China: Border, Control, and the Long Road to Tibet

Khunjerab Pass border crossing into China/Pakistan. The highest paved border crossing in the world is at 4693 meters above sea level.

“Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision.” — Winston Churchill

Border Shock

After Pakistan, China hit us like a wall of order. The Khunjerab Pass at 4,693m wasn’t just a border; it was a statement: pressed uniforms, polished glass, and cameras everywhere. On one side, dusty chaos; on the other, regimented control.

Our truck number plate, translated into Chinese.

The plan had been to cross into India, but with the Wagah border closed after political fallout, the route shifted: China → Tibet → Nepal → India. That meant a 6,000km detour, heavily regulated, always watched. We joined a group to share the cost of the required guide.

Maps, Medicine, and Power

At the border, our truck was practically dismantled. Some of our household medicines were confiscated. The seriousness was made clear: 5g of heroin equals 7 years in prison; more could mean execution. Foreigners included.

We desperately wanted to go to floor 11. Every time we passed, we wanted to stop, but common sense said no!

Then came the map. I was asked if we had any maps, and when I handed over our world map as instructed by the border guards, I thought they were curious about our journey. Instead, I was marched into an interrogation room. Three officers loomed over me, jabbing at Taiwan and some obscure islands off Japan. Why were they not the same colour as China?

They said “everyone knows these islands (that I had never heard of) and Taiwan were part of China”, and so why did I have a map showing something else? Was I a political agitator?

Deportation was threatened more than once.

Charlotte, as usual, stayed out of it. She never interferes when I’m in trouble — she waits until later to tell me I’m an idiot. But I noticed her silence sharpen, the way she folded her arms and withdrew, as if willing herself invisible while the officers circled. It was a coping strategy I came to recognise again and again — her way of surviving the weight of scrutiny.

We later heard of eight German bikers deported for nothing more than a Nepalese flag sticker being displayed on one of their motorcycles. A reminder that in China, even a piece of paper could become political evidence. Maps weren’t maps — they were narratives, controlled and policed.

We saw a number of lorries carrying these. Randomly parked on a roadside. Why and what are they?

Surveillance on the Road

Getting SIM cards was another ritual. Passport photos weren’t enough. We had to pose with the SIM in hand, elbows showing, so they could see it was me holding the SIM and not something superimposed into the picture, then again with a placard of our number in Chinese and English. (Cultural note: this biometric SIM registration ties into China’s digital ID system, ensuring every call and click is traceable. In regions like Xinjiang and Tibet, these systems have been expanded further — part of the state’s strategy to track movement and suppress dissent. For travellers, it meant constant visibility, every phone call another data point.)

One of many ghost towns in China. All the infrastructure, but no one living there and no shops?

Once on the road, the rules multiplied. Checkpoints two or three times a day: photographs of us, the truck, the Chinese number plates we had to carry, and the translated driving licences. Meanwhile, above, cameras flashed endlessly. Charlotte and I both found ourselves quieter, speaking less — as if words themselves might be captured and judged.

The land itself was vast, mostly desert and scrub when coming in from the west. Then, out of nowhere, construction. Three hundred kilometres of roadworks in a single stretch. New cities sprouting from sand. The roads were flawless, smoother than anything we’d seen in Central Asia.

Food and Fatigue

Food was another endurance test. Egg fried rice, breakfast, lunch, dinner. Charlotte, normally cosmopolitan in her tastes, began pushing plates away in quiet resignation. Once she muttered, “I never thought I’d dream of a sandwich.”  Menus offered variety — pig’s trotters, half-developed chick eggs — but neither of us had the appetite. Add in constant spitting, constant smoking —no matter where, lifts, shops, restaurants, nowhere exempt from the disgusting behaviour — and the sense of suffocation grew.

Meals were cheap though — a plate of fried rice with a bottle of water cost about £1.50 — and plentiful, even if repetitive. We didn’t cook much.

What struck me most was a lack of humour in daily interactions. Maybe it was the weight of rules, or the ever-present cameras — either way, people seemed wary of laughing at the wrong thing.

Breakdown and the Long Catch-Up

Then disaster: the driveshaft bearing fell apart. Without it, the truck was stranded. Parts were not easy to source despite the “Made in China” label on half the world’s goods. Our hardship was not to be sympathised with, and our group of motorbikes decided to leave without us. Without them, we’d need a separate guide. Should we abandon the route? Head south to Laos?

The broken driveshaft bearing. The first of many mechanical issues.

Charlotte stayed detached during my debates with mechanics, but when the replacement part finally arrived sooner than expected, she gave the faintest smile — relief under fatigue. We drove 34 hours across two days, 15 hours, then 19, grinding through mountain passes until we caught up with the group, both of us shattered. Charlotte later told me I was mad, but that she knew I wouldn’t quit.

Along the way, we passed Lake Turpan, 154m below sea level, with desert heat soaring past 40°. Beauty and bleakness are intertwined, but no time to stop and enjoy the views. We needed to catch the group.

Joe the Guide

Our guide, Joe — real name ChuFeng — travelled with us sometimes. Just 22, raised in the countryside by grandparents while his mother worked tables in Chengdu, he’d studied hard to become a guide. Now he lived in a small flat, the rent was a mere £170 a month, his hobbies were video games, and his favourite TV series was Downton Abbey. Naturally, he

loved Taylor Swift and country music. Don’t all 22-year-olds listen to Country music?

Joe - Our guide.

I said to him one day, the Chinese would take over the world. He shrugged: “That will take some years.” His quiet pragmatism seemed emblematic of his generation: ambitious, globalised, but cautious. Charlotte and I respected him, though his age made deeper conversation difficult. He was kind, diligent, and a reminder that behind the checkpoints stood individuals making their own way.

Reflection: Control and Fragility

Crossing into Tibet, our final stretch, I felt a shift. Leaving China, we thought, freedom was suddenly tangible again. I joked to Charlotte that I could strip naked and run down the street and no one would care. She didn’t laugh — she just looked at me as if the idea wasn’t so far from how we both felt. Little did we know what lay ahead.

Crossing China wasn’t about distance — it was about control. Every camera, every checkpoint, every bland meal reinforced it. We had set out as independent overlanders, yet here we were dependent on guides, permits, and even the arrival of a single spare part.

Independence proved fragile when rules and machinery could stop us dead.

The East/West contrast was stark: Pakistan’s chaos against China’s order, Indian excess against Chinese blandness, individuality swallowed by scale.

The heat was horrendous, and a view from our hotel window, you can see people had beds and so they could sleep on the roof of their buildings.

Charlotte endured it all with quiet resilience — the food fatigue, the relentless checkpoints, the silence she retreated into when the weight of surveillance pressed down. Her way of coping was as much a part of the journey as the roads we drove.

And that map at the border still lingers with me: how a simple piece of paper became political evidence, how narratives themselves are policed. In China, power is drawn not only in borders but in colours on a page.

Yet there was space too — deserts, passes, and the quiet shrug of a young man named Joe. Strangeness became the constant, and perhaps the only way to keep moving was to accept it.

In case you’ve not seen these…

How we got here (our last blog)

Escorted Across Pakistan: Guns, Landslides and a Narrow Escape to China

We were one landslide away from the river — and one protest away from missing China entirely. Find out what happens when the mountain road collapses and your only protection is a rifle convoy.

Tea with the Taliban: An Overlander’s Passage Through Afghanistan

A must read for those considering taken the road less travelled . Is this as scary as it gets? We certainly hope so!

We didn’t have 1.25 million dollars in cash strangely?

Bribes, breakdowns, and flooded crossings. One minute it was dust and diesel, the next it was gangs, collapsed bridges and a demand for 1.25 million in “cash.”