right now we are stopping a police
checkpoint
so you're saying last time you would
hear in Xinjiang ten years ago they
didn't they didn't have this much
security
So foreigner what are you doing here???
what you doing here foreigner??? yeah I
don't know if you saw that ,
we just got questioned by the security
as we drove into an empty shopping mall
an empty shopping mall where nobody is
here nobody is shopping right now most
of the shops are closed and the security
guard is like what are you doing here??? okay
so a little bit of context to this whole
thing there are multiple security
measures in place throughout all of
Xinjang and in the big cities of course
you know here is Urumqi
there are metal detectors there are
guards everywhere there are razor wire
on the fences there are these weird
barrier type things that you know block
the entrances into driveways and there
are just security guards every freaking
where at bus stops, entrances to shopping malls
everywhere you can think of that there
could be a security guard there will be
a security guard and I've only been here
one day and police stations everywhere -
so all of this is really designed to
mitigate a potential future terrorist attack.
Most of the shops are closed!
This whole shopping mall, seems to be for alcohol, wine white wine and red wine
mostly wine.like... if you wanna get drunk, this is heaven.
I think I finally found somewhere in
China where there's no people
not at the moment anyway
so Xinjiang province basically has four
major ethnicities, you got the Han
Chinese, the Uyghur people they are the
Muslims, the Kazakh people there are also
Muslims and the Mongolians so it's a bit
of an ethnic melting pot
It's basically all followed on from September 11 (and domestic terrorist attack in China). You know they're Chinese government's
not stupid they've learned from what's
happened you know terrorism overseas and
you know there was a very large group of
Muslim people here in Xinjiang province
and they tend to want to be independent
the Chinese government is actually
afraid of homegrown terrorism they don't
want people you know being blown up you
know the infidels being killed so to
speak you know they don't want suicide
bombers and this kind of stuff
and that's why here in Xinjiang security
is taken to the extreme
Coco they've got sheep! first time I've seen sheep in China
first time I've seen animals, in rural China
That rock on the hill the
geographic center of Asia
That's as good of a view as if you're gonna get! you don't deserve a better view!
nobody likes helmets in China helmets
are uncool. Well this is pretty crazy...
this is a petrol station guards at a
petrol station and nobody but the driver
can take the vehicle in.  Everybody else...
look at this
barbed wire fence around a petrol
station you can see like like there's
the forecourt up there there's some
crazy-ass shit right
first petrol station actually had no
power this is another petrol station and
you got people over here waiting for
their car to come out
so you're saying last time you were here
in Xinjiang ten years ago they didn't
they didn't have this kind of security
around petrol stations but not just
petrol stations everywhere. everywhere
it's completely different!
All the checkpoints. I did not see it 10 years ago, that many,  that's crazy
Chau just gave us a uyghur bread
Apparently this is lunch
okay, 
that used to be an execution site for
criminals on the left hand side of the road. they put you down on your knees and shoot you in the back of the head!
there's the Army coming through!
So we had to pay a toll fee
to come up this road here, they
basically want to sell you their taxi service. they don't want you to drive up
here yourself. the road is a bit narrow
and rocks and stuff everywhere you know
it's all about making a dollar pay for
the taxi
well we've reached the remote valley of
the southern mountain I think it's
called. let's break out the wu ren zhi! (drone)
so the tents that look like something
out of Mongolia, they are not Mongolian
people's tents apparently they're sort
of like batches people come here during
the summer and rent them out and it's
basically like a camping area at least
that's what I think this place is and
you drive up a bloody dangerous road
just to get here oh that's just great
for the nice clean Reebok pumps yeah
it's basically it's summer camping
ground and because there's a stream
heading down the middle of a valley
that's damages the road that's why the
road's all fucked up
right now we stopped at a police
checkpoint the only reason that we
stopped us because the police saw the
wai guo ren, the foreigner sitting in
the front seat and wanted to look at my
passport though we've been stopped for
ten minutes and we're still waiting
I'm not going to film out the window or
anything cause like I don't want to give
them any reason to suspect me of
anything okay so here is an extremely
accurate artist's rendition mine of the
first police checkpoint along the s101
National Defense Highway so here's me in
the front seat of the SUV outside the
police station with great big gates and
stuff here's Coco saying just let us go
why do you have to hold us up you know
and then she answered some other
questions here's one of the police
officers there's actually more than one
of them there were several police
officers you need to register the
foreigner go you've got a foreigner with
you register so you know walking into
the police station there's the great big
angry guard dog he really didn't like us
being there at all you know luckily the
little furry son of a bitch was tied up
they had they held us up for so long
that I was busting to go to the
toilet and there's no toilet around the
except into the police station now we've
just been walking in a very muddy area
so I actually trampled dirt I tried to
get the dirt off of my shoes honestly
but I couldn't get it all off I trampled
dirt,  in to the police station and I use
their toilet and, I could tell that
the police officers there some of
them are quite young and inexperienced
and they hadn't seen the foreigner
before you you hear the word Xin Xilan (New Zealand)
Xin Xilan? Xin Xilan? and you know what's that?, where's that? I don't know...
kind of thing and if there's any poetic
justice in the world it's the fact that
I trampled dirt into their police
station
suck on that I trampled mud inside their
police station on their nice clean floor
so what do you think of that
SO this famous rocky mountain road, is the S101 national defence highway, Xinjiang
Beautiful rocky mountains, you never see this in New Zealand
today is the day china broke me. china
hasn't broken me until today today it
actually happened what you're seeing now
is some of the beautiful drone video
that i did manage to get in the rural
countryside really magical looking Rocky
Mountains which just beautiful to look
at
kind of like desert really you don't see
them very much in New Zealand
unfortunately this was also the last
voyage of little Bastos, my drone
because the drone decided to fly away so
little Bastos is gone so the drone
video that you've seen in this video is
all from my cellphone drone has gone
bye-bye drone
anyway today China broke me and it
literally ended in tears as we were
driving through the countryside one of
the police checkpoints decided to check
the foreigner,
the foreign person that's me we've we'd
actually gone through a few police
checkpoints but this is the first one
they decided to check you know when
you're driving through the Rocky
Mountains and they're very very way out
in the wop wops... rural villages where
they never ever ever ever see a
foreigner gotta check the foreigner! make
sure he's not a spy or something right
so we spend a half an hour at a police
station, at a very rural police station
you know it will be holding everybody
up, because it's not just me there's
about six or seven of us all in a little
tour group you know driving a couple of
cars. I'm a passenger so that's a half
an hour gone and then the next
checkpoint the same thing happens got to
check the foreigner and that's another
half an hour gone and by this point I'm
starting to get quite you know tired, upset,
and then we finally make it out of the
Rocky Mountains and we think that we're
just about home free and then that our
there's another checkpoint there you
know entering the town and though it's
spend another half an hour at a police
station with a bunch of policemen and
then this is like like 9:30 10 o'clock
at night at this stage and by this point
it's getting really old and as soon as
we got out of that police station and I
got in the car I actually just burst
into tears I'm not even kidding though
legit tears just tired upset angry
frustrated all at once the police
basically just said you know this is the
procedure we can't do anything anything
about it because what they do is they
have to check you they check the local
Chinese well with those it's quicker to
check the local Chinese but for the
foreigners you know they're gonna like
take all your passport details take your
picture all that kind of stuff and then
phone it through to their boss and then
the boss does a check you know like an
independent check, and
so that's what takes all the time
so that you know the boss has got a
check it too,
apparently the police felt sorry for us
because they escorted us from their
little police station into town which
was like another 15 minutes down the
road
and we got checked into the hotel and I
think that myself
finally I'm home free for today I'm home
free I'm in the hotel and then there's a
knock at the door and there is people
downstairs that want to talk to the
foreigner. wanna know what you're doing
here?... and they didn't wear police
uniforms and they didn't say that they
were from the hotel so I'm guessing they're
public security beaurau, I don't
know they didn't
identification they barely asked me any
questions they asked me my name and
where I'm from I guess they just sort of
figured we have to give up if he doesn't
speak Mandarin yeah I don't know I don't
know what it is with these people I
don't know what's gonna happen in the
coming days but today was not a fun day
today was the day that China broke me
and right now as I'm recording this video,
I just want to be anywhere but
here
it's kind of not much to look at but
this is like that the food street , Turpan
Literally this whole town is grapes! this is fortified wine, 28% alcohol!
oh that was the 3rd checkpoint for the day in and out in five minutes, there was a
couple of Muslim ladies in front of us
definitely middle-eastern and the
policeman said oh you're from New
Zealand you just just go fine I don't
have to worry about you basically that's
what it was
yes
