Yunnan 2005

In another thread I agreed to CC's request to post about a Yunnan trip we made in 2005. After reviewing over 3000 (!) pics, reducing the amount to 1000 and uploading 300+, I am finally here with report.


Foreword

We didn't have too much time to spend and our ladies also said the a week on the bike would be enough for them, so we decided on shipping (truckin') the bikes from the Beijing BMW bike importer to the Kunming BMW car dealer and back, hop on the bikes in Kunming and do a western Yunnan loop ride.


Participants

Herbert from Germany with his Korean wife Sohyun

Herbert was chief rep of BMW motorcycle at that time
Bike: R1150GS A

Claudio from Italy and his girlfriend Echo from Kunming (China)

Claudio owns and runs two Italian restaurants in Beijing and one in Chengdu
Bike: R1200GS

Andy (me) from Austria with my wife Helen from Baoshan (China)

Working for Siemens Industry Group
Bike: R1150GS A

Contents

Shipping Preparations

Kunming

Kunming - Dali
Dali - Baoshan
Baoshan - Liuku
Liuku - Pianma - Liuku
Liuku - Lijiang
Lijiang
Lijiang - Dali
Dali - Kunming


Andy

A good week before we left, we crated the bikes and shipped them out to Kunming. We got two big original bike boxes but three bikes, so we had to make one extra on the spot.



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The two original boxes

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Windscreen and mirrors removed and bike strapped down

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Windscreen packed up to avoid scratches

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The first two bikes are in the boxes

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Material arrives for the third box to be made and ...

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... work started immediately.

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The base of the box was done pretty fast and ...

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... Claudio's bike pretty quick stood on it.

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Installing side walls.

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Cover closed


Job done so far, the truck to pick up the bikes was supposed to arrive on that evening. It will take 8 days for the truck to arrive Kunming.

Andy

At noon on September 2nd, 2005 Sohyun, Herbert and me flew from Beijing to Kunming. Helen, my wife, was already there for a week to visit her family and Claudio with his girl friend followed in the evening.


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Herbert, Sohyun, Andy flying to Kunming

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Approaching Kunming


The clever marketing girl from the BMW dealer in Kunming arranged some 7 series BMW limos to pick us up, handed us flowers and also brought some photographers and TV guys along.

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Our boxes - unharmed

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Unpacking

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Photographers, TV guys and the ever present BMW marketing girl :lol8:


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A bit of show in the dealer's car park.

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Re-assembly

After we'd finished all three bikes we filled up and transferred them to the hotel, waiting for my wife, Claudio and his girl friend.

We had a late dinner together after they finally arrived, and were pretty excited about the days to come

Andy

The first riding day started with another surprise provided by the marketing girl ;-)
They have asked us to stop by their shop in the morning and someone would lead us out of the mayhem of Kunming. But she had changed her mind over night and more reporters, TV and radio station staff showed up. We had to give some interviews before we were finally released.



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Andy at the interview

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Herbert's turn

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Finally on the way

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Refused on the expressway 1

The first 100 kms were quite boring and it was only after lunch when the scenery became nicer and traffic less.

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Along a river

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Roads aren't too bad

I panicked a bit in this tunnel, as it is very narrow and makes a sharp turn. When you enter it with your sunglasses on, you cannot see anything! Although we were pretty slow, it seemed to take minutes before I got my damned sunglasses off.

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Side valley

About half way into the day's stage, I had to break very hard behind a truck with no brake lights and hardly came to a stop about two meters from the trucks rear.
Claudio, who was a bit horny :lol8:, decided to take me from behind. He hit my left pannier, I fell to the right but luckily without major consequences.
Only problem was that the left pannier holder broke and we had to fix the bag on top of the top case.

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Following the rail line to Dali

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A short break

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Reaching higher altitudes

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Mountain lake

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It's green everywhere

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That must be why it's called Yunnan (Yun = cloud; Nan = South)

Shortly before we arrived in Dali, I had another moment of increased heart rate, when I slipped with front and rear simultaneously but managed to stay up :icon10:

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Bikes in the hotel lobby


Due to our delayed departure it was already dark when we arrived old town Dali. The hotel manager allowed us to park the bikes in the lobby.

Andy

Needless to say that we were a major attraction in old town Dali.

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Preparing to leave from Dali old town.


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In this picture you can see the side case attached to the top of the top case

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We were on the country road, actually not too bad in this area - expressway on the left.

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Roadside family life

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Still on nice roads

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Cobblestone road


The quite o.k. road turned into a cobblestone nightmare with trucks, trucks, trucks, their dust and exhaust.
We were a bit tired of all this and after a while and attempted to enter the expressway.


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Refused on the expressway 2 - YOU ARE NOT GOING!

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We couldn't enter the expressway here ...

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... neither could we there. See that all bolts are missing already! :mwink:


Finally we found an open spot to enter, wide enough for a truck and on we were.


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We made good progress on the expressway - literally no traffic.

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Claudio decided to stop - unfortunately ...

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... and here they were :naughty:

What followed was a good while of discussions, phone calls and negotiations. The cops were very friendly and explained that it was really dangerous for bikes to ride on that busy expressway :icon10: They decided that we had to leave the expressway by turning back to the previous exit, what we refused, of course, since riding down the wrong side of such a busy road was too dangerous, we felt. Another round of phone calls was made. Finally they said we had to follow them to next exit, when one of the cops suggested that this was too far away from the country road and agreed that we will exit on the next but one, over 70kms away :lol8::lol8:


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Following the police car at 80 kph

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This where we had to leave the expressway.

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Cops were talking to the toll gate guys, we were released and wished well - no fine - no toll; Thanks !

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We made a brief stop right after the exit, at the Lan Can Jiang - The Mekong.

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Mekong 2

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Mekong 3

We were on ever present cobblestone again after a few kms, climbing up steadily.

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Cobblestone again.

On the descent towards Baoshan, we noticed that the whole area's South slopes are graveyards - tombs wherever you look.

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Tombs


We reached the outskirts of Baoshan city in the early afternoon and paid a short visit to my wifes family.

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A ride for the local kids

My left handed pannier holder still needed repair, so we went to my wife's cousin, who owns a small motorbike repair shop to fix the support. After 2 hours of cutting, welding, grinding and painting, the pannier sat in it's place again. What a relief. Thank you, Xiao Dong!

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Cutting

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Final painting

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Job done.

We went for a nice Yunnan style dinner and a bunch of cold beers afterwards.

Andy

After a not so nice breakfast in a dirty hotel "restaurant" in the actually pretty good hotel, we were on the way again, but not before a good bye visit to Xiao Dong, the pannier support repair man.


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Goodbye to the repair man


We left Baoshan towards Ruili, a border city with Myanmar. Roads were quite busy, full with trucks, tractors and other shitty vehicles. Remember, we were not allowed on the expressway and didn't want to bother our luck again. After almost 2 hours in this mess, we decided not to go to Ruili but to turn north into the Nu Jiang valley.


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Busy roads near Baoshan city

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The two guys showed us a shortcut into Nu Jiang valley - Nu Jiang in the background.

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Bridge across Nu Jiang

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Thanks guys, you saved us 60km of busy roads.

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The first kms in Nu Jiang valley


Not long after, we have been checked for the first time. Not a big surprise since this area is bordering Myanmar.

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First check point


They have been mostly interested in our passports and bike data (how much, how fast, how heavy and how much fuel goes into the tank), and after a few minutes we were on our way again.


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Pleasant riding

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Riding into the upper Nu Jiang valley

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Really fun riding there


We came through a lager village where the market was really busy. It quite a while to pass through.


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Market on the main street

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Everything available

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Spices dealer

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Lingerie

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On a free road again

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Different kind of traffic ...

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... open spaces and ...

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... coffee beans around our lunch place.

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The restaurant we had lunch.

We moved on towards Liuku after lunch in the same green scenery as we did before.

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Why not have nap on the road?

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A little detour to the river

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Harvest season

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Another, very relaxed checkpoint and ...

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... a very relaxed Herbert :lol8:

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Another detour across a suspension bridge and back.


The valley gets much narrower from here. We had only about 30 kms left to reach Liuku and we took it really easy from now. Maybe a bit too easy ...

To avoid eating each others dust on the now dirt road, we kept some distance between each other. Claudio was quite ahead already, me in second and Herbert last. When I stopped to take a picture, the phone rang - it was Sohyun telling me that they had an accident. We turned bach immediately and found the following.

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The tricycle driver just cut into Herbert's straight path, by turning left


When I passed this spot minutes before Herbert did, there was nobody to be seen. When we came back there there must have been a hundred people or more.

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Herbert ...

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... and his opponent's foot.

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Cops showed up pretty quick and handled the case quite professional.


Sohyun was actually uninjured, but Herbert's wound was stitched on the spot by the local village doctor. The other guy was taken to the hospital and we never heard anything about his condition.
The cops arranged a pick up truck to bring the bike, which was not rideable anymore, to the hotel in Liuku.


We reached the hotel in Liuku after only 20 minutes, where the cops continued collecting data and interviewing Herbert. It turned out that the tricycle driver was completely drunk, without license and the vehicle unregistered. They requested Sohyun and Herbert to see the local hospital the next day.

After a shower we went out for a nice dinner and some beer after it. The two could smile a bit already and insisted on the rest of us continuing our trip as planned.

Andy

After we helped the two unfortunate fellows as good as we could, we were on the way towards the border between China and Myanmar. It is roughly 90 kms From Liuku at around 800m asl up to the pass at around 3200m asl. These 90kms are partly really though riding.

The first 20 kms we rode along the Nu Jiang before we turned West and always up.

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Along Nu Jiang

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The road starts climbing from here

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A look back at the first photo stop

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After 10kms of climbing

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A look back from a little further up

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After about 25kms up the mountain tha road turns into dirt

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Incredible views open up

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The road we came

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Typical Yunnan cobblestone road

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Whenever we thought we are close to the top, you see more road, high above

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After more than 2 hours riding we reached the top - 3135m asl


It is really unbelievable but at this altitud everything is green.

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A look towards Myanmar. We didn't reach the actual border though - restricted area:confused1:, so we had to turn back from there. With a little paper from Liuku Police we would have made it - damn.



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More views from the way down

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Mountain road

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People - rarely seen up there

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We had a very late lunch just before we reached Nu Jiang valley

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Lokal school kids haven't seen many foreigners before

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Claudio is always carrying his little espresso maker :icon10:

We crossed a suspension bridge to return to Liuku on the East bank of Nu Jiang.


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Suspension bridge

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Distant view of the bridge with the crazy crew in front


We had a farewell dinner with Sohyun and Herbert, who returned to Kunming with the pick up truck the next day. The rest of the gang moved on to Lijiang.


Andy

P.S. Sorry for the blurred pics, we didn't notice that we had to clean the lens after all the dust :lol8:

After we said farewell to our unfortunate buddies, Sohyun and Herbert, we left Liuku Eastbound across a high mountain range to reach the Mekong valley.

First thing after refueling was yet another check point. These guys haven't been too friendly but didn't bother either.

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Liuku checkpoint

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The road started climbing - nice waterfall

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And again - green everywhere

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Short break half way up the pass - this where we found out that we had to clean the lens :rolleyes1:

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On the pass

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View towards Mekong valley

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Rural traffic on the way down to Mekong

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Pigs on their way up to pig's heaven :lol8:

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Getting closer to Mekong

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The road was narrow but brand new, traffic consisted of animals only

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Mekong valley

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More traffic

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How to reach that road on the other side of the river

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The power of water

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The road was washed away during rain season on several occasions

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This one was extremely bad - must have happened only a day or two before

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No danger of mudslides here

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One of my favorite pics

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Another mudslide area

After we followed the Mekong for about 100 kms North, we turned East in a small town where we had lunch.


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Up we go again


Further up the mountain we came in very dense fog and a bit of rain. So no pics from there.
We reached another pass of just over 3000m asl before we went down the other side with the weather being a lot better.


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Downhill again

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Yet another green valley

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Another pass over 2400m asl before we reached Lijiang just at nightfall.

We stayed in a guest house in the middle of old town where our bikes were not allowed to be driven into. So I had to push the big horse there - was wishing I had a 50cc, but only for the pushing part :lol8::lol8::lol8:

We decided to have a rest day the next day and go up to the Yak meadow by bus. More about this later.

Andy

hi Andy
thanks very much for that awesome post
sorry to see the accident though

Herbert surely is missed around here

all the best
TL

Wow. Thanks for an excellent story and pictures.

Dan K.
Black Hawk, CO