Lulu went to see the museum which we had waited an extra day to see, and I looked after the packed bikes (which couldn’t be locked so someone needed to be there to look after our things) and read some Emerson because there was no secure parking at the parking lot.
Lulu had asked Maria in Shanghai to send us some WangBaoBao (chemical hot packs) so that we could drive comfortably in the cold weather we anticipated we would come across. Maria sent them to the Half the Sky centre in Hohhot, so that’s where we visited next, but it took us a while to find. I saw some Muslim influence on the architecture of some of the buildings, and I started to feel the effect of the ancient silk road.
As we got out of the city, Lulu had a go at me for not stopping at the Wangfu (palace) that she saw (but I didn’t). The sun was very low on the horizon, so keeping her temper in check, we got going back up into the mountains that separate the lowlands from the steppes, heading for Guyang.
After 100 kilometers or so, when it started getting dark and we knew we wouldn’t make it to Guyang, we started looking for places to stay. No towns and no choices, we were soon competing with trucks and their high beams for space on the country road.
Another 60 kilometers and we found a small town which seemed to exist solely from the food and accommodation that long distance truckers need on a long country road.
We stumbled around in the dark and chanced upon a small, grubby, but entirely adequate room with no shower for 40 kuai for the night.
01-26-2012, 03:11 PM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Xiashihao to Wulate Qianqi – Day 43
We found a shortcut around Guyang to Baotou, which saved us some time. I had been against the idea of going to Baotou, basing my travel assumptions on my trusty Lonely Planet, thinking that there weren’t alot of interesting things to see there. Lulu thought that only relying on the Lonely Planet to judge which places we should go, was a bad idea, and she wanted to see the Russian architecture of a city built with help from the Russians some 50 years or so ago. Again, I relented (even though I would have liked to continue along the easy and more enjoyable country roads), hoping to gain some favour for the next time I would need it. Mountain roads greeted us again as we swept back down into the lowlands to Baotou.
It turned out that motorcycles aren’t allowed in the centre of Baotou, and the only interesting thing in the Lonely Planet (Wudang Lamasery, fairly important - I had forgotten to check the Lonely Planet that morning) was back near Guyang. I was a little annoyed with myself because it would have been great to see.
The road leading west out of Baotou left a fair bit to be desired. A jumble of dirty, smelly factories, a power station here and there, pillars of dust kicked up by the wind coming down off the mountains, and generally just boring roads with more trucks. The sky continued to darken in to the afternoon as the northerly winds kicked up tons of sand and dust.
We got to Wulate Qianqi with a couple of hours of sunlight left and we decided to call it a day. We drove around looking for a place for us to stay, but this town is one that is very hard on the foreigner license rule, despite being out in the middle of nowhere. We drove around for almost two hours, unpacked and repacked my bike after one guesthouse had second thoughts, were offered a price that was too high for Lulu, and then gave up on the centre of town and started looking along the road out of town.
We came across a nice hotel, which was supposed to open the day after we got there but opened a room for us. That was our first hotel for the trip so far and with a price that we could both agree on.
01-26-2012, 03:51 PM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Wulate Qianqi to Balagong – Day 44
The kitchen downstairs didn’t have any food for breakfast, so we ventured back into town for some seriously tasty, mildly spicy noodles. It was the peanuts that made them unforgettable. Lulu ordered them, so I have no idea about the name.
It wasn’t enough to fill me up though, so we found a roadside Mongolian burger stand, which also served some great food. We had to wait though, because a driver that came after us was “in a hurry”. Local priorities.
Back on the road, we came across a convoy of trucks carting new versions of the concrete gers that we have seen so much of in Inner Mongolia, obviously in anticipation of a bumper tourist season of people who would love a taste for the nomad life. Not something I would pay to stay in though. I’m not sure concrete gers are such a big thing in nomadic Mongolian society.
I spotted a Lifan sign on one of the shops as we passed through a small town, so we stopped to get the bikes an oil change. I think the last time we got them looked at was after Chengde, so they definitely needed some love.
The shop didn’t have the spares that we had wanted to get our hands on for the past month or so, but we were told that in nearby Bayannur, there was a bigger dealership where we could find what we wanted.
They were a little reluctant to hand over spares for parts that weren’t broken, but I wanted them just in case because I knew it could be hard finding the right size for our bikes in an emergency. We came out with an extra set of ball bearings for each of our bikes and some clutch plates for my bike. They didn’t have the right size for Lulu’s.
For the second time, we crossed the Huanghe (the Yellow River), the last time being in Shandong a couple of weeks ago. This is just one of the many dams designed to control the flow of a river that has caused so much destruction and loss of life throughout China’s history.
Not long after crossing the river, we started to encounter bad roads which made going slow. We were told that the next town was 4 kilometers away, and after that it was 60 kilometers to the next place where we could find accommodation, so we stopped for the night in Balagong.
This was one of those small towns where I could tell that everyone in town knew there was a foreigner there, where he was and what he was doing at any time. I was quite used to people staring at me by then, but here I could feel the whole town had eyes on me. It wasn’t too hard to find a place to stay though, and we had a nice Xinjiang style dinner.
01-26-2012, 04:28 PM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Balagong to Dawukou – Day 45
We explored the local market and found some Guagua (translation: melon melon, i think) which Lulu is a fan of. A little bit expensive and apparently from Myanmar (???) it tasted pretty good and I got at least half of my 5+ a day.
After breakfast, Lulu was pulled aside on the way to the public toilets (because our guesthouse had no private toilet) by a policeman who knew she was traveling with a foreigner. He asked where we were going and wanted to see my passport. She told them to wait, and then told them to give her a ride to the restaurant we had ordered food at. After presenting the required documents, they asked me what my job is, where I am going and how long we will be staying in the town. After attempting to tell them, in random Chinese words and hand gestures, that we were leaving after breakfast, they appeared satisfied and told me to be on my way.
The roads got worse as we traveled south along the G110, and I was impressed at how Lulu managed the roads on her bike. She did have a small fall or two in the sand though.
After about 10 kilometers, the roads started to get better and we sped up, driving alongside the Huanghe, with scrubland reaching to the distant mountains on the other side. We stopped in Wuhai as we tried to find the short way over the river and through the desert to Alashan Zuoqi, and stocked up on provisions because we were sure there are no towns or shops on the way.
We didn’t see a bridge or the way across the river that was depicted in the roadmap that we have, so we continued on to Wudang, a heavily industrialised and polluted city which had me breathing shallow breaths most of the way past the lines of factories producing solar panels, apparently part of the “green revolution” (solar energy: the solution to environmental degradation? really? I was barely able to breathe the noxious fumes coming out of that factory). Now that we couldn’t find the short way, we had to go through Ningxia, a province that Chairman Mao created especially for the Hui, the Sino-Muslim minority that live in many parts of China.
The Helan Shan mountains jumped out of the ground to the right, and the sun was low enough to make them look particularly beautiful. We turned down a road and I stopped to take a couple of photos while Lulu went on ahead to explore the road.
She found a new-looking temple in the foothills asked an old lama who was having dinner if we could stay the night. Initially, he said yes, but when he knew that she was traveling with a man, he refused. We were a little disappointed because it would have been great to stay there. I got a picture with a monk who we suspected to be quite drunk. I had always associated Buddhist monks with abstinence and celibacy. I was starting to feel like being proven wrong would be a major theme for this journey.
It took a while to find the nearest town and dusk fell quickly. We ended up driving in the dark to an unknown town, over torn up roads and dodging the ever present trucks.
01-26-2012, 05:06 PM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Dawukou to Alashan Zuoqi – Day 46
After looking though the travel guide we found a couple of interesting places to visit. The Helan Shan rock carvings (or petroglyphs??) date back 10,000 years and are the oldest remnant of the early nomads that first lived in this area. We had to stop and ask for directions a couple of times, but found the usual tourist billboards to point us the way. The entry fee was 60 yuan to get in, but the clouds were free.
Most of the carvings were small etching on rocks in hillsides of animals and hunters. There weren’t many, and with the crowds of tourists (something I had grown unused to during the past couple of weeks in Inner Mongolia, and were more than annoying) and the addition of pointless signs drawing attention to random things like rocks which had fallen down the mountainside I felt the faint taste of disappointment. The highlight was the distinctive carving of the Sun God.
Just down the road were the Xixia burial mounds (also known as the Tanguts), tombs of their emperors and some of the few remnants of an empire that reached its peak about 900 years ago, before Genghis Khan came along with his army and wiped them out.
The museum inside the compound really added to the experience and I felt like I learnt something about a civilisation that I had never heard of. But I had to be quick, because Lulu was looking after the bikes and it was almost closing time.
We left Ningxia, a fairly small province as Chinese provinces go, and headed over the Helan shan to Alashan Zuoqi which was apparently 70 kms away. It turned out to be more than 110 kilometres away and once again we were driving in the dark.
Just before Alashan Zuoqi, I happened to look up at the stars and saw something strange. At first I thought it was a jumbo jet and its’ streams of exhaust, but it was glowing and round. It exploded in a shower of yellow sparks and I figured that it was a satellite or some capsule crashing to earth. It was breathtaking to see that just by chance. A small piece continued to fall into the distance.
Alashan Zuoqi’s streets were lit up like it was Christmas with neon lights hanging off the streetlights. We had no problem getting a place to stay, which I was particularly grateful for. We have figured out a system where I ask if they have rooms to spare, and if the potential host has issues with the foreigner thing, we know straight away and we move onto the next place.
01-27-2012, 01:45 PM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Around Alashan Zuoqi – Day 47
I had been keen to get to Alashan Zuoqi in time for the Sunday markets, but when we turned up to the small carpark where it was held, there were only about fifteen vendors, their wares spread out on blankets on the concrete. We had a look around and I wanted to find some interesting things to buy for friends back in Chongqing, but nothing really caught my eye.
We left the market and spent a while trying to find the Wangye temple, and had to ask several people where to go until we finally found it. The whole area looked as though it was under construction with scaffolding blocking footpaths and rubble closing off roads. The temple itself was undergoing restoration, but we were allowed to visit.
To the side of the temple was a deserted carpark littered with rubble and tools here and there. It turned out that this carpark was where the Sunday Market used to be held, but it had been shifted because of the renovation and new construction. I bet the relocation had played a part in making the new Sunday market less than noteworthy.
The temple itself was great. The buildings were weathered and looked and felt authentic (the parts that hadn’t been ‘restored’anyway), which was a welcome change to the cheap veneer of many of the temples we had seen so far. We didn’t meet any monks while we were there, but wondered if drinking Baijiu was a part of their Buddhist prayer ceremonies after seeing several bottles stashed under a table in one of the prayer rooms.
We drove halfway to Guangzong Si, 40 kilometres outside of Alashan Zuoqi before I realised I had forgotten to fill up my nearly empty fuel tank. Lulu was perfectly happy to be left on the desolate side of the road while I went back to town to fill up.
When we got to Guangzong Si (Guangzong Temple) we realised that it wasn’t just one temple, but a series of temples spaced out across the mountain. We were allowed to drive the bike around on the roads there so it was easy to get between the temples. My favourite place by far was the temple clinging to a cliff face looking over the deserts and wastelands, exposed to the rough desert winds.
At the main temple tolling gongs told us that a prayer ceremony was about to begin. The monk at the door told us that we weren’t allowed to take photos or video inside the temple, but Lulu took some video with the helmet camera anyway, concealed by her jacket.
We had a hard time getting up so we only managed to get going at about 2pm, but thinking that it was going to be an easy 190 km day, I wasn’t bothered too much. I was more bothered about the possibility of not having enough petrol to get us to the next petrol station. No-one we asked in town could give us a definitive answer where the next petrol station would be on the route we had chosen for the next couple of days. I filled up my spare bottle with about 1 litre just in case, which wouldn’t do much in an emergency.
What looked like clear skies as we left the guest house turned grey and grumpy as we started out of town and drops of rain started to patter on my helmet. We stopped and got changed into our waterproof gear just before the rain stopped. It didn’t start again for the rest of the day, but the wind really started to pick up as we drove through the afternoon.
The roads were desolate and the landscape on either side of the road was barren and lifeless, apart from tufts of grass and the odd camel families.
About an hour into riding, the wind was so bad that, even though the road’s surface was perfect and there was no traffic, we had to slow down to below 40km/h. Lulu was having a particularly hard time controlling her bike as it was much lighter than mine. Several times she was nearly blown off onto the shoulder. We both kept riding through the gale until we found a town to find shelter in and have a snack. Trucks were lined up all along the road and I guessed that the truckies usually stop when the wind gets so bad and wait for it to blow over.
After the town, the wind died down a little, and we could get some speed up for the next couple of hours, sitting up against our bikes to shield ourselves from the wind during our breaks.
We arrived in Bayan Nuorigong, a town of no more than 30 buildings and driving up the main road (the only road in the town) looking for a place to stay, we noticed that two of them were police stations, at each end of town. I was anxious about attracting the attention of the police (as we had done in Balagong, less than a week before), still unsure whether we needed some kind of permit to be in this area of Inner Mongolia. We found a guest house at the end of town and expected to have ‘foreigner’ problems. We were relieved to find that a couple of places would take us and we could take our pick. Still paranoid about catching the attention of trucks drivers as I was certainly the only foreigner in town, I took to wearing my ski mask until we had unpacked our bikes and settled in. We had done just under 200 kms in 4 and a half hours despite the problems with the wind, a trip record so far.
After night fell and I stood outside our room, the stars shone down with more intensity than I had seen so far in China. It was a very tranquil atmosphere, even with the pigs grunting in the corner of the yard next to the open-air toilet.
I entered our room and the harsh sound of truckers playing cards or mahjong pumped easily through the plywood thin walls from the next room until quite late. I tried to get to sleep and held myself back from cursing loudly enough for them to hear. Tranquility is short lived on the arteries of China.
01-27-2012, 02:33 PM
lobotomous
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Amazing report. I am enjoying every part more than the last. A proper adventure. Thanks so much!
01-27-2012, 02:43 PM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Bayan Nuorigong to the Badain Jaran desert – Day 49
Still conscious of the fact that I may have needed a permit to be out in that part of Inner Mongolia I wore the ski mask as often as possible and my heart would skip a beat whenever a police vehicle would drive past. We are a fairly conspicuous duo on the roads and, if I did indeed need a permit to be out there, it would only take a curious appendage of the law for our drive to the Badain Jaran desert to turn into a costly and seriously inconvenient detour back the way we came.
The going was easier today, possibly because we started earlier and we have found that the wind doesn’t pick up until mid-afternoon, so our arms were given a respite from fighting the wind. We saw many more camels and came across our first real desert sand dunes, so we stopped for a picnic of food and sand.
I was determined to get to the desert area that night, hopefully before dark, so I was already prepared to fend off any ideas that Lulu got about getting distracted and driving off somewhere possibly “interesting”. We had a sharp discussion about visiting a temple that was signposted as three kms down a gravel track. Lulu wanted to go because all she had to look at all day was sand, rocks and dead grass, and she wasn’t giving up, so I ended up following her down the track. I’m glad I did. We drove up to a cluster of about 5 buildings at the foothills of a small mountain range. The temple was closed, but as we walked around the complex we came across a herd of young goats who were resting in the shadow of one building. Once they saw us they ran up to us bleating greetings and putting their front legs up on ours, either asking us to be their friends or asking to be fed. I think it was more that they were hungry, but they were very cute and they just loved the attention we heaped on them. We crouched there surrounded by these balls of affectionate white fur for about 15 minutes before the goat herder approached from the hills with the older animals, who seemed a little distressed about us being around their young ones.
After the turnoff to the Badain Jaran desert we drove down the road for about 20 minutes, the darkening skyline meeting gigantic mountains of sand in the distance, before we came to a space-age looking complex and, not seeing any obvious places offering lodging, we kept driving until the road petered out into the desert. A bright yellow jeep rolled up and a couple of people piled out, one who introduced himself as Andy, the supervisor of the tourist centre that we had passed. We asked them if there was an entrance fee to walk into the desert and have a look around. One of the girls said 200 rmb to get in. I was livid.”200 kuai to walk around in some sand? Are you joking?!!”. The smile on her face told me that she was, and I buried my (rather overdone) self-righteous rage. Andy, the centre manager told us that there were no places to stay for 30 kms, as it was the off season, but we could sleep in the spare room. He was very concerned about the cold when I half-joked about sleeping in the sand for the night.
We rolled out what blankets we had on the hard marble surface of the spare room, and put on most of our riding gear to keep us warm. It was fairly uncomfortable, but it was a novel change. Until in the middle of the night I woke up shivering and had to put on more clothes, and even then it wasn’t enough. Not the best night sleep I had, but at least we had shelter.
We got up fairly early for a change, mainly due to the fact that there wasn’t much point trying to pretend that the floor would encourage a sleep-in. The guys offered us breakfast in the tourist centre and we went for it. All we had was some sweet bread and processed sausage that we had in the packs for lunch if we couldn’t find anywhere to eat on the road. Before we had breakfast though, we had to fill up three 20 litre cans with water. Curious about where they got there water from out in the desert, we asked to join them. Four of us hopped in the jeep and sped off into the desert, roaring up and down sand dunes. After about five minutes, we stopped at the bottom of a sand-bowl where a well had been sunk. The water was a bit salty, but it was surprising that I didn’t need to pull the rope and can up very far to get it back up. The water might have only been about 10 metres down.
After breakfast we set out towards the sand dune that looked as though it towered over all the others. There was a noticeable lack of wind and the weather was quite cool, so trekking over the dunes wasn’t as hard as I thought i might be, but still very slow, especially in heavy, steel-capped boots which I found weren’t exactly designed for walking in the sand. But we loved it. Our first real trip through a real desert (if it doesn’t have sand dunes, then it’s not a real desert). After about an hour and a half of walking, Lulu got quite tired. I egged her on. The dune didn’t look far away at all, but she sat down and insisted that I go ahead while I waited. We had only taken one 1.5 litre bottle of water so I left it with her and the small amount of food that we brought, and headed on by myself.
It took at least an hour to walk that ‘short’ distance to the foot of the sand-mountain. I guess distances can be deceptive in the desert, or maybe just I misjudged my speed and stamina, but I got there. That was the easy part. By that point I was tired and thirsty, but certainly able to make it back without too many problems, especially as I had brought my GPS with me. If I thought walking through sand was hard, trying to climb sand was nearly impossible. Halfway up the ridge I was stopping for a breather every five steps, but finally when I got to the top, I was rewarded with an unforgettable view of the surrounding desert. This dune really did tower over the others and I could see for miles around at the other oddly shaped and coloured dunes, spattered with shadows from bits of cloud overhead and framed by the azure horizon. The only sound was the grainy patter of sand on my clothes as the wind puffed at the edge of the dune ridge.
Tired, I thought I would take the short way down instead of the ridge I had come up on. I zig-zagged down the face of the mountain, setting off rivers of sand above and below me as I moved down the mountain. I thought to myself whether sand-avalanches might be possible on a sand mountain.
I made it back to Lulu and drank most of the water. Fuzzy headed, I had to rest for a while before we got going again.
We finally got back to the centre after 5 hours of desert hiking. My GPS read 14 kilometres. Less than 3km/h. The slowest speed so far. After a long rest we slowly packed our bikes, said goodbye and thanks to Andy and his friends for their generosity and helpfulness and we were off to Alashan Youqi, the last town we would stay in inside Inner Mongolia.
It wasn’t so easy to find a place to stay that night. Lulu and I got a bit cranky at each other. We were both exhausted from our desert so that was bound to happen. We found a place and each put our things on a bed. I went back outside to lock the bikes together, and then came back to see her watching TV and lying on MY BED! The bed I had chosen, and dumped my things on! It was my bed! “Why are you on my bed?” “I’m watching TV!”. “Why can’t you watch TV from your bed? It’s barely one metre away from mine and you can watch TV perfectly fine.” “No, I can’t see it from there!”. I was not going to back down. “How can you not see it? Your eyes can’t be that bad” and on and on. In the end she jumped off, aggressively threw herself on the other (her!!) bed and rolled over with her back to me, in the obvious gesture of “Oooh you’re going to pay for this”. Maybe I should have let her have the (my!!) bed.
01-27-2012, 03:47 PM
felix
Re: Around China in 100 Days
this is such a cool ride report!
01-28-2012, 02:04 AM
ChinaV
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Quote:
Originally Posted by felix
this is such a cool ride report!
+1 Yes it is... I like how it drifts in and out of the hardships of the road vs the hardships of dealing with each other. :lol8:
Thanks, and keep it coming :popcorn:
Cheers!
ChinaV
01-29-2012, 03:19 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Alashan Youqi to Zhangye – Day 51
The next morning I woke up not quite refreshed and with very sore legs, even though I had a solid 10 hours sleep. I set about packing and greeted Lulu as she woke up and started packing her things. Silence. Oh dear, it continues. Usually in the morning we would discuss where we were heading to for the day but not this morning. She took her things outside and tied everything onto the bike. “Where are you going?”. Silence. I was quite anxious at this point, thinking back to our conversation in Hohhot, and I thought she had given up on the partnership, either wanting to continue by herself or head straight back to Chongqing by herself. I took one last photo of Lulu packing her things, thinking this was be the end of our journey together, and she drove out onto the road. Luckily I had packed my things onto my bike because I suddenly had a brainwave through my fatigue-induced stupidity. Follow her. It doesn’t matter where she goes, follow her and make sure she is safe.
I caught up with her outside town and wondered where she was going. She soon stopped at a roadworks to ask the roadworkers something in Chinese (she was asking if there was a petrol station on the way). I waited. She got back on her bike, ignoring me, and drove back the way we came. After a while she stopped to have a break. Still with the silent treatment, I thought it was best to swallow my pride and apologise for what happened the previous night. The silent treatment ended and we talked. Apparently her eyesight really isn’t very good at all, something that concerned me a little at the time as eyesight is fairly important when driving a motorcycle. But we were back to business-as-usual. I breathed a sigh of relief and we headed back to town for petrol.
Back on the road to Gansu we soon passed the provincial border into the Beishan mountains, twisting through their desolate canyons and down the other side into the Hexi Corridor, the flat finger of land between the Qilian Shan and Beishan where the Silk Road used to pass through on its way into central Asia from China.
After the featurless plains of Inner Mongolia, the tree lined roads of Gansu were a nice change. I noticed Gansu is much more fertile than Inner Mongolia at this time of year.
We made it into Zhangye before three and decided to stop for the day because Lulu felt ill. It wasn’t too hard to find a place too stay and, even better, the place had a shower!! It was the first time since Ningxia that we were able to wash and the feeling was amazing.
Needless to say, I let Lulu choose her bed this time.
01-29-2012, 03:34 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Zhangye to Jiayuguan – Day 52
We were up late the next day and the guest house owner was severeley unimpressed with our tardiness. We were confident that we would get to Jiayuguan before dark so we wanted to take it easy.
It was a fairly unremarkable day on the bike. The green fringes lining the roads continued to be a nice touch. We stopped at a new temple under construction, and avoided being charged for entry because the ticket booth hadn’t been completed yet.
The day before, coming down from the Beishan mountain range, I was disappointed not to have seen the Qilian Shan in the distance, given that this Hexi “Corridor” was supposedly bordered on two sides by mountains. However, as we drove closer to Jiayuguan, I started to see the white peaks through the dusty haze.
Despite our own assurances, we did get into Jiayuguan after dark and it took a while to figure out where we could find an appropriate guest house. We managed to find a nice place with a very helpful lady who walked around in the dark for half an hour to help me park the bikes because she couldn’t offer any secure parking.
01-29-2012, 03:52 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Jiayuguan to Qiyi Bingchuan – Day 53
Lulu decided to take a day off because she still wasn’t feeling well, but I wanted to go to the July 1st Glacier (Qiyi Bingchuan or 七一冰川). I had never seen a glacier before (even though the South Island of New Zealand has many) and the guidebook said it was 90kms away so I figured that it should have been an easy 180 km day.
About 50 kms in, the roads started to get really bad until they just turned to gravel. While it was hard work controlling the bike and managing a decent speed, the scenery was quite spectacular. I drove past one or two chortens covered in Buddhist prayer flags at the passes.
I passed the 90 km mark and, while I was deep, and high up, in the mountains, I couldn’t imagine where nearby there would be a glacier. I thought back to information in the guidebook and realised I had been reading the information for the train line that goes to Jingtieshan (镜铁山), a town near the glacier, not this road. Pretty sure that it couldn’t be too far, I kept going.
I drove up a gravel road in the middle of the flat floor of a massive valley to a low building and a barrier barring the road forward. The guy at the tourist centre said it would cost 101 rmb (NZ$20) to get in (Which I found to be outrageous for a natural sight without maintainence costs or significant overheads, but I have since realised that very few tourist attractions in China come free). I showed him my (expired) student card and got a 50 rmb discount, which lessened the pain a little.
I parked the bike in the carpark and took what little I had brought with me up the first flight of steps. I was up over 4000 metres above sea level and within minutes my lungs were screaming for air. Sitting on a bike for weeks doesn't do much for my aerobic fitness.
It took me almost an hour to get the 3 kilometres from the carpark to the glacier, with supportive messages painted on the rocks, at least my money might be going towards something as valuable as this, and not a fleet of brand new Audis for the local tourism board.
Getting to the top and was worth the hike. The mere sense of achievement in getting to the top made the view, and the atmosphere, all the more magical. I tried to take a picture that would capture the moment, but the result didn’t quite do it. I was at over 4300 metres, with no-one around for miles, and just the pristine atmosphere and beauty to behold.
Needless to say, the walk down was much easier but the sun was starting to set behind the western ridge of the valley and I knew it would start to get darn cold soon. I tossed up whether to go back to Jiayuguan or stay the night at Jingtieshan, probably not more than 10 kilometres away. I decided to leg it back to Jiayuguan, mainly because it would be easier to get to the other places in Jiayuguan if I slept there. I still think about whether going to Jingtieshan would have been a much more rewarding experience.
Dusk had fallen and I still had 30 kms of exhausting riding on bad roads, made worse by driving in the dark, dodging trucks and their massive dust clouds, and worrying whether I had enough petrol to get me out of the mountains. After a couple more hours of driving it was a great feeling to get back on to tarmac, because I knew that it would be no sweat to get back, and the nearest petrol station was just around the corner.
I finally got back to Jiayuguan after 250 kilometres and nearly 14 hours of travel.
01-29-2012, 04:00 AM
euphonius
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Dear Roadrunner,
Excellent report, a real stemwinder. Starting to read like a coming of age novel!
Thank you also for your (belated) sensitivity toward Lulu and her eyesight. My primary work here in China is in the anti-blindness field. A bunch of us met Lulu when she passed through Shanghai after your ride last year, and we had a great time. What I'm about to say is unrelated to Lulu, except in the broader China context.
(public health message)
This country, for all its brilliance and history and rapid development and bullet trains and skyscrapers and export prowess, has some decidedly unscientific views when it comes to eyesight. One is that when people start suffering from cataract (a normal manifestation of aging just like gray hair), it means not that they should seek medical help but that their "candle has burned to the end" and their useful life is over. As a result, China has one of the world's lowest rates of cataract surgery, even though it's the world's single most common surgery and can restore full vision in 15 minutes or less at very low cost.
Another, and far more pernicious in my opinion, is the very widespread view that giving children eyeglasses actually makes their vision worse. I'm not making this up. Though this view is widely held across China, it's particularly common in poorer regions, and leads to a very malicious cycle of low educational attainment due to uncorrected poor vision, leading to another generation of low socio-economic attainment and chronic poverty. Myopia, or nearsightedness, is extremely common in children in Asia, including China. The primary and secondary school dropout statistics in western China are really depressing, and much of this could be alleviated if myopic children would just wear spectacles -- but their seemingly well-intentioned parents just won't let them. Sad
This is all the more ironic in the context of China's cities, where these days it seems every other girl (and many a boy) is wearing fashion eyeglasses with no lenses at all! Imagine! Wearing spectacles just to look cool, while millions of children are spurning real spectacles due to medical ignorance!
Again, I know nothing about Lulu's vision and don't remember whether she had or wore glasses, but I do hope that if she does have refractive error or other vision issues that she'll see an eye doctor or at least visit an optical shop and get spectacles with the correct, current prescription. She'll be a lot safer on the bike, and far happier in life, if she can correct her vision.
(/public health message)
And now we return to our regularly scheduled ride report...
cheers
01-29-2012, 07:07 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Jiayuguan – Day 54
We had a couple of items on the list for today. Jiayuguan fort (嘉峪关堡), something I had been looking forward to for while, and the western end of the Great Wall of China. We got on my bike, because there was no point in driving two bikes around when just one would do.
The day before we got there was the last day of the low season and overnight the ticket prices to enter the fort had doubled to 120 RMB. I tried my sneaky student-card-discount trick but they would have none of it and so I had to fork over the cash. Lulu went off to find a secret way in, a way that wouldn’t involve her paying a fen.
The fort was built in 1372 during the Ming dynasty and was used to control the Hexi corridor, so was very strategic militarily, with the Qilian Shan mountains to the South and the Beishan mountains and Gobi desert to the north. The fort’s outer wall is connected with the westernmost part of the Great Wall, and is considered the start (or end) of the Great Wall.
Apart from a courtyard quarter that had antique style buildings and dioramas of how the people dressed in the Ming Dynasty, the interior of the fort was fairly unremarkable, and I don’t feel that it fully justified the 120rmb admission fee. The walls and guard towers outside the fort were just as impressive as the ones inside. That being said, it was the only fort that we visited on the journey, and you have to try everything once.
After a trip to the fort museum, which was fairly good (although most of the writing was in Chinese) we drove to the Overhanging Great Wall, where I got in for free because I had my fort pass with me. The wall had recently been repaired, so it was easy to climb to the top tower and view the environs of Jiayuguan under a stunning blue sky.
On the way back to the hotel I was running low on petrol so I stopped at a station to fill up. I asked Lulu for a bit of petrol money to offset what I had spent by driving on my own money. She refused. She said I should have told her what I would be asking for before she got on the bike in the morning (as if it would change her mind about sitting on the back of the bike). This isn’t the way they do these kinds of things back home. I said that I wouldn’t leave the station until she gave me 10 kuai (NZ$2). Not much to get bent out of shape about, but I felt like there was a principle at state; reciprocity. I scratch your back, you scratch mine kind of thing. I wasn't going to subsidise her movements for the next couple of months because of dubious cultural misunderstandings or personal differences.
I leaned on my bike and waited stubbornly for her stubbornness to evaporate. Of course, it didn’t, and she walked off.
I drove after her and she yelled at me that she was walking home. “Get on the bloody bike Lulu!”. She had no idea how to get home, but she didn't care. She just kept walking. I guess there was a principle a stake for her as well. Nothing I could do. My tactics had failed. I drove back to the hotel still fuming. I started to feel quite guilty while I was washing my clothes, and texted her to let me know if she needed a lift. She called back a little later, after it got dark, and asked me to pick her up. We had both had time to cool our heels and recognise the stupidity of our disagreement and apologised to one another, sorting our misunderstandings out yet again.
A conflicted and exhausting end to an otherwise pleasant day.
01-29-2012, 08:01 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Jiayuguan to Bulongjixiang – Day 55
We got started at 12 with no definite town as a goal. Dunhuang was 450 kms and two days drive away, and there was no point in trying to rush it all in one day.
We drove out of Jiayuguan, also known as the mouth of China, where the Hexi corridor is known as the throat of China. Exiles were once cast (or spewed forth) out onto the harsh landscapes west of Jiayuguan for their crimes, when banishment was considered a fate worse than death. Surely it can’t be all that bad.
We had to wrestle with our handle bars to keep the bikes going straight in the wind, with dust gusts and spells of rain serving to vary our battle against the elements.
A couple of kilometres after Yumen city, the G312 deteriorated to gravel, sand and very fine dirt (Fesh fesh?). I had been a little concerned about this part of the route because the ‘National Highway’ was neither on my GPS map nor google maps when I checked. As this was the only way any motorcycle could get to Xinjiang (car, buses, etc could take the expressway, forbidden for motorcycles) I thought there must be a road. And there was. Just not a very good one.
Not long after we started to hit some bad bits of road, something seriously frightening happened. Lulu was driving in front, as usual, and going a little faster than usual when I saw a big pothole coming up fast. In a split second she had hit the pothole, lost control and the bike slid out, with the front wheel crashing into a concrete post, spinning the bike around 180 degrees and kicking up a cloud of dust. I nearly had a heart-attack, dropped my bike before it had stopped moving and ran over to her.
She was conscious. I lifted the bike off her so she could move her left leg out and sit upright. Everything seemed to be moving fine, so I assumed nothing was broken or seriously hurt. I took her helmet off. She was dazed but ok. I told her she was very lucky (and I felt lucky too) not to have hurt herself. We surveyed the scene and identified what the problem was. Apparently she didn’t see the pothole at all and had no time to brake, so now I would drive in front whenever we had asphalt roads with potholes. We resolved to stop for the night at the next place we could find. I could tell she was still in shock. I was also shocked, just because she didn’t seem to have any injuries at all, apart from the sore shoulder she had had for the past month. I was very impressed with the gear we were wearing, but mostly I was incredibly surprised at how well Lulu handled the accident. Within half an hour she was up and driving again. Absolutely amazing!
We drove on, and the roads started getting worse, slowing us down even more which, combined with the setting sun, made it feel like a prospective bed was very far away.
After a couple more hours following road that ran beside the expressway, competing with trucks for space we came across the first substantial building we had seen since the crash. They did have a bed, but only one, in a room shared with male truckers, meaning Lulu couldn’t stay there. “No thanks”. Lulu got the directions, but apparently I heard her wrong and continued along the road we were came in on. Lulu caught up and exploded at me for not listening. The guy at the guest-house told us to go another way. I said we should try this road anyway, because that was the way the trucks were going.
We kept heading along the road, trying to follow the trucks who were going much faster than us at this point in the day. About 10 kms past that last building the ‘road’ petered out into a construction site. Clearly this wasn’t the way the trucks get to Xinjiang. I drove around “Off-road” looking for a way forward but there was no-go, and I was getting exhausted supporting the bike every time it wanted to fall over. We must have missed the turnoff somewhere in the dark and decided to go back. But Lulu’s battery had other things to say about it. No starter. So I ended up push-starting it a couple of times, which did nothing for my energy levels or mood (I would realise a couple of hours later that I could have used the kick-starter. Dumbass!!).
We headed back to the solitary building and, because we were too slow to follow the trucks to find the way they were taking, made a turn down the suspiciously dirty road (because it was a dirt road). We took very uncertain guesses about where to go when we came to forks until we finally came to a road that was both asphalt and on the GPS map. Great! “There should be a town around here somewhere”. So we spent the next hour or so driving through massive puddles and chasing lights appearing in the distance which turned out just to be industrial or railroad construction complexes. Lulu’s front tyre got a puncture, but it only took 10 minutes to pump it up and keep on looking.
Not long after that, at around three o’clock in the morning, we finally came to a town. All the lights were off and no shops open and Lulu had to get a truck driver to tell us where to look for a guest-house. Thank God they didn’t have a problem with me being a foreigner.
01-29-2012, 09:04 AM
Serpentza
Re: Around China in 100 Days
mate, good on you for leaping to the rescue like that after she went down, I'd like to recommend you make her wear a full face helmet, those open face things aren't the safest.
Glad she's okay!
01-30-2012, 09:18 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Bulongjixiang to Dunhuang – Day 56
We got up around midday and before we started we had to visit the repair shop to get Lulu’s battery and tyre looked at. All the guy could do was fix the tyre. The battery would have to wait until Dunhuang.
After a late brunch I sat out on the steps and set about entertaining some of the local school kids that had stopped for a gawk. I didn’t need to do much really.
Acting on the tips from the repairman, we headed in the general direction of where the G312 should be with help from the GPS and soon we were on a road hugging the expressway and used by the trucks with which we had a love-hate relationship. It looked to be heading to Guazhou and hopefully we would find the road that would lead us to Dunhuang.
Sure enough, after an hour or so, we found the turnoff and were back onto a flat, black strip of tarmac. The road was great, if a little boring, all the way to the outskirts of Dunhuang.
Apart from the endless wasteland to the right, heading out into the Tarim basin, and Helan-shan style mountains to our right, we saw a couple of mounds of packed dirt in the vague shape of a tower. These were the early rammed-earth watch towers of the Han dynasty built around 2000 years ago and were used to guard this part of the silk road.
Lulu had been told about a hostel to stay at just outside of the town near the sand dunes; The Dunhuang Zephyr International Youth Hostel. We arrived at a great looking place with an open air loft restaurant and excellent music playing. It had a distinctly Indian feel and I felt very comfortable there. I had to watch their pet dogs though. They were a bit nippy.
For dinner we had some great noddles with vegetables and sauce and very tender mutton washed down with a hard earned beer.
After a couple of hairy days, we wanted to take it fairly easy. We decided against going to the legendary Mogao Buddhist Caves, because of the absurd prices and we heard that alot of the caves were closed for restoration. The thought of pushing past droves of fellow tourists for a couple of hours was also off-putting. Instead we drove to the Western Thousand Buddha caves (西千佛洞）, about 10kms south of Dunhuang over more roads-under-construction.
Some of the caves have been in use since the 4th century CE when Buddhist traders stopped in Dunhuang to pray for a safe passage through the treacherous Taklamakan (or to give thanks after a safe journey). We looked at six grottoes, the only caves open.
They keep most of the caves closed to stop the degeneration of the artwork, and some caves were being repaired because some of the ceilings were collapsing due erosion caused by water seeping through the soft sediment from the embankment from which the caves had been made. We weren’t allowed to take photos or video, but Lulu (as usual) went ahead took some video anyway.
Going to the Mogao caves may have been more spectacular, but the grottoes, with the accompanying guide, were a great way to get a feel for the history of the place.
We wanted to go to the ‘South gate’, apparently a gate marking the start of the southern silk road route around the Taklamakan desert, stretching off in the direction of Khotan. We stopped to ask some truck drivers how far away it was (20kms), and they told us it was merely a gate just like the one we were standing under, so we saved some time (and jarring) and took a picture right there.
After driving around and exploring on our day off, we needed to relax properly, and spent a couple of hours in the restaurant having drinks with the hostel manager, talking to him about travels in India and Tibet. He gave us a couple of glasses of (rather bitter) wine that he brewed from grapes grown in Dunhuang and Lulu dazzled us with her dancing skills.
Very impressive RR ! The distance you're riding with those Lifan is really incredible, my hat's off to you 2 !
A couple of questions :
- what kind of average distance are you able to travel daily if the road conditions are basically correct (asphalt or concrete) ? 150, 200km ?
- in all your trip, did you still have trouble finding hotels which accepts foreigners ? Only in remote places ? It happened to me 8 years ago in a big city (Nanjing) and also to my GF last year (!) when she was with her parents visiting and was wondering what to expect for our round-china trip...
01-31-2012, 02:48 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Quote:
Originally Posted by euphonius
Dear Roadrunner,
Excellent report, a real stemwinder. Starting to read like a coming of age novel!
Thank you also for your (belated) sensitivity toward Lulu and her eyesight. My primary work here in China is in the anti-blindness field. A bunch of us met Lulu when she passed through Shanghai after your ride last year, and we had a great time. What I'm about to say is unrelated to Lulu, except in the broader China context.
(public health message)
This country, for all its brilliance and history and rapid development and bullet trains and skyscrapers and export prowess, has some decidedly unscientific views when it comes to eyesight. One is that when people start suffering from cataract (a normal manifestation of aging just like gray hair), it means not that they should seek medical help but that their "candle has burned to the end" and their useful life is over. As a result, China has one of the world's lowest rates of cataract surgery, even though it's the world's single most common surgery and can restore full vision in 15 minutes or less at very low cost.
Another, and far more pernicious in my opinion, is the very widespread view that giving children eyeglasses actually makes their vision worse. I'm not making this up. Though this view is widely held across China, it's particularly common in poorer regions, and leads to a very malicious cycle of low educational attainment due to uncorrected poor vision, leading to another generation of low socio-economic attainment and chronic poverty. Myopia, or nearsightedness, is extremely common in children in Asia, including China. The primary and secondary school dropout statistics in western China are really depressing, and much of this could be alleviated if myopic children would just wear spectacles -- but their seemingly well-intentioned parents just won't let them. Sad
This is all the more ironic in the context of China's cities, where these days it seems every other girl (and many a boy) is wearing fashion eyeglasses with no lenses at all! Imagine! Wearing spectacles just to look cool, while millions of children are spurning real spectacles due to medical ignorance!
Again, I know nothing about Lulu's vision and don't remember whether she had or wore glasses, but I do hope that if she does have refractive error or other vision issues that she'll see an eye doctor or at least visit an optical shop and get spectacles with the correct, current prescription. She'll be a lot safer on the bike, and far happier in life, if she can correct her vision.
(/public health message)
And now we return to our regularly scheduled ride report...
cheers
Thanks for that Euphonius. Are you working for an NGO here?
It's always great to hear about the causes people get involved with and it would be interesting to hear about other humanitarian and environmental projects the guys on MCM are working with. I know there are a couple.
I spent months searching on the internet and talking to friends trying to find a charity in China trustworthy enough to use the money in the most effective way. I was quite wary of the Chinese organisations, for many reasons, one of the main ones being the large communication gap. Of the few that I found, only Gesanghua Education fund, who provide education to children in Qinghai and which looked to be doing some great work, really appealed to me. I sent an email to them to ask if they would be interested in having me (at the time it was to be a solo journey) raise money for them, but they said they raise money in different ways.
In the end I found HTS just by chance, when a friend met a rep at a student convention and gave him a name card, which he gave to me a couple of months later after I told him about the search. They turned out to be just what I was looking for.
I'm thinking about suggesting that she go see an eye doctor, but we'd probably end up having a fight about it, and after sharing my judgmental opinion about the stupidity and pointlessness of those 'supercool' glassless glasses, she would likely go out and buy a big shiny red pair :lol8:
01-31-2012, 03:57 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred
Very impressive RR ! The distance you're riding with those Lifan is really incredible, my hat's off to you 2 !
A couple of questions :
- what kind of average distance are you able to travel daily if the road conditions are basically correct (asphalt or concrete) ? 150, 200km ?
- in all your trip, did you still have trouble finding hotels which accepts foreigners ? Only in remote places ? It happened to me 8 years ago in a big city (Nanjing) and also to my GF last year (!) when she was with her parents visiting and was wondering what to expect for our round-china trip...
Hey Fred,
- Our average over the 90 days or so of riding was 200 kms per day. Our average speed was lower than I would have liked, and it would be fairly easy to make 300 kms each day of the road conditions are good (including weather). In one day we made it 500 kms from Aksu to Kashgar, and we had to take time to stop and shelter from a short-but-intense mid-afternoon hail-squall.
- We had problems finding places right up to the last night (which was the worst for me). About 1/3 of the towns we stayed in would be hard on the foreigner rule, and sometimes there was just no room left in the cheaper places (especially late at night). But we were trying to mix oil and water; Lulu wanted the cheapest place possible, and I wanted a place that would take a foreigner. It would be much easier to find lodging as a foreigner if you're willing to pay ￥100 per night, instead of ￥50. The liability of foreignness can make things expensive.
Tip: if you're having trouble in a particular town, try to find a place far away from the train or long-distance bus stations. They are the places that get checked the most often, so are the most paranoid.
We could have made things easier by settling for the more expensive places as soon as we got into town. I could have paid the premium on Lulu's bill (the money that Lulu wouldn't have had to pay at a cheaper place) as well as my own tab because "It's my fault that I'm a foreigner". It was a tempting prospect, but I thought spending my evenings driving around being denied by hostel owners in different towns would be a more dignified way to make sure that I wasn't funding half the hospitality industry of China, just because "It's my fault that I'm a foreigner":eek2:
01-31-2012, 04:05 AM
Fred
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Thanks a lot for the replies Jeremy, very interesting.
200km/day is exactly the average distance I was planning for the trip.
Finding hotels far away from railway/bus stations is a good tip too. I'll try to remain patient throughout the whole trip when being refused at hotels.
T'will not be easy though... Industrialized & modern country, really ? :lol8:
01-31-2012, 04:16 AM
bigdamo
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Great RR and story looking forward to the Xinjiang part.
On a side note you mentioned "In one day we made it 500 kms from Aksu to Kashgar, and we had to take time to stop and shelter from a short-but-intense mid-afternoon hail-squall."
To give another perspective Xinjiang roads are either really good or really bad and it can change overnight.I can drive from my home town to Urumqi in about one and half hours on the toll road/highway if I take the main back road it is a good three hours if I take the scenic back road(all dirt road) along the base of the Tian shans it's a good five hours.Admittedly that's stopping and checking things out along the way.
01-31-2012, 07:05 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Dunhuang to Xingxingxia – Day 58
Another rude awakening for Lulu. I was also having issues with fatigue, and it was much worse for her, but her strength of will would more than made up for any lack of physical strength.
We got up and had fried rice on the patio out underneath the trees and was a tranquil way to start the day and I got to planning the route for the next couple of weeks with the free wi-fi (what a luxury!!). We weren’t sure about the availability of internet in Xinjiang because I had been told that it could be difficult to get.
Something else I heard about Xinjiang was that the roads were pretty bad, so we asked the guys from the hostel what the roads in Xinjiang were like. They told us that they are building a new road into Xinjiang, and we should expect a lot of roadworks.
As we left, we got some camel-shaped hostel stickers from the hostel manager and stuck them on the bike. It was probably the most comfortable place we stayed in on our trip and we didn’t mind putting it on next to the Eastonk sticker and the Lifan tank badge. I was sure the sponsors wouldn’t mind either.
We got off to a good start as we passed out of Dunhuang and the greenery of the fruit and vegetable crops that kept the oasis town alive, started to give way to big patches of sand until all that was left was brown earth and yellow sand. I was told that the farmers in Dunhuang have been depleting the aquifer that feeds the oasis for some time, so soon there may be much more sand than green on the outskirts of Dunhuang.
As we drove along the G215 we came across a herd of camels at their drinking hole. They were competing for space with a couple of truck drivers taking some time off and fishing in one end. We stopped and watched as more camels and their young camlets joined the group for a drink. It was probably the only source of water for miles around.
The road was deserted except for the odd camel crossing over. The wind was warm enough to drive comfortably and the sky was clear blue and after a couple of hours we met our old friend, the G312, resurrected from the dust and sand, but not for long.
As we stopped for dinner in what seemed like a town propped up solely by the transport industry, we asked about the roads. The restaurant owner said that just out of town, an 80 km stretch of the road was under construction, so going would be slow.
Soon we were driving blind as dust from the gravel road was kicked up by dozens of truck’s wheels. My ski mask and glasses only partly helped keep my eyes and nose working.
Just before dusk, Lulu’s front tyre got a puncture. I took the wheel off and tried to get the tyre off with any of the few tools I had. My laissez-faire attitude to bike tools had us stranded. After 30 minutes I gave up, tied the tyre to the back of my bike and drove 5kms to the next town, Xingxingxia, to get someone else to do it.
In a town where there only seemed to be truck-tyre repair shops, I found what seemed to be the only shop that could repair Lulu’s tyre. After some haggling I got the repair down to a reasonable 10 kuai from 30 kuai. 10 minutes later, it was done and I drove it back to the bike and bolted it on just as the sun set. Good thing that the town was so close.
We got into Xingxingxia (星星峡）, which was essentially just a big truck stop, and only had two places we could stay the night. We took the cheapest. It wasn’t a particularly nice place, but it did the trick. After settling in, we went to the restaurant to have our first Muslim meal in Xinjiang to celebrate.
01-31-2012, 07:33 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Xingxingxia to Hami – Day 59
The next morning we could see our lodging in all its glory.
We had banmian noodles for breakfast and as we were walking out of the restaurant, we bumped into two guys, Chet (from South Africa) and John (from England), who were riding bicycles from Istanbul to Beijing. It was a very impressive journey and showed us what extreme road adventure really is. They told us that the roads ahead were good (which was a relief) and we told them the roads heading back toward Gansu were terrible for the next 80 kms.
I wanted to try to get to Shanshan, 500 kms away by nightfall given that the roads should be good all the way. I think I knew that it wouldn’t happen, but I was feeling pressured to push on so we could have more time in the later destinations.
We figured out that the G312 is also the new G30 at this point, and we drove along newly paved highway. Hopefully motorcycles will be able to use this expressway when it’s completed because the only other national road (and possibly only good road) to Urumqi would be the long way around along the road south of the Taklamakan, the G315.
Lulu tried to pass a car-carrier on the shoulder and collided with one of the mounds of rock and sand that had been dumped at regular intervals along the shoulder. It was a much slower crash than her last one so she didn’t hurt herself and it didn’t slow us down much.
In a couple of hours we drove into Hami, an oasis town known in China for producing good fruit (Hami melon, or 哈密瓜, is named after the town). Dark-green fruit trees and grass lined the road heading in, an instant change of environment from the desert we had been driving through.
Lulu had been contacted by some people who saw her story on weibo (Chinese version of twitter) and we met up with them for a delicious lunch. This was my first taste of Zuafan, rice fried with carrot and a big lamb chop on top. It became my favourite meal in Xinjiang.
We talked about our route in Xinjiang and mentioned we were going through Kashgar. They looked worried and told us that some Han Chinese had been killed near Kashgar, by terrorists taking revenge for the death of Osama Bin Laden, who himself had been killed in the past week or so. I didn’t know whether it was true or not, but I found it odd and it unnerved both of us.
The lunch was great and after they insisted on showing us around Hami. Lulu wanted to visit the museum again, and even though I would have liked to press on we wanted to stay and experience Hami. We were also told that there is literally only desert and wide open nothingness between Hami and Shanshan for over 300 kms. Nowhere to stay, nowhere to eat, nowhere to buy water. Shanshan would have to wait.
We visited the museum, which had lots of nice pictures and dioramas, but everything was in Chinese. Right next door was a Performance Centre and the manager of the centre invited us to watch some Uighur music and dancing. The performance was excellent.
We got our bikes serviced at the local Lifan store while we looked for a place to stay. It took a while as we were in town, where it’s usually harder to find cheap places that will take foreigners.
We had a rest for a couple of hours before our friends picked us up for Xinjiang BBQ and Friday night beer.
The girls tried to teach me Uighur dance. I’ve got two left feet when it comes to dancing, but I almost got the hang of it.
We had a really great time, had plenty of Wusu beer and delicious Xinjiang barbecue fish, and got home after 1am, very glad we stayed in Hami.
01-31-2012, 08:25 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Hami to Shanshan – Day 60
Had a bit of a hangover the next day, so we were up and moving after lunch. With Shanshan (鄯善) just over 300 kms away we wouldn’t have too much trouble getting there before nightfall.
Driving through the early afternoon wasn’t so bad, but severe winds coming off the steppes made driving very hard later in the day. Shortly before we started to hit the big gusts, I noticed clouds being forced through the mountain passes and flowing over the peaks like a slow motion wave. It was early May and we had been warned that in the spring the heavy spring winds coming down off the steppes could make traveling in Xinjiang difficult.
The scenery was amazing in its bleakness. The rocks and weathered mountains added to the intriguing relief of this apocalyptic landscape. There were absolutely no towns or even places to buy food and I was grateful not to have tried this road yesterday coming from Xingxingxia.
The wind dropped and we drove mostly downhill as we neared the Turpan depression and we started to see trees and vine covered patio trellises out front of Uighur houses next to fields of grape vines as we approached Shanshan.
The guys in Hami put us in contact with a friend of theirs, Snow Fox (or 雪狐) in Shanshan who offered to meet us and find a place to stay. We met him riding a scooter on the main road into town and he guided us into town.
He took us to his outdoor/adventure clothing shop where he had arranged a small welcome party, which was really thoughtful of him. We were really tired after fighting the wind all day, but we were rejuvenated they took us to the local food street where we had lots of baijiu and plenty of food. Snow Fox asked us to come to the wedding of his niece the next day and we jumped at the opportunity. I had never been to a wedding in China before.
Snow Fox offered to put us up in a spare room at his place, which was a welcome offer as we were far too tired to drive around Shanshan looking for a place to stay. For the second night in a row, we got back late and more than a little woozy.
Great RR and story looking forward to the Xinjiang part.
On a side note you mentioned "In one day we made it 500 kms from Aksu to Kashgar, and we had to take time to stop and shelter from a short-but-intense mid-afternoon hail-squall."
To give another perspective Xinjiang roads are either really good or really bad and it can change overnight.I can drive from my home town to Urumqi in about one and half hours on the toll road/highway if I take the main back road it is a good three hours if I take the scenic back road(all dirt road) along the base of the Tian shans it's a good five hours.Admittedly that's stopping and checking things out along the way.
Cheers BigD,
We took a little longer than 3 hours to do the Urumqi - Shihezi main road. The road crews had torn it all up and there was a detour posted in Chinese to the 快速 (kuaisu). I wasn't sure whether we could go by that route without risking a fine so we kept going on what was left of the national road.
We were told a couple of times that motorcycles can go on the expressways in Xinjiang, and we even found ourselves on one on the way to Urumqi. Do you know if this is true?
