I Visited China's Most Controversial Region

Nestled in the far west of China, this territory has become a focal point of international scrutiny and debate over the country's treatment of the Uyghur Muslims, an indigenous ethnic minority with a rich cultural heritage. Since foreign journalists are banned from reporting out of this region, it's difficult to get a view of what everyday life looks like in Xinjiang. But I'm not a journalist. I'm just a guy that makes silly videos. That also means I'm not qualified to uncover the conspiracy of persecution against an entire ethnic group by the world's largest superpower. But what I can do is show what life looks like in Xinjiang. In this four part series, I'll be traveling across Xinjiang with zero plan by any means necessary. Join me as I test the boundaries of personal freedom in the most controversial region of the very powerful, mysterious and possibly misunderstood country of China. There are police coming and I'm sure they're probably coming to see me. Thank you. So many bags. Right. We had a few beers last night and I have a train in 15 minutes and that means I've got about 10 minutes to figure out this massive fucking Chinese train station. Platform three. Where is platform three? Where is platform three? Excuse me, sir. OK, thank you. Thank you. Yes, of course you can take a photo. Of course you can. That's OK, bro. That's OK. Thank you for asking so politely. Thank you. Goodbye. Goodbye. OK, you know what? We can be late when someone asks really nicely for a photo with the token white guy. We like that. Oh, I've overpacked massively. So now I've got two huge bags instead of one huge bag and I'm pretty sure my bag is leaking. Passport. Carriage 13, seat 051. Today we're having a big adventure. Passport. Yes, passport. Thank you. Take care of things by train. OK. OK. OK. OK. Thank you. What I love about China, everything's so incredibly convenient. There's one app for everything. Everything's pretty easy. You know, is there this kind of constant feeling of being kept tabs on, being watched everywhere you go? You need to show an ID card. You need to be scanned in. You need to be scanned out. I went to a locker the other day where you had to scan your face to use the locker. And even just then, the policeman sat down with me. He said, you can film outside of the train, the scenery, but you can't film inside the train. Big adventure today. I've got about a five hour train south to a town of Kola, which is in the Mongolian, one of the Mongolian areas of Xinjiang. And then I'll get there about 4pm and then I've only got a few hours to try to hitchhike west towards the Tianxian mountains and try and find somewhere to camp overnight. No idea. No idea if I'm going to be able to do it. No idea. But that's the plan. I'm not allowed to shoot inside the train. So enjoy some lovely scenery. Bye bye. Bye bye. See you. Bye. I have, I have one and I have some here. Goodbye. We are in Kola, a few hundred kilometres south of Urumqi. I just got off a five hour train and there was a Uyghur family sat next to me and the little boy came up to me, offered me some eggs, so confidently offered me some eggs, innocently. And I gave him some, some sausage that I bought and we just hung out. We couldn't speak a word of each other's language. We became friends. It was really, really beautiful. Right now I need to travel about another 200 kilometres west to a place called Kucha, but I'm trying to camp, wild camp somewhere between here and Kucha. Problem is it's 4pm in the afternoon. We've only got a few hours to do that. And yeah, let's figure out how to get there. I need to get to the highway. I might get a taxi to the highway and then from the highway, I'm going to hitchhike. Okay. I've booked a taxi. We're going to head to the outskirts of town. When you're hitchhiking anywhere, get to the edge of town, especially somewhere like this. There's lots of taxis around. Oh yeah. I forgot to say, I also got a really hot girl's number coming off of the, um, coming off of the train. She asked for my number. So it was a very successful train journey. Let's go get in a taxi. This is a nice taxi. No, no, no. It's okay. It's okay. I, I like your car. Very nice car. Okay. Hi. Hi. My friend said if, um, is it okay for him to drive you there? No, no, because I, I don't have the money to go to Kucha. I'm just, uh, hitchhiking. So I just wanted to be, exactly. Exactly. I'm just hitchhiking. So, um, I, I, I appreciate the offer, but I just basically need to be dropped off on the highway. I think it may be a problem. Okay. I, I, I mean, I, okay. I just, uh, let me ask my friend if he can drive you there. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't want to. I thank you so much. Thank you so much, but that's okay. It's okay. I, I can go now. Right then. World's nicest. Good luck. Thank you so much. World's nicest taxi driver. I was like, Hey, um, could you try to translate? Could you drop me somewhere? Um, kind of safe on the highway. And he phoned his English friend and I communicated with him and he drove me like an extra 10 kilometers to take me to a petrol station. What a legend. Okay. Right. We are going to Kucha. It's five o'clock, which means we don't have much time. I've got very high hopes for this mission. Very high hopes. Anytime I've tried to hitchhike anywhere, you start pretty nervous. Can I do it? Can I not do it? It always works. We're at a petrol station. I've got high hopes. I've got high hopes. It's nice here, man. We've got the backdrop of the mountains that way. We've got buying golden Mongol prefecture. Now this whole area is a Mongolian. The native people here are Mongolians. It's called the Mongol prefecture. And they've been roaming around here for the last few thousand years. I guess I'm going to learn more about that. And I'm going to inform you more on it in a, in a later video. Who knows? You might even see some nomads. Okay. What's your name? This is my friend. And he is giving me a lift. He's heading all the way to Akashu prefecture. Where I think Kashgar is. Akashu prefecture. So he's going past Kucha, which is great because that's kind of where I want to go. And he's going to Akashu. I have been in China for one week and I will stay for one month. Which city are you from? Inner Mongolia. Wow. Okay. That's so cool. He's from Inner Mongolia. So China has lots of different States. One of them close to Mongolia is called Inner Mongolia. And he's traveled all the way from Baotu, Inner Mongolia. How many days have you been driving? 20 days, 20. Oh, he's been traveling 20 days from Inner Mongolia. Do you have a family? How old are they? And how old are you? 44. My name is Mike. Nice to meet you. The 44 year old truck driver from Inner Mongolia. We've just told a little bit of his story. Changsheng Lian just said he's going to rest for 20 minutes and he's got out the car so we're going to go with him. Let's see what a parking truck stop looks like in a rural western China. Cool. Watermelon, melons. We've got the guys selling melons. How many melons do you sell in one day? Hello. 50. 50 melons. These boys sell 50 melons in one day. That's pretty cool. I've got to make sure that the truck with all of my stuff in doesn't drive away. So one thing I'm a bit worried about later in about an hour from now is finding somewhere to camp for the night because it's basically just vast nothingness in all directions and I want to be hidden, a little bit hidden. Hello. These truck drivers have given me an ice lolly. So here in Xinjiang it's a surveillance state and I think it's the same all over China but especially Xinjiang. There are police checkpoints about every 100, 150 kilometers. The one thing I'm worried about is going through a police checkpoint and then being a bit suspicious of what I'm doing here. I don't want Changsheng Lian to get in any trouble. I think this is a police checkpoint. First police check. I've got to turn the camera off. Okay, okay. First police check. I've got to turn the camera off. Hopefully everything goes okay. Which port of entry did you enter from? Hanoi, Vietnam, Chongqing, Urumqi. I was expecting that. I was expecting a police checkpoint sooner or later. That one was surprisingly smooth. He went a bit nuts when he saw me in the cabin of this truck but he just checked my passport, asked some questions. What did the man say to you about me? He didn't say you're a fool. I asked him if you're master, you came. Okay, the Chinese still welcome you. The Chinese still welcome you. China is a kind nation. I know. I can see that every day. So yeah it seems like, you know, they weren't they weren't like keeping tabs on me. You just have to register. You have to register everywhere. You register at a hotel, you register... I had to register at a train station and you have to register at the checkpoint just so they can kind of, you know, make sure they know roughly where you are at all times. Now for someone that wants to camp and hitchhike, it's not good news but hey, when in China, do as the Chinese do. God, I was so thirsty. I've got about a litre of water in my backpack. So I could have one of those waters. So sweet man. So you might be wondering how I managed to kind of communicate. Obviously I can communicate with Google Translate but I planned ahead and this is the number one tip for anyone if you're going to be travelling through China or hitchhiking anywhere in the world where you don't speak the language. A laminated piece of paper that says who I am, what I'm trying to do here, why I'm hitchhiking and can I have a lift please basically and it's super helpful because you can just show it to them and they know exactly what you're talking about because it's not common here to hitchhike especially seeing a random white dude on the side of the road. This tells them everything. Which bucket of water do you drink at night? This is okay, this is okay. Okay, thank you. Right, I've just bought into a service station where I think I'm going to sleep the night. I think we're going to eat something and then I'm going to find somewhere to sleep. Chongshenglian has given me two bottles of water because he's just the nicest chap ever and I think I'm good to go. Me and the boys at the service station. We're going to eat some food and then I'm going to find somewhere to sleep and then I don't know what these boys are doing. I don't know if they're staying here, I don't know if they're continuing on, I don't know if they're sleeping here tonight, I don't know but I think this is going to be a mini adventure. Ah, we're getting, which one are we going to chaps? We've got one, two, three, four, all trying to get us in to eat at their restaurant. I'm glad this doesn't just happen to foreigners. I've never seen anything like that in my life. The best thing that could possibly happen to me in China is making friends with a group of Chinese people who can just do everything for me. They can order the food, you know, can I communicate with them? No, but I'll take that. It means you haven't got to make small talk for hours and hours and hours. Right, what have we got? Looks like we've got eggs. We've got not many people here. Let me give you some money for the food. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. What's this? Tea, tea, tea. Ah, okay. The boys are buying me dinner, which is incredible. The people of China so far have been absolutely amazing and I love them and I love China and I'm going to stay here. Will you sleep here tonight or will you continue driving? Ah, you're staying here. Okay. I have whiskey. You want as well? I stashed a little bottle of whiskey in my bag this morning. We've got noodles, we've got, I think this is pork, like this. Ah, thank you. Wow. Look at this food. Beef, I think this is beef. So the way they eat in China, you get the noodles and just slurp it up. We've got beef, veggies, a little bit spicy. It's good, man. So here in Xinjiang, the culture is very like Central Asian, Kazakhstani, even like Turkic culture. So what's really famous are these kebabs, lamb kebabs, I think. Man, they're so good. Man, I'm so lucky right now. Anyone could have picked me up. Anyone could have picked me up because I was there at the right place at the right time. These boys picked me up. How mad is this? It's 10pm right now and look how light it is. I'm going to find somewhere a bit hidden to set up my tent for the night. Ah, these boys are helping me. Nihao. I'm liking the look of this little patch over here. Okay. Perfect. Perfect. Maybe inside here. Maybe here. Here is okay? Okay. I'm setting my tent up here in the service station. How about here? Look. Here. Because, wait, somewhere a bit more hidden. No? Okay. Okay. Okay. I said maybe I should like put my tent in the bushes a little bit. Okay. When are you leaving? In the morning. Can you give me a lift to the next city? Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you so much. So I'm going to set up a tent here in the wherever the fuck I am. It's the end of the day and those guys were just the best. They bought me dinner. They were just giving me some water. Wherever I go in the world, I'm starting to realise that it's not just India. It's not just Indonesia. There are friendly, kind people wherever I seem to go and I'm so lucky. You know, anyone could have picked me up. I was stood there for 30 seconds. I put my hand out when he drove past and I was lucky enough to meet him and learn about him and he looked after me. He got me dinner and given me four litres of water. It's incredible. I got some whiskey, some cheap Chinese whiskey. So we'll do a quick Chinese whiskey review before I say goodbye. It's actually not that bad. It's actually not that bad. You hear a lot about this being the most controversial region in the world and as I said before, I'm not qualified to report on it or to even discuss it because it's such a complex situation. There are people that are obviously going through some horrible situations here and I'm not qualified to talk about it. If you want to learn more about it, I'll let you do that yourself. What I've seen on the ground here is incredibly friendly people. The little boy on the train. You know, the people that I met yesterday that I was drinking with and obviously these truck drivers. I know that they're from a different region but I'm just very lucky and fortunate to be in this position. Yeah, it's amazing. Anyway, I'm going to go to bed. I'm going to drink some whiskey, smoke a cigarette and then I'm going to go to sleep, I think. But anyway, see you on the next one.