Khorgos border crossing Q&A (Almaty - Urumqi)

[AUM]

Thanks a lot!

[olig]

Hi everyone!
My plan is to hitch-hike to Xinjiang through Khorgos border crossing. And I wanted to know if anyone heard (or experienced) about forced taxis, like the ones operating at Irkeshtam (custom officers waiting for you to get a taxi before giving back -to the taxi driver- your passport).
cheers!

[bwv812]

That happens in Irkeshtam because the Chinese customs station is 120km away from the actual border, which isn't the case at Khorgos.

[olig]

All right, thanks a lot for your answer!

[dinozzaver]

Easy. Except you need to get a bus ticket for the bus between the customs as you are not allowed to walk. There are shared taxis waiting on kazakh side (5000 t per person to almaty). Apparently there is also a bus, but have no idea how much it is and how long it takes. By car it was around 8h to almaty. Pretty empty on kazakh side otherwise. Change money on Chinese side (money changers will find you) as there is just one small cafe on kazakh side.

[SPR11]

You'll have to take a bus over the actual border. No walking allowed. If you arrive in the morning you can probably hitch a ride on one of the long distance buses going to Urumqi. We did this crossing two weeks ago from China, and had to wait about four hours on the Chinese side before we could get on a bus. We didn't know we couldn't walk and just showed up at the border. We wrote a little report on it here http://lostwithpurpose.com/china-kazakh ... g-khorgos/

[Fiestje]

We did that border crossing Kazachstan-China about 4 weeks ago. We are travelling with bicycle and we had no problems at all to cross the border walking - with the bicycle in the hand.

[alforgesinquietes]

Hello!

Last week, 22nd February 2017, we cycled the Khorgos border! No bus, no taxi, only us and our bicycles.

We sleep in Khorgos, Xinjiang, China, and around 11am we decide to cycle and see what happens. The road leading to the border is fenced, under construction, closed. We cycle around trying to find an opening but we only enter the workers area. We try going right... No luck...

Finally, we decide to go to the Customs building, some kind of huge long building on the right of the border, and ask the army soldiers for help. Luckily one of them speaks English (rare in Xinjiang) and sends one soldier with us. We walk pushing our bicycles and enter one fence, pass one gate, try not to fall on the ice... And there we are, the border!

Very few people, Kazakhs and Chinese, definitely no other white face around, everyone travels by bus. We enter a very small building, they scan everyone's luggage (like airport) and queue for stamps out.

Chinese police officers and soldiers let us go by bicycle, nobody says anything nor makes any strange face. We cycle the U-road (left-straight-right) into Kazakhstan and there we are!

Kazakh soldiers are very friendly, "Welcome to Kazakhstan!!!". They freak out we are cycling in winter and wish us all the best!

We get stamps and a small piece of paper that we have to keep with our passports, and continue. The bus arrives after us and they scan everyone's luggage again, but not ours (we are all too lazy to dismount the bags from the bicycles).

And that's it! We read we wouldn't be able to cycle the border... But we cycled all the way!

Hope this is useful!!!

Thank you!!!

Roger & Sílvia

[olooov]

Would like to confirm that crossing on bicycles is possible. Just did it today with my partner. Had bit of a trouble finding where to enter, just to the left of trucks, barley visible, but no problem. Also Chinese border guards gave me a lot of trouble, because I didn't have Kazakhstan visa. I told them I don't need it, I'm Polish citizen, but they didn't have updated list, it's been out just for 4 months . I had to sign piece of paper saying that I'm okay, if I get turned around by Kazak, Chinese won't let me back in. Absolutely no problem on Kazak side. Also, my German partner had no problem at all.

Piotr

13000km.com

[IDClare]

Hi,
We are crossing from Xinjiang to Kazakhstan at Horgas (8 cars in convoy). Has anyone crossed recently and can give me some indication of the time it will take and the process we can expect. I think we should be OK on the Chinese side as we have the usual minders, but will not have support on the Kazak side, so advice would be appreciated.
Thanks,