching Tourgat - stampped out of China, no questions asked, no more luggage screening, nor phone inspection, very smooth suprisingy
we are here (40°30'38.1"N 75°23'22.8"E), took about an hour or so to stamp out whole bus
Here the altitude is 3700m+, it was 10C even though in Kashgar it was 35C so prepere a jacket, here we used disgusting blankets...

T+11:00 final bus inspection on Chinese side, quick one, no more than 30 min

T11:30 - Kyrygyz side of the border.
We thought from now on it will be easy cause I speak some Russian and for us, ineed, it was, but now Chinese had a hard time, 90% of our bus...
took 2,5h for everyone to get in...

T+14:00 finally we set off to cross Kyrgyzstan, still 500km to go... 1/3 of distance done at this point BUT it's midnight so I go to sleep hoping to wake up near Bishkek... oh I was so wrong

T+15:00 no more than an hour into KGZ we are stopped on a checkpoint, kind of angry already cause I was falling asleep when we stopped, we go to show passports, quick stuff, no more than 15min and we are back in the bus.

T+17:00 2am a this point, I wake up to find out... WE HAVEN'T MOVED, for 1 more hour we for some reason did not go through thant chekpoint, that was the low point form me, but hey, no choice but to go through, I fell asleep when we finally started going

T+23:00 8am I wake up to happily find out we are going through Bishkek!

Cheers to our driver - did all ride without being changed, legend!