On 2023-08-28 I went from Yining (China) to Almaty (Kazakhstan) overland via Khorgos (HuoErGuoSi) border.
Some useful info:
There are 2 methods:
Method A:
Bus from Yining to Almaty:
- you can buy the ticket at Yining Bus Station
- Bus will take you from this station all the way to Almaty
- Price: not sure
- What I heard: it's easy, but it takes a while (arrive around 9 PM in Almaty)
Method B (what I did):
- Take minibus: Yining bus station -> HuoErGuoShi town center. Buy ticket at Yining bus station. CNY 23, 1.5 hour ride, mini bus. One bus left around 11 AM. You can exchange money KZT/CNY here.
- From HuoErGuoShi town center --> HuoErGuoShi Kou An bus teminal (HuoErGuoShi Kou An=Khorgos Border): taxi, CNY20, 10 min, need some basic Chinese or Google Translator.
- At HuoErGuoShi Kou An Bus terminal, buy bus ticket to Zharkent, Kazakhstan: CNY 70. Big bus. This bus will take you through CN/KZ immigrations. Whole process around 1-1.5 hours. You can exchange money KZT/CNY here, same rate as in Yining Bus Terminal.
- At Zharkent, plenty of aggressive private shared taxi looking for your business. Price KZT6000/person Zharkent --> Almaty.
Zharkent --> Almaty, smooth paved road, 330 km, driving at around 110-120km/h.
I left Yining at 11 AM, arriving in Almaty at 6 PM.
NOTES:
- Comfortable & cheap hotel in Yining, 5 min walk from bus station, many restaurants within walking distance (particularly at night), bookable via Trip.com:
Hotel Yiningbaiman (BORRMAN)
Comprehensive Building, Boutique Garden, no. 229-1 West Jiefang Road, Yining, Xinjiang, China
- Inside the bus from HuoErGuoShi Bus Terminal to Zharkent, you will be offered taxi to Almaty. The guy will say that the price is KZT8000/person. Don't book through him, just arrive in Zharkent and a throng of drivers will be busy greeting you for business.
- Hardly any English spoken. Mostly Chinese or Russian. Prepare your Google Translator App beforehand.
- Get data connection working. At Chinese border, you need to scan a barcode, fill up an electronic custom form, and get a barcode to enter immigration area. Without data, you're in trouble.
Almaty-Yining-Urumqi bus: reports, Q&A
Re: Almaty-Urumqi bus: reports, Q&A
(long post, but i included everything, that would have been useful for us while planning)
We crossed the Khorgos border by Bus on September 1st 2023. The bus was scheduled at 7 am in Almaty and left at 7.30am. The price was 12400 tenge per person and we booked a few days in advance at the Sayran station counter 1.
The bus was not full though. It runs every day at 7am operated by a family from Yining. The drivers smoke and spit out the window, so maybe don't sit in front, if you don't like that. The bus stopped 2 times on the 4h drive to the border crossing.
It passed a few waiting trucks, but the border was not really busy. Then we took our luggage and walked trough the big and brand new customs building on the Kasakh side. Passport control and luggage x-ray were without problems or bag opening.
We waited 20min and then hopped on our bus again driving to the chinese building.
This building is huge like a plane hangar and also very new. First we had to show our QR code from the health declaration form we completed online a day prior. We were not able to do this on WeChat, since the registration needs someone who already uses WeChat to confirm your registration. Next we had to fill out a short arrival form with personal information, bus number and place of residence in China. We just wrote 7Days Inn Xi'an and it was ok.
Next was the passport control. They thoroughly checked the visa sticker, asked about some prior travels and took fingerprints and a photo. One of us had a little problem, because the chip in their passport could somehow not be read, so we had to wait a little, while one border officer took the passport to some back office and came back with it again. Then they let us through. We chatted a little with a nice young chinese officer who seemed bored, since probably not many people pass through here.
The last station was baggage control, but by far not as severe as I imagined. We had to put our luggage through a x-ray machine and a lady checking the images sitting a little away, was not concerned with anything. She even seemed distracted. We didn't need to open our bags. Not my little swiss knife, nor the packed tomato sauce or my powerbank was checked. There also was no body scan by machine or officer. Neither my Tablet, nor our phones were checked and there was no questioning. Surprisingly easy. Maybe lucky?
So we could enter China, hopped on our bus again, that brought us to Yining. Remember, Yining and whole China officially runs on Beijing time, which is 2 hours later than Almaty's. The train to Urumqi at 18.15 was not reachable, as the Bus arrived in Yining at 18.30 local time. We took a taxi to the train station for 15 yuan and bought a ticket at the counter for the 20.40 night train.
About money: bring enough cash for the first few days of your China trip! We exchanged in advance in Almaty, which was a good idea, since our german credit and debit cards did not work at the train station or the hotel and Alipay didn't work either. Alipay only works with internet acces and even though a nice chinease man granted us a mobile hotspot, it did not work. So cash is your friend until you manage to get a chinese SIM card.
About SIM cards: we tried to get a SIM card from two different China Unicom stores in the waiting time in Yining, but it is not possible for foreigners anymore! We asked a lot, because of various reports we read here and elsewhere, but apparently the system changed recently, prohibiting foreigners to buy SIM cards in whole Xianjang province. They say, it's because of frequent fraud recently... The only chance was to buy a one-year and internet-only SIM card for 700 yuan, which was too expensive and useless for us, since we need a chinease number for some apps and registration purposes. Our solution was to wait until our stop in Dunhuang to buy a SIM card, which is in the province of Gansu. These two days without internet acces we could manage, because of our preparations. We downloaded the maps we needed, screenshotted the hotels, that would hopefully accommodate foreigners (also in chinese language to show to taxi drivers)
-> we managed to buy a SIM card in Gansu. The first Unicom store sent us to the biggest store in that city. The nice ladies haven't registered foreigners yet, so they first said it's not possible. But we kindly insisted and with the help of translation apps we could give them our passport information. We then bought a SIM card with talking, messeging and 20gb data option for 100yuan a month. The process took us 1.5 hours. With the chinese number and internet access, it was/is a lot easier to get around. You can pay lots of things with Alipay/Wechat (WeChat registration was a little bumpy). These apps have mini apps included in them eg for taxi hailing (Didi) and specific chinese booking websites (eg the bus ticket for Chengdu-Jiazhaigou) can only be accessed via WeChat.
For accessing blocked websites we use the Surfshark VPN (edit: worked for the first week, then failed connecting).
(another tip: if you stop for sightseeing in Turpan you can contact Tahir, a very friendly english speaking taxi driver, who can tell you a lot about the region and Uighur culture and will drive you to the all the sights you want. +8615026261388)
We crossed the Khorgos border by Bus on September 1st 2023. The bus was scheduled at 7 am in Almaty and left at 7.30am. The price was 12400 tenge per person and we booked a few days in advance at the Sayran station counter 1.
The bus was not full though. It runs every day at 7am operated by a family from Yining. The drivers smoke and spit out the window, so maybe don't sit in front, if you don't like that. The bus stopped 2 times on the 4h drive to the border crossing.
It passed a few waiting trucks, but the border was not really busy. Then we took our luggage and walked trough the big and brand new customs building on the Kasakh side. Passport control and luggage x-ray were without problems or bag opening.
We waited 20min and then hopped on our bus again driving to the chinese building.
This building is huge like a plane hangar and also very new. First we had to show our QR code from the health declaration form we completed online a day prior. We were not able to do this on WeChat, since the registration needs someone who already uses WeChat to confirm your registration. Next we had to fill out a short arrival form with personal information, bus number and place of residence in China. We just wrote 7Days Inn Xi'an and it was ok.
Next was the passport control. They thoroughly checked the visa sticker, asked about some prior travels and took fingerprints and a photo. One of us had a little problem, because the chip in their passport could somehow not be read, so we had to wait a little, while one border officer took the passport to some back office and came back with it again. Then they let us through. We chatted a little with a nice young chinese officer who seemed bored, since probably not many people pass through here.
The last station was baggage control, but by far not as severe as I imagined. We had to put our luggage through a x-ray machine and a lady checking the images sitting a little away, was not concerned with anything. She even seemed distracted. We didn't need to open our bags. Not my little swiss knife, nor the packed tomato sauce or my powerbank was checked. There also was no body scan by machine or officer. Neither my Tablet, nor our phones were checked and there was no questioning. Surprisingly easy. Maybe lucky?
So we could enter China, hopped on our bus again, that brought us to Yining. Remember, Yining and whole China officially runs on Beijing time, which is 2 hours later than Almaty's. The train to Urumqi at 18.15 was not reachable, as the Bus arrived in Yining at 18.30 local time. We took a taxi to the train station for 15 yuan and bought a ticket at the counter for the 20.40 night train.
About money: bring enough cash for the first few days of your China trip! We exchanged in advance in Almaty, which was a good idea, since our german credit and debit cards did not work at the train station or the hotel and Alipay didn't work either. Alipay only works with internet acces and even though a nice chinease man granted us a mobile hotspot, it did not work. So cash is your friend until you manage to get a chinese SIM card.
About SIM cards: we tried to get a SIM card from two different China Unicom stores in the waiting time in Yining, but it is not possible for foreigners anymore! We asked a lot, because of various reports we read here and elsewhere, but apparently the system changed recently, prohibiting foreigners to buy SIM cards in whole Xianjang province. They say, it's because of frequent fraud recently... The only chance was to buy a one-year and internet-only SIM card for 700 yuan, which was too expensive and useless for us, since we need a chinease number for some apps and registration purposes. Our solution was to wait until our stop in Dunhuang to buy a SIM card, which is in the province of Gansu. These two days without internet acces we could manage, because of our preparations. We downloaded the maps we needed, screenshotted the hotels, that would hopefully accommodate foreigners (also in chinese language to show to taxi drivers)
-> we managed to buy a SIM card in Gansu. The first Unicom store sent us to the biggest store in that city. The nice ladies haven't registered foreigners yet, so they first said it's not possible. But we kindly insisted and with the help of translation apps we could give them our passport information. We then bought a SIM card with talking, messeging and 20gb data option for 100yuan a month. The process took us 1.5 hours. With the chinese number and internet access, it was/is a lot easier to get around. You can pay lots of things with Alipay/Wechat (WeChat registration was a little bumpy). These apps have mini apps included in them eg for taxi hailing (Didi) and specific chinese booking websites (eg the bus ticket for Chengdu-Jiazhaigou) can only be accessed via WeChat.
For accessing blocked websites we use the Surfshark VPN (edit: worked for the first week, then failed connecting).
(another tip: if you stop for sightseeing in Turpan you can contact Tahir, a very friendly english speaking taxi driver, who can tell you a lot about the region and Uighur culture and will drive you to the all the sights you want. +8615026261388)
Last edited by andidas on Fri Sep 15, 2023 8:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
2 x
-
Theo simon
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Sun Sep 10, 2023 9:11 am
- x 1
Re: Almaty-Urumqi bus: reports, Q&A
Thank you for these very useful details. We followed your advice and booked bus tickets at Sairan bus station. The office desk this time was number 10, and the bus time on the ticket is 8am not 7am, so it maybe varies with different days (ours is Saturday). Trying to fill out the Health declaration form what do we put for “Contact Persons in China” if we have none. Is it enough to give hotel number? Any advice gratefully received.
0 x
-
jeangarcin
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Sat Sep 16, 2023 8:20 am
- x 1
Re: Bus or train from Almaty to China still operational?
Hello !
I traveled from Almaty to Urumqi on the 16th august (2023), there was still no direct train or bus at that time, so I took a bus to Khorgas and then a night train from Khorgas to Urumqi.
For the bus to Khorgas, I could buy a ticket at window 3 of Sayran bus station, it left at 9 am (I tried on the station website before but I couldn't find this bus (сайран.kz)). Window 1 was also offering bus tickets at 8, 9 and 9:10 am.
The border check was less thorough than I thought, there was no cellphone control nor book control. I arrived on the chinese part at 6:20 pm Beijing time. The bus I took did not continue after the border, so you can either walk to the railway station (maps.me has the right localisation of the station and the path it takes to go there seems correct as well) or take a taxi.
Then I took the daily 8:45 pm train to Urumqi. The train actually left at 8:40, there is a security check at the station entrance, and people get in the train 30 minutes in advance, so better arrive before 8 pm. The sleepers tickets were sold out when I bought the ticket two days before on china highlights, so I had a seat. The train was crowded, with a lot of noise and light, so the night was long. People I met in the bus before told me there were buses with sleeper tickets for this part of the journey, but I don't think you can buy your ticket in advance.
I traveled from Almaty to Urumqi on the 16th august (2023), there was still no direct train or bus at that time, so I took a bus to Khorgas and then a night train from Khorgas to Urumqi.
For the bus to Khorgas, I could buy a ticket at window 3 of Sayran bus station, it left at 9 am (I tried on the station website before but I couldn't find this bus (сайран.kz)). Window 1 was also offering bus tickets at 8, 9 and 9:10 am.
The border check was less thorough than I thought, there was no cellphone control nor book control. I arrived on the chinese part at 6:20 pm Beijing time. The bus I took did not continue after the border, so you can either walk to the railway station (maps.me has the right localisation of the station and the path it takes to go there seems correct as well) or take a taxi.
Then I took the daily 8:45 pm train to Urumqi. The train actually left at 8:40, there is a security check at the station entrance, and people get in the train 30 minutes in advance, so better arrive before 8 pm. The sleepers tickets were sold out when I bought the ticket two days before on china highlights, so I had a seat. The train was crowded, with a lot of noise and light, so the night was long. People I met in the bus before told me there were buses with sleeper tickets for this part of the journey, but I don't think you can buy your ticket in advance.
1 x
-
Theo simon
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Sun Sep 10, 2023 9:11 am
- x 1
Re: Almaty-Urumqi bus: reports, Q&A
3 of us crossed from Kaz to China, by bus from Almaty to Yining, on Monday September 18th 2023. We had stayed at Assem Hostel, after our pre-booked hostel, which we believe was called Dom Hostel, attempted to double the pre agreed fee on our arrival, also claiming we would find none cheaper or better-appointed in Almaty, (which was false on both counts). While in Almaty, we found the city bus info online at https://alatransit.kz/en/content/routes . The flat rate for each journey was higher than we were told - 200 Tenge for each ride. We took the number 12 bus for a day trip to the national park, which disembarks at the Skating Rink - an easy and cheap way to get some nature when staying in Almaty.
The advice of Andidas above covers most of what you need to get the bus to China. But when we went to book, 3 days before, at Sayran bus station, the desk we booked at was number 10, not number 1. Remember to take your passport(s) to book. There is a cash dispenser in the bus station if your card doesn’t work at the desk. The scheduled time of departure when we went was not 7am, but 8am, and it left shortly after that time. It was a comfortable big red bus, and when we boarded the seat numbers on the ticket were ignored, people taking the first seat they fancied. There was no extra charge for luggage, which was stowed in the hold. For 3 of us the price was 3,700 tenge. (£63 each). There were several stops on the way for toilet etc, and it took 4 and a half hours to get to the border. Customs etc was fairly complex, but efficient and not intimidating. Our luggage was scanned, but not checked in any way. It took 2 and a half hours at the border then a wait on the grass for the bus to come through and board again. We arrived at Yining pretty much on time (Beijing time) and looked for a metered taxi to the station, where we boarded our night train to Urumqi.
The advice of Andidas above covers most of what you need to get the bus to China. But when we went to book, 3 days before, at Sayran bus station, the desk we booked at was number 10, not number 1. Remember to take your passport(s) to book. There is a cash dispenser in the bus station if your card doesn’t work at the desk. The scheduled time of departure when we went was not 7am, but 8am, and it left shortly after that time. It was a comfortable big red bus, and when we boarded the seat numbers on the ticket were ignored, people taking the first seat they fancied. There was no extra charge for luggage, which was stowed in the hold. For 3 of us the price was 3,700 tenge. (£63 each). There were several stops on the way for toilet etc, and it took 4 and a half hours to get to the border. Customs etc was fairly complex, but efficient and not intimidating. Our luggage was scanned, but not checked in any way. It took 2 and a half hours at the border then a wait on the grass for the bus to come through and board again. We arrived at Yining pretty much on time (Beijing time) and looked for a metered taxi to the station, where we boarded our night train to Urumqi.
1 x
Re: Bus or train from Almaty to China still operational?
That's great detailed information. Thanks. We will be entering China via Khorgas in late November
0 x
-
les_roamers
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Sat Oct 21, 2023 3:25 am
- x 3
Re: Almaty-Urumqi bus: reports, Q&A
Hi ! We bought tickets for the Almaty-Urumqi bus yesterday (21th of October 2023) so I guess it’s running again. There are buses daily at 8am going either to Yinning or to Urumqi. Our trip is on the 26th so we will post an update then !
0 x
Re: Almaty-Urumqi bus: reports, Q&A
Hello!
I want to go from Almaty to Urumqi next week, is there a train still running btw those two cities? If yes when ?
I saw that you bought tickets for the 26th, is this the only day where we can take the bus or is there other days ?
Thanks
I want to go from Almaty to Urumqi next week, is there a train still running btw those two cities? If yes when ?
I saw that you bought tickets for the 26th, is this the only day where we can take the bus or is there other days ?
Thanks
0 x
Re: Almaty-Urumqi bus: reports, Q&A
I think the Bus departures daily. You can check at the Sayran Bus Station (Zdaniye Avtovokzala Sayran).
0 x
Hamburg to Hanoi overland (August to December 2023)
https://ZugAbenteuer.de
https://ZugAbenteuer.de
-
- Similar Topics
- Replies
- Views
- Last post
-
- 0 Replies
- 6134 Views
-
Last post by ough
-
- 5 Replies
- 3883 Views
-
Last post by FansClubMan
-
- 0 Replies
- 2709 Views
-
Last post by woshju
-
- 6 Replies
- 2247 Views
-
Last post by Milad
-
- 5 Replies
- 5411 Views
-
Last post by FansClubMan