It’s easy to sometimes think that brilliant new flights in exciting ‘exotic’ places are easy to come by.

I certainly do, because I am a dreamer, but the reality of what it sometimes takes to get in the sky and make an epic crossing is brilliantly described by Phillipe Nodet in ‘TAJIKISTAN‘…8 days of wilderness walking just to find a take-off, and thats before you have even started! Those guys are amazing.

But sometimes its not just nature that gets in the way, but one of natures constructs, politics.Below is part of a report I have just written about my travels this summer, and in this bit about China my wing never even came close to getting let out of the bag….

It’s the 16th of June, and its been a whole day  spent at the police station, before we are transported back along the dirt roads to Wensu, a suburb city of Atsu.

The police had requisitioned the translation services of a primary school teacher in Wensu city, who spoke excellent English. From him I was able to learn that the huge articulated trucks that were traveling out of the mountains carried coal, and suddenly it all made sense, this was why the road was so terribly rutted, and why in the middle of absolutely nowhere there were construction gangs building bridges and pouring cement every kilometer or so. One could only guess at the scale of the mining that was taking place at the end of the road, a place that was meant to be a ‘FOREST BIODIVERSITY PROTECTION AREA’ according to our map!

In Wensu we are questioned again, very politely, and it is made clear that to visit the Tien Shan mountains needs official permission, and to visit without this results in a 5000 Y fine, which will be waived this time !

Can I have your passports Sir? You won’t be wanting to leave tonight?

But it was not the threat of fines that persuaded us we should leave China.When we were first ushered into the reception rooms of the large police building, which had many floors and basements, there was a door left open which led to an adjoining room. Through the door we looked face to face with a young Yugur girl, manacled by the wrists and ankles to a heavy steel high chair. We looked at her, cowardly suppressing our rising shouts of indignation, whilst she just blackly stared back, unseeing, not showing any sign of surprise at seeing 2 tall western men who normally created some sort of spectacle. We could only guess that she was sedated.It only took a few seconds before angry shouts were issued, the door was slammed,and we were hurried out to the foyer. I could only wonder what may be happening in other less public rooms in this respectable, high street building, let alone elsewhere.

We took the first available transport back towards Kashgar,not a train this time,but a sleeper bus.This was a mistake, since the train had not been searched once we had boarded, whereas the coach was stopped every 2 hours throughout the night.Often, the passengers were asleep, it was 3 in the morning and dark, so the police would board the bus to wake everyone up, and if a torch shone in ones face was not enough, them a blow to a limb instead was effective. The seething resentment of the passengers, those citizens of the Peoples Republic of China,was clearly evident in those small hours of the morning when they had been rudely awakened, and our western faces were well hidden by the darkness.

Standing in the cold of the desert, scrum queuing with a hundred other people trying to catch the officials attention as one might the barman on a packed Saturday night, whilst simultaneously attempting to avoid the stinging sand of a dust storm, a man starts shouting over the mayhem in a crazy intelligent voice, gaining my attention.

“So how are you enjoying China” he calls ironically…”are they treating you well”.

He takes my passport and pushes it into the policemans hand, and then when I am done, all the seemingly pointless data taken, he walks back with me, through the darkened rows of vehicles, telling me the truth of this ‘place’, saying all the things that we had so far failed to hear.But at 3 in the morning, disorientated, and half expecting to never find the coach that was maybe no longer still here in this desert blackness, I fail to respond, fail to embrace his possible honesty. I feel paranoid about his sincerity, fearful he might be an agent of the state. I am realising what it might be like to be Chinese.

So that was our trip…finished with the wing still in the bag.But I want to go back, so if anyone out there knows how we might get permission, to get to find a take off in what might be the paragliding mecca hidden in the middle of the worlds biggest continent,please let me know.There is no way I want to have an 8 day walk like Phillipe, only to be asked for my passport by a police official and turned away.

What we were missing…flying through terrain like this!