What emotion to feel, on the eve of hitting the road of a twenty-year dream? Describing this is a challenge. It would be necessary to be able to fix the sensations: to stop the mad race of the neurons, lost between the stimuli of the nostalgia of a Shanghainese life which is ending and the excitement of a nine-week journey which is beginning; calm anxiety about the uncertainties ahead; master the impatience to start a new life in Paris at the end of the summer.
But there is above all the intimate conviction, that of being exactly where you should be. You have to complete the last details of your backpack, an essential companion for the next few weeks, and focus on a summer that will not be ordinary. With Covid-19, none of the previous three summers have been, but the 2023 vintage has a very special message in it.
We lose in height what we gain by wanting to go fast. My grandfather kept quoting me this phrase attributed to Pasteur (with no hard evidence that the phrase was actually uttered by the illustrious French biologist, but it rings so true): “Gently, we are in a hurry. This is exactly what we are about to do.
We are in a hurry to close a Chinese chapter that represents the essence of a professional journey for me, but a lifetime for my 11 and 13 year old children. Urged to make a transition between this China, which is so dear to us, and Europe where we have our roots. In a hurry to take the measure of a geography that is too often abstract, reduced to hopelessly flat maps and interactive applications that allow you to turn the globe with a finger. Eager to understand what is happening to us. And at the same time, we refuse to go from a last drink facing the Shanghai skyline, on a Friday evening, to a beef bourguignon simmered in the heart of Paris, on Saturday lunchtime, with, as the only decompression chamber, two airports and a cockpit.
First step, get out of China. With the Middle Kingdom having closed its borders for three years of Covid-19, all international train connections have been suspended. The first to reopen, in March, was that linking Kunming, in the south of the country, to Vientiane, Laos. For our part, we want to join Ürümqi, provincial capital of Xinjiang, in the Chinese Great West.
There we plan to take the train to Almaty, the economic center of Kazakhstan, a thousand kilometers further west. And yet, not a contact made in this distant province, located some 4,000 kilometers from Shanghai, can confirm the resumption of service on this railway line.
Then, the transition from Kazakhstan to Turkey is emerging today as a big question mark. Azerbaijan has remained on its covid retreat as far as its land borders are concerned. The Caucasian country only accepts visitors arriving by air on its territory, until at least July 1. It is also the only State of the course to require a visa for French tourists. Easy to get visa online.
Our itinerary plans to cross the Caspian Sea by ferry, but the reluctance of Baku could weigh heavily on our carbon footprint and force us to integrate a flight into our route. The rail link from Baku to Tbilisi, in neighboring Georgia, has also not been restored, according to information recovered so far from travelers in the region.
Faced with these constraints, it is sometimes necessary to know how to give up. Turkmenistan will therefore not be part of the journey. The authoritarian regime authorized the reopening of borders in March, but remains under close surveillance. The movements of foreigners inside the territory are closely monitored and visas are granted bit by bit.
Only one certainty on this eve of departure: tomorrow Sunday, we will not eat beef bourguignon, but a snack in the car that takes us from Shanghai to Xi’an. The point where it all starts, on the Chinese side, when you want to connect to the Silk Roads.