Hohhot to Chengdu

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I stupidly put some bananas in my top box which totally disintegrated and spread themselves evenly over the rest of the contents!

30th
Left Xunhua late at 8.40 due to blow drying yesterday's wet clothes. The scenery and roads were fantastic all the way to Xining which was a bit of an armpit. We stopped to get cash and I waited in a queue in the ABC watching a lady fail at cash machine usage, after the second failed attempt I called over the manager who helped her through the process. Then a group of likely lads with one card took an age to empty an account, it looked a tad suspicious but no-one else batted an eyelid. After finally getting through Xining we entered the road of death, dusty potholed and jammed packed with every imaginable vehicle, whose sole purpose was to take us out. We survived and started climbing up towards Qinghai lake, the road was fun and pretty empty so we gave it the beans. That road ended so we joined the gaosu and flew up the last few kilometres. We then looped around the whole northern and western sides of the lake and found a pikey guest house for 60 quai in Heimahexiang having been told that all the hotels were 180. The northern road was fast but pretty dull as the lake was out of sight most of the time. We rode up a weird half built viewing platform for a photo then went lakeside where a filthy Tibetan tramp tried to extort 20 quai from us.

Heimahexiang is a one horse town but we found some cool Tibetan trinkets for next to nothing and a great restaurant staffed entirely by kids! And what do kids love? Rambo of course! We are now having a few beers watching first blood mainly in Chinese but with snippets of English. Quality.

495 kms today, 2815 total. To get to Chengdu on the 5th we need to average over 400 a day, which could be fun at 4000 metres, no doubt it'll be memorable.


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Watching Rambo with the kids

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This toilet in Heimahexiang had a 10m drop

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A steamy noodle shop near Qinghai lake




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Pimping ain't easy homey!

A lunch break on our way to Qinghai lake. Lunch consisted of Snickers and hard-packed dried fruit. We ended up relying on those to foods for lunch pretty much throughout the entire trip, and will definitely do so again in the future.
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The view to the left showing the road we had just come up
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While we were taking these photos by the water, we met the owner of Qinghai lake. THE OWNER. I know, crazy huh? She tried to charge us for taking pictures of her lake, but we high-tailed it.
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THE OWNER... I still can't get over it
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Tom decided to power-wash the Yingang :icon10::icon10: I knew no good would come of it!
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The steed. The Qingqi seriously preformed great the whole trip. Apart from a tricky front end and user error, it was almost ideally suited.
Chinav: I am sorry I didn't wash it every night :sad:
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1st

We left at 7.30 having decided to try and make a serious dent in the remaining kilometres. My carb had water inside from jet washing the night before which made Joe laugh. We knocked off the final 120 kms of the lake before breakfast then decided to take a slightly different route. In effect we did two straight sides of a triangle instead of one twisty. We made great progress, 650 kms today, reaching Darlag at 5.30. In fact the original route, though more direct, would have totalled 780 so we probably saved a day. We now only need to average 270 to arrive in Chengdu on time.

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The red line is the actual route taken. Anyone heading this way should take note of the small detour shown mid map where we filled up at Baima, we would have been riding on fumes without stopping there. Well done Joe for leaving on his heated grips! :thumbsup:

The roads were pretty dull and we were whizzing along at 120 on the straights though the bikes were feeling the effect of the altitude, mine especially was struggling on the climbs. The only bad bit of road was before Darlag, I was getting so beat up I stopped and took 7 psi out of each tyre.

Darlag itself is tiny, we found an ok hotel and had a few beers. Met a Tibetan badboy in purple and white with 70s sunglasses who was hilarious, and was shocked by a seemingly wild pack of huge dogs menacing the townsfolk, particularly those on motorbikes. Joe said he would shoot them all to protect Sally if they lived here.

It's surprisingly warm here in the afternoons, although it did snow slightly today. We have plently of clothes so as long as it doesn't rain we'll be fine. Have been keeping an eye out for some riding furs just to piss off any hippies I meet in the future but haven't found any yet.

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Not sure who this guy is but he seemed pretty poplular :naughty:


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Part of the pack that was menacing Darlag


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Check out his sunnies! :thumbsup:

2nd

Joe left his heated grips on so we are changing the battery. I woke up a mechanic who informed us of altitudes. Darlag is 3738 and the hisghest mountain we will pass today is 4753. The mechanic provided us with some invaluable information regarding petrol stations, resulting in a 20 km detour to Baima and possibly saving us from running out. At Baima the Tibetans were setting up for some kind of festival (probably not national day!) and Joe was mobbed when we stopped to check it out. After filling up the bikes and some plastic bottles we pressed on and met a deaf mc coming the other direction. We stopped and tried to talk to them before we realised it was next to impossible to communicate. The international language of motorcycles sufficed however, and about a gazillion photos were taken. Shortly afterwards we went over a pass 4238 m, 4 more were to follow, all over 4000. Joe's qingqi runs lean at sea level so was in its element at altitude. The yingang did reasonably well, but I was revving the tits off it while Joe just chugged along.


Unusually for a bike trip in the middle kingdom, we saw quite a bit of wildlife. A tibetan fox played chicken with us, and we also saw marmott/gerbil type rodents and an eagle near Qinghai lake. Less appreciated were the yaks which showed no fear of bikes and were constantly wandering onto the road, halting my hard won momentum.

We arrived in Aba, dumped our kit in the hotel and went off to check out the temple. It was pretty large and we walked around snapping a few pics. We were surprised by the amount of 5/o I'm the area. The station had been built right next to the temple and we sat in a nearby cafe checking out the impressive arms being carried. Soon though we were escorted inside and told that we may be in danger, as an afterthought our camera was also examined and some editing took place. We were finally let go and decided to risk going out for Tibetan hotpot, amazingly enough we survived!


440 today, 3905 total

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We woke up in Darlag to find that it had snowed during the night

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The bikes looked especially cold

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Joe with his flat battery



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The local mechanic who actually gave Joe a brand new battery for free! He even came back with a flask of hot water which he poured over the engine to get it started. :clap:



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Local Tibetans near the site of the mystery festival



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Joe was mobbed by the locals

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Were we confident eating at this restaurant? Of cousre we were!



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The best looking road sweeper I've seen





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Despite my best efforts this young lad wasn't scared at all




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Lion heart



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Prayer wheels at the Aba temple

Another double up here.

1st

On the road

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2nd -------


Obviously these guys are cooler than we are, because they were doing all of this less 1 sense. Right on!
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Literally 10 meters after we met up with these guys, the roads turned rocky and lame. Stayed that way for a while - right up and over the pass
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It's not just that I was underexposed in this shot. I was also bundled up to my eyeballs trying to stay warm :icon10:
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Beautiful views
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Aba temple

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Lovely to see some traditional Tibetan clothing

3rd

Left Aba at 8.40, the first 100 kms were pretty nasty. Very muddy and freezing, we both had some serious moments but neither of us fell. I was fishtailing all over the shop but for Joe it was worse as his front was washing out all time. We came down from the bad road and queued for petrol with a load of Sunday drivers from Chengdu. We warned them of the bad road ahead and they receiprocated about a 'very difficult' high pass ahead of us. In fact the roads were great from then on and we didn't notice that we'd gone through the difficult pass until we were below the tree line.

We stopped for noodles and the cook disciplined her child by saying she'd sell him to the foreigners. We joined in the joke and the poor lad was terrified!

From there we continued on down to Wenchuan the site of the 2008 earthquake. We has initially tried to stay further up the mountain but we were thrown out of a hotel for being foreign, after being told it was fine. We arrived in Wenchuan and it took ages to find a room as most hotels were full due to the national holiday. I eventually found a great little pikey place for cheap. The only issue was the motocross skills required to reach the parking area. In the end we were very glad to have reached Wenchuan, we had fantastic hotpot and the earthquake museum was an eye opener. The huge before and after photos told a pretty frightening tale. It's pretty obvious that no expense was spared for the rebuild, and it looks way better than any other town in the area. The new buildings are stylish and full of character, not the usual concrete boxes.



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Cold and muddy but still smiling!


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One of the new buildings in Wenchuan