Xinjiang Mosquitoes & Biting Insects: How to Keep Them Off
The Night the Mosquitoes Almost Won
I pitched my tent at the western shore of Sayram Lake in the last week of July. The wind had dropped, the water was flat and the colour of a spent coin, and I thought I had found the calmest campsite in Xinjiang. I was wrong. Within twenty minutes of sunset a cloud of mosquitoes came off the reeds and settled on my arms like a second sleeve. I slapped, I retreated inside the tent, and still they found the gap at the zip. That night taught me more about Xinjiang’s biting insects than any guidebook had, and it cost me about forty bites I did not need.
People picture Xinjiang as pure desert, all sand and silence, and assume the bugs live somewhere else. They do not. The dry basins between the mountain ranges are mostly fine, but the moment you get near water, grass, or shade the insects show up in numbers that surprise first-time drivers. Sayram Lake sits at about 2,070 metres and still breeds mosquitoes thick enough to taste. Kanas Lake in the far north, the wetlands around Bosten Lake, and the river meadows of the Ili valley all have their own seasons of misery. If you are planning a self-drive loop, read up on Sayram Lake before you roll up and camp there blind, because the shore that looks perfect at noon can turn hostile by eight in the evening.
Where the Bites Actually Happen
Sayram and the high alpine lakes
The coldest, highest lakes are not safe just because they are cold. Alpine mosquitoes at Sayram and at Karakul are smaller than the lowland breeds and they move with the wind, so a calm evening is worse than a breezy one. I counted maybe forty bites on my left ankle after a single dusk walk along the lakeshore boardwalk. The park rangers there sell a local repellent spray for ¥15 a bottle, and while it is weak next to the stuff I brought from home, it bought me ten minutes of peace to set up camp. Learn the wind. When the gusts off the water stopped, the insects rose; when they returned, the air cleared for a while. The eastern end of the lake near the ski resort is worse than the western bays, because the reeds grow thicker there and the tour buses park within metres of the water.
Kanas and the northern forests
Up in the Altay range around Kanas Lake the problem changes shape. The forest midges, the ones travellers call no-see-ums, are tiny enough to pass through a normal mosquito net. In early August I watched a German couple in the Kanas visitor lot slap their way from the car to the ticket office in under a minute. The tree cover holds moisture, and the rivers that feed the lake keep the air damp all night. My advice after two nights there is simple: sleep with the windows cracked only if you have a fine mesh, and keep a small battery fan running. The airflow alone stopped most of them. Our full write-up on Kanas Lake covers which boardwalk stretches to avoid at dawn, when the midges swarm the railings and the wooden planks are dark with them.
The Ili valley grasslands
The Ili valley, the green heart of Xinjiang, is the worst place for horseflies. Those are not the soft mosquitoes of the lakes. A horsefly hits like a pinch and leaves a welt the size of a coin that itches for a week. I got mine near Nalati grassland in late June, standing beside the car to photograph a herd of horses. The locals wear thick coats even in summer for this reason, and now I understand why. The grass is tall, the cattle are everywhere, and the flies follow the animals from paddock to paddock. Tekes and Zhaosu were just as bad, and the stretch of road between them had me closing the window at every slow bend. The drive from Yining out to the lavender fields near Huocheng is pretty, but the ditches along it are horsefly country from June through August.
Bosten Lake and the fishing wetlands
Bosten is the largest freshwater lake in Xinjiang and a favourite for anglers, which means still water, reeds, and mosquitoes from May through September. The Xinjiang fishing lakes guide lists Bosten as the top spot, and it is, but bring the full kit if you plan to sit by the water at dawn. I fished there for three hours one morning and used half a bottle of repellent doing it. The corkscrew channels south of the main lake are lovely and lethal, full of midges that rise the instant the sun touches the reeds. A local fisherman I met there laughed at my net and handed me a sprig of wormwood, which did nothing, but his tip about standing in the open rather than beside the rushes was worth more than the herb.
When the Season Turns Against You
Timing is the cheapest defence you have. The insects wake up in late April, build through May, and peak from June to August. By early September the first cold nights in the north thin them out fast. I drove from Karamay to Dushanzi in mid-September and did not see a single mosquito across the whole 150 km. If your trip is flexible, aim for the shoulders of the season: late April for the desert routes, or after mid-September for the lakes and forests.
The Taklamakan Desert is the easy win here, because the sand itself is too dry for breeding and a crossing in October can be almost bug-free. I crossed from Luntai down to Minfeng in the first week of October and the only living thing that bit me was a camel that did not like where I stood. The contrast is the point. One week you are slapping your way around a lake, the next you are alone with the dunes and not a single insect in the air.
What Actually Works
Repellent that earns its weight
Skip the herbal bracelets and the vitamin B rumours. The only thing I trust is a repellent with 30 to 40 percent DEET or, better for the skin, 20 percent picaridin. DEET melts some plastics, so I keep it off the tent fabric and the camera strap. A 100 ml bottle costs about ¥40 in a Urumqi outdoor shop and lasts a two-week trip if you do not waste it. Apply to ankles, wrists, and the back of the neck, which is where they land first. Reapply after you sweat, not on a timer, because the desert heat burns it off faster than the label admits. I tried a Chinese brand called Liu Shen spray one year, the green floral one sold everywhere for ¥8, and it was useless against an alpine swarm; keep it for the city, not the shore.
Clothing and nets
Long sleeves in July sounds like torture, but a light, breathable shirt with a collar saved me more than any spray. I carried a head net that weighs 30 grams and packs to nothing; at Sayram I wore it for the entire sunset and looked absurd and happy. For the Ili grasslands a proper pair of closed shoes matters, because the horseflies aim low. Tuck trousers into socks if you walk the reed beds at Bosten, and wear the collar up near the northern rivers where the deer flies cruise at face height. A cheap pair of thin cotton gloves from a market in Kuqa, about ¥5, kept my hands free to use the camera without a swarm between my fingers.
The stuff that does not
Citronella candles barely touch a Xinjiang mosquito, and the ultrasonic devices are a waste of the ¥60 I paid for one in Kashgar before I knew better. Eating garlic did nothing except to me. A car with closed windows is a fortress, though, and I learned to eat lunch inside the vehicle during the August peak rather than at a roadside table near irrigation ditches. The same goes for the petrol stations: pump, pay, and drive, do not linger by the drain beside the forecourt where the standing water breeds the small ones.
Camping, Hotels, and the Long Drives
When you camp, pick the windward side of any lake and stay above the reed line. At Sayram I moved my tent up the slope about 80 metres and the difference was dramatic. Hotels are easy: just close the window and switch on the air conditioner, which most mid-range places in Urumqi and Kuqa provide even in summer. On the long desert highways like the run from Korla to Aksu, the car is your safe zone. Stop for fuel and food at the serviced stations, not at random pull-offs beside the water channels that run along the fields.
I once made the mistake of pulling over near a canal about 60 km past Kuqa to photograph a flock of geese. I was out of the car for four minutes and came back with eighteen bites on my legs. The moral is dull but true: the insects live where the water sits still. Keep moving near still water and you keep your skin.
Ticks in the Tall Grass
Mosquitoes annoy, but ticks worry me more. They live in the long grass near the northern rivers and the damp meadows south of Kanas, and they latch on quietly. I found one on my calf after a short walk near the Hemu river in August, small and already fixed. The trick is to check your legs at the end of every day, especially after you have been off the road. Pull them straight out with tweezers, get the head, and dab the spot with an after-bite stick. I have never needed a clinic for one in Xinjiang, but I would not ignore a bite that reddens and spreads after a few days.
The southern routes are kinder. Around Hotan and the Taklamakan edge the air is too dry for ticks, and the only thing that bothered me there was the dust. If you are nervous about insects, shift your plan south and save the forests for the cool weeks of September, when the grass is drying and the ticks retreat. I spent a week driving Hotan to Kashgar in late September and never once reached for the repellent, which felt like a small holiday from my own caution.
A Day on the Road: Urumqi to Sayram
The drive north from Urumqi to Sayram runs about 540 km and passes through the Guozi Gorge, a green cleft in the mountains where the first bugs of the trip found me. I stopped there for lunch in July and ate in the car, watching the stream below teem with the kind of air you do not want to walk into. By the time I reached the lake that evening the wind was down and the real lesson began. The point of the story is that the insects are not random. They mark the map the same way the rivers do, and once you learn to read it the trip gets easier.
Packing the Right Kit
Before any summer trip I run through the seasonal packing list this site puts together, and the insect section is the part I never skip now. My standard load is one bottle of picaridin, one head net, a small after-bite stick with ammonia, and a lightweight long-sleeve shirt that lives in the door pocket of the car. Total cost under ¥120, total weight under a kilo, and it turned August from a war into a mild annoyance.
If you get bitten, the ammonia stick takes the sting out in a minute, and a cold drink pressed to the spot helps the swelling go down. I keep a small tube of hydrocortisone from a Urumqi pharmacy, about ¥12, for the horsefly welts that refuse to fade. None of this is complicated. The bugs will not ruin your drive. They just ask you to show up prepared, to read the wind, and to keep the window up when the reeds start to hum. Do that and Xinjiang’s lakes, forests, and grasslands stay exactly as beautiful as they look from the road.