Lulu, still upset about my 'unreasonable request' at the internet cafe the night before, subjected me to the silent treatment again in the morning which got me well and truly annoyed. I’d had about enough of her negative attitude. It doesn’t make the trip any easier when you’re trying to watch out for someone and they’re ignoring you. I seriously felt like driving off without her. A couple of pages of Emerson after I loaded my bike helped cool the fury. Lulu, purposefully taking her time, was ready to go half an hour later.
It had been hot for a couple of days and because we started after lunch, soon we were driving through the hottest part of the afternoon. We stopped for a late lunch of zuafan in a village a couple of hours out of Kashgar, a place where the local bus is a horse and cart.
Yenisgar known for making the best quality knives in the region, and supposedly where the knife I bought in Kashgar hails from. I didn’t even need to see the road signs to know that this was the place. Every second shop had billboards of knives and rows of viewing cases for the more opulent pieces.
The Tarim Basin, surrounded on three sides by dense mountain ranges that form a natural barrier against moisture laden winds, is heavily dependent on melt water from the snow and ice on the mountains. The kingdoms who made this part of the world their home were only possible because of the rivers flowing down from the mountains. This lake is of Kunlun Shan mountain water.
We arrived in Kargilik early evening and drove around town trying to find a place to stay. The places were either too expensive or wouldn’t take us. We drove down the road 10 kilometres, passing the start of the G209, the western road into Tibet. I felt myself being pulled down the road to the mysterious, foridden land. Being so close to an entry into Tibet could be a reason why the hotels are so strict on foreigner licenses in Kargilik.
We went back to town well after night had fallen, and found a hotel for 100 rmb, well above what we usually pay. But it was a supply and demand thing; we were tired, and we didn’t really have an option.
02-10-2012, 04:53 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Kargilik to Khotan – Day 77
After the fairly easy day riding the day before, we were up early and keen to get going. We saw the Jama Masjid (Friday Mosque) while driving through the town and stopped for a closer look.
We took our time. Khotan was about 260 kms away, and if the roads stayed as impeccable as they had been around this part of the Tarim Basin, we would get there with time to spare, no sweat.
As it turned out, there was nothing but good roads, sand and rock in between the lush, tree-filled oases fed by concrete canals carrying water down from the mountains to disappear into the desolation of the Taklamakan desert.
We were in Khotan well before sunset and looked around for an affordable da pan ji place (大盘鸡, another favourite meal), but had to settle for a quick combo from MFC (Muslim Fried Chicken).
Khotan is a city of roughly 100,000 people, mostly Uighur, and was an important stopping point on the Southern Silk Road. It was the place to where a Chinese princess gave away the secret of silk by hiding silkworms in her headdress as she traveled from the Chinese heartland to Khotan. It was also well known for its high quality nephrite jade stones found in the rivers around the town, but that was some time ago and the rivers have since been picked clean.
We asked around for a place to stay, but had to find a place out of the town centre, a newly opened guest-house, which may explain why they didn’t have much of a problem with me staying there. We always seemed to have luck with newly opened guest-houses.
02-10-2012, 08:37 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Khotan to Niya – Day 78
We woke to the smell of freshly painted walls, amid the usual mess and clutter yet to be repacked.
We needed to take refuge in a restaurant that served da pan ji (80 kuai) because the air was so hot. Even though it was delicious, it was relatively expensive compared to other meals we could get and this would be the last da pan ji for a long time.
We replenished our emergency chocolate stashes (even though they would be melting in the heat soon enough) because someone told us that while heading east from Khotan we were unlikely to be able to buy such luxuries until we arrived in Golmud.
We decided against going to the Melikawat ruins, (the ancient capital of a pre-Islamic kingdom dating as far back as the 3rd century CE) mainly because it was too hot to go exploring. Also, they were 30 kms out of the way to the south of Khotan. We had another 300 km day ahead of us.
We stopped at a town to buy bottles of ice and ice-cream to keep cool. For some reason I was still wearing my bulky riding pants instead of my jeans, which really didn’t help with the heat. Even though we were driving faster than usual, the hot wind heated me up more than cool me down.
Later in the afternoon Lulu gave my bike a try. She had started to feel that her 100cc beast was a bit small for her and wanted to try out something new. I thought it suit her quite well.
Xining, capital of Qinghai over 2000 kms away, started appearing on roadside signs. It was another reminder that we were heading home and how far we had to go. It was a long way from Xining to Chongqing.
Lulu started to complain about a strange vibration she was getting through her bike. I had a look and I thought that the chain just needed tightening. Nothing serious.
We rode into Niya, but drove through because there was a police station next to the guest-houses that we saw, and thought that the places near the police station wouldn’t be so accommodating. I figured there would be a town or village with some places for truckers to sleep at the junction of the G315 and the cross desert highway (S165) to Luntai, somewhere away from the main town and potentially strict licensing requirements. The road outside Niya was raised above marshland and there were plenty of insects and mosquitoes, something I hadn’t had to deal with in the arid surrounds of the Tarim Basin. We got to the junction, and the only building to be seen was a dusty looking petrol station. I was wrong and we had wasted a good 45 minutes of precious pre-dusk daylight.
We spent another hour trying to find a place to sleep in Niya. Lulu got fairly cross, as it was my fault for being a foreigner and for wasting an hour on a silly caper.
We finally found a place, not too far from the police station and had to bargain hard for a room, after which we scouted the road-front food stalls opposite the hotel for late night shish-kebabs and naan bread for dinner. We had to get our beer separately, from the Han Chinese lady at the convenience store under the hotel because the Muslims (both Uighur and Hui) in Xinjiang generally didn’t sell or drink alcohol.
Lulu switched on the TV just before midnight. She wanted to relax, something I tend to find very hard to do with the noise of Chinese television invading my ears. Our differences in ways to relax was another contributor to our arguments and consequently we had another heated discussion, this time about the merits of watching TV (when, to me, sleeping would be a much better way to relax). I gave up in the end, remembering that getting into a fierce argument would be so frustrating (and pointless) that I would likely exhaust myself trying to prove my point over the loud verbal counter-attacks of my opponent. On top of that, I would most likely spend half of the next day trying to communicate with an uncooperative Lulu. Better a late start than that.
02-10-2012, 08:46 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Quote:
Originally Posted by MJH
I do not think that this is a live report…maybe I am incorrect?
You're right there. We finished the trip in mid-June last year and I've only recently had the time to put up these posts.
For example, day 70 was the 17th May 2011.
Cheers
02-10-2012, 09:42 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
26-5-2011 - Niya to Cherchen – Day 79
And so it was another late morning. We took the bikes to the local Lifan dealership and had them look at Lulu’s bike to see what was wrong with the back wheel. Lulu’s chain needed replacing as well as the back sprocket, and the front sprocket needed tightening. We both got the oil changed because we couldn’t remember when it was changed last.
Cherchen was something like 290 kms away and we weren’t sure if there was a petrol station on the way, as this area of Xinjiang is mainly frequented by trucks with massive fuel tanks who don’t need to worry so much about where the next fuel stop is. With 10 litre tanks, fuel was on our mind a lot along these vast, uninhabited stretches. My trusty reserve tank, the 1.5 litre plastic bottle that I had tied to the side of my bike since Inner Mongolia, offered more peace of mind than actual usefulness.
We got lost down a county road somehow. Blame the navigator. Always! It was a nice road through sand dunes and it was easy going until the road turned to sand and gravel, then mud at a small river that we had to ford. I wasn’t complaining. River crossings are always a bit of a rush for me.
We came to a dead end and had to ask the locals where to go. We were running parallel to the national road and had to drive more bad roads, sand and gravel to get there.
We had our daily dose of action, and the rest of the day was much less exciting. On our breaks we had to shelter from the harsh sun in the shadow of the concrete huts that seemed to be built alongside the lay-byes for just this reason.
A while after nightfall I had my first decent crash looking up at the sparkling night sky. I looked down and I was driving straight at the edge of the road as the road snaked off to the left on a corner. I slammed on the brakes and slid down the ditch in a cloud of dust. I got up and there was nothing more hurt than my own sense of pride. Naturally, I felt like a real moron. It would be the only noteworthy fall I would have on the trip and I had absolutely no-one else to blame except myself. And that corner. Seriously, who would put a corner there?!! Of course I told Lulu I crashed because I was looking down at the engine to see where a strange noise was coming from.
Staying in Cherchen would provide the worst night of trying to find a place in the whole trip. We must have asked at least 15 guest-houses, which were either full or wouldn’t take us. There was a guest-house owner who said he didn't have a problem with me staying there, but after 10 minutes of talking to us he suddenly announced that we must stay (and pay for) separate rooms because it is illegal for an unmarried man and woman to share a room in China. We smelt a rip-off, because this issue wasn’t usually a problem for us and it felt like we were being manipulated. We weren’t in the mood so Lulu told him to get stuffed. We would find a proprietor with a bit more integrity.
We kept asking around and started getting desperate. We had driven around half the town and thought that we would need to stay in the opulent 400 kuai per night hotel that I had asked several enquiries earlier (rip-off guy wasn't an option). On the corner of the street, next to the grand bazaar, there was a small place, barely visible from the main road. The owners seemed a little concerned, but gave us their final room. Luckily, this was before a man walked in five minutes later asking if there was a vacancy.
02-12-2012, 04:15 PM
felix
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Sounds like such a pain in the ass to travel that region as a foreigner (on a budget). Thanks for all the useful info, when i finally make it out there i'm definitely bringing a tent. It looks like there's no shortage of flat sandy places.
I particularly like the international youth hostel that doesn't take foreigners!
02-13-2012, 03:11 AM
bigdamo
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Quote:
Originally Posted by felix
Sounds like such a pain in the ass to travel that region as a foreigner (on a budget). Thanks for all the useful info, when i finally make it out there i'm definitely bringing a tent. It looks like there's no shortage of flat sandy places.
I particularly like the international youth hostel that doesn't take foreigners!
Plenty of gerts to stay in they don't care who stays in them.
02-14-2012, 02:13 PM
bigmonkey
Re: Around China in 100 Days
yeah a combination of a ger and your own tent will be ok, and 5 star hotels
02-15-2012, 01:48 AM
bigdamo
Re: Around China in 100 Days
If your coming into Xinjiang with little info on were to stay or relying on chinese people telling you which hotel yeah your going to have trouble finding a good cheap place to stay.I don't have any problems finding some where to stay.
02-15-2012, 08:58 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Cherchen to Charklik – Day 80 – 27-5-2011
We were looking for gas stations as we hadn’t found one the day before. I figured it made sense to have them on the national highway, but that wasn’t the case. In a country where most of the petrol stations are owned by the state (the ones with the best reputation for quality petrol anyway), they aren’t always placed in the most convenient or effective places. I ran out of petrol whilst searching on the G315 and had to ask Lulu to head back to town to get some for me. I didn’t care if it was petrol from the national providers or a local station. I just needed those wheels to move. I had forgotten that there were petrol stations loaded onto my GPS. I hadn’t used the ‘find’ program for a very long time.
We got back and tried to find a Zhongguo Shi You (中国石油 China National Petroleum） or Zhongguo Shi Hua (中国石化, Sinopec), but the only one of either we could find only had diesel. Lulu told me that the station attendant said there was a station with petrol just down the road, maybe three kilometres in the wrong direction. I was sure we could find a closer one in town; so said the GPS (with the 3 year old map). I got sick of looking and settled for a local place. Lulu exploded. “You just dont listen to me!!” I felt guilty, knowing that I hadn’t listened to her and screwed up again that morning, so I went back to apologise. Instead of getting, “It’s ok, we’ll find one next time”, I got shocking, sputtering “I will never accept your apology!!!” in the middle of the forecourt. She drove off in a fit while I filled up my bike. I didn’t know which road she took. There were two roads to Charklik; The national road and a county road that was 100 kilometres longer that went through desert. I was sure she didn’t know there were two and may have gone down the longer one. I tried calling her. No response. I texted her about the wrong road, hoping she would realise which road she was on. In case she was on the national road, I sped down the 315 to catch her, but after an hour and a half, figured that she wasn’t on the road. I stopped for an hour and a half in case she called to ask me to come find her. My main concern that the desert road wouldn’t have food or fuel or water. She didn’t have a lot of either and she might get stuck in the middle of nowhere. After three hours of worrying, she sent me a text saying she was on the right road now and wanted to drive by herself for the day. "Great! Thanks for letting me know!!!" I yelled at my apathetic little Nokia.
I continued along in the windy, dust laden air. We hadn’t seen the Kunlun shan ranges since Kashgar despite them not being more than 100 kms from the main road, and I was a little disappointed. I wanted to be reminded that the Teebetan border wasn’t far away. The roads were generally good tarmac, apart from the brief roadworks here and there.
Without Lulu, I made much better time than usual and got into Charklik late afternoon.
I drove around town looking for a place to stay. Every time I stopped to ask at a guest-house, the owners told me to go to a foreigner approved bingguan, but I didn’t want to play that game, mainly out of stubbornness at a rule that seemed discriminatory and unnecessarily inconvenient. I found a Zhaodaisuo (招待所), a guest house that tends to be cheaper than most. They said “Yes, come on in”. I unpacked my bike and started to relax but 90 minutes later they kicked the solitary foreigner out.
I waited for Lulu (thinking that it would probably be easier to find a cheaper place with her magical Chinese ID card) and went with her to search for a place, spending another hour looking. We drove around the whole town (it’s not very big, couldn’t have more than 10,000 people) and got out onto the 315 to find a bingguan with trucks all parked outside it in a big parking lot. It was nice and not so expensive and we took the room straight away. We did 311 kilometres for the day (around 10kms of that was driving up and down the town streets looking for a place to stay), and I had the highest moving average I would get for the trip (55km/h).
We had dinner and a beer or two. Lulu was in an incredibly good mood. Why? “I was driving by myself today”. It wasn’t so good for me and I was still pissed off that she had me worried about her whereabouts for more than 3 hours. She went to the room first and I found a nearby Uighur restaurant that had and amazing string instrument group playing and singing traditional Uighur music. I made friends with the slightly tipsy owner. He was from Korla, but lived in Charklik (just across the desert) to run this restaurant and send money home to his family.
Later on, Lulu and I had our biggest fight of the journey. Our room didn’t have air conditioning and it was uncomfortably hot. The windows were open and I closed the curtains, so that the morning sunlight wouldn’t heat the room up in a couple of hours. She thought I was closing the windows and decided to sleep in the doorway with the door wide open, hoping to get a cross-breeze. I had some expensive stuff in my bags (computer, cameras etc.) and I couldn’t accept an open door all night. Again, we were as stubborn as each other, and refused to back down. I turned the TV up loud so that she couldn’t sleep, so she went to sleep outside in the corridor. I went out to take a picture of such silliness and she rushed into the room trying to shut me out. I pushed my way in. She threw the (empty) electric kettle and her helmet at me (and broke the visor). It was about this time that I realised I should have insisted on separate rooms from the minute we got in. It was mainly down to miscommunication and misperception, and it escalated out of control because of fatigue, unsolved issues from the day and our overly stubborn natures. Oh, and there was a fair dose of stupidity in there for both of us as well.
I retired to my new room calm down and relax with some much needed solitude.
02-15-2012, 09:06 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Quote:
Originally Posted by felix
Sounds like such a pain in the ass to travel that region as a foreigner (on a budget). Thanks for all the useful info, when i finally make it out there i'm definitely bringing a tent. It looks like there's no shortage of flat sandy places.
I particularly like the international youth hostel that doesn't take foreigners!
If I were to do this again, I would definitely take a tent. It would make sleeping a lot less of a hassle in the picky towns, and if you get stuck up in the mountains in the cold and dark with nowhere to stay it would be so much better to pitch a tent than frantically looking around for signs of human habitation (which happens to us in a couple of days) :lol8:
02-15-2012, 09:20 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigdamo
If your coming into Xinjiang with little info on were to stay or relying on chinese people telling you which hotel yeah your going to have trouble finding a good cheap place to stay.I don't have any problems finding some where to stay.
I should have picked your brain about finding accommodation in Xinjiang when we started to have problems there. We found that really it's a China-wide issue for foreigners wanting to stay at the cheaper places. Some parts are harder than others and I can understand why it was hard for us in Xinjiang given that its a sensitive region.
Throughout China, there seemed to be some cities/towns/villages that applied the rule, and some that didn't and we could never really predict which places would be hard on the issue. It was a bit like a box of chocolates.
02-16-2012, 07:17 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Charklik – Day 81
The next morning Lulu and I had a big talk. We agreed to put the previous night behind us. “Why we annoy each other so much?” we asked ourselves. We made a promise to each other sort our issues out, the issues that really didn’t mean a lot in the whole scheme of things, but seem to blow themselves out of proportion somehow. We figured that lot of it was down to personality clashes, differences in traveling style and fatigue, but most of all it was miscommunication. I resolved to pay more attention to what she had to say and she said that she would have more patience.
We had a well needed rest day inside and did some writing, reading and sorting out photos and videos, recuperating for what might be a hard week on the roads of Qinghai.
02-16-2012, 07:40 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Charklik to Huatugou – Day 82 - 29th May 2011
We got an unusually early start the next day. It was a long way until the next town, Huatugou (花土沟, 370 kms away). Some truck drivers that we met at dinner the pervious night said that the road is good, but it’s all uphill. Apparently they use RMB1500 worth of fuel to climb up to the Tibetan plateau, and RMB500 to get down . They also told us that there would be nothing in the way of settlements in between here and Huatugou, and the mountain roads could get twisty, which could slow us down. I my mind I had a picture of the Tian Shan crossing, an exciting but possibly laborious crossing.
Driving along the last sliver of Xinjiang road, we slowly increased altitude and mountains rose through the distant haze. We passed a Chinese motorcycle group going in the opposite direction. I would have liked to stop and talk, but they showed no sign of stopping.
The air was clearer and cooler than the Tarim Basin over 1500 metres below. Wide flat plains stretched off into the distance to meet the snow capped mountain ranges to the south towards Tibet.
At the Qinghai/Xinjiang border town we had Sichuan food for lunch/dinner. It was the first town in almost 300 kilometres.
We got to Huatugou and saw lines of trucks turning off the main road onto the road leading to the town. Our hypothesis about why we found it hard to find places later in the day was because the truck drivers took all the available places at the remoter towns, so we needed to hurry to make sure we find a place to stay. But we were too late and had to spend the next hour or two trying to find a place to stay. In the end, we found a nice enough place on the outskirts of town.
Lulu was feeling a bit sick in the morning. It might have been altitude sickness, but as we were just below 3000 metres, it wasn’t so likely. She would get progressively worse as the day wore on.
Not far out of Huatugou, we passed a bunch of oilfields, and remembered that I had read somewhere that Qinghai, particularly in the Qaidam Basin, is quite an important source petrochemical resources.
I was unsure about our route. Should we continue along the G315, which is longer? Should we take the S263 provincial road which was a more direct route, but just a thin line on the map and possibly an under-maintained road with loads of potholes? We had just got into Qinghai and weren’t sure about the state of the roads in general, which didn’t help. Each province seemed to have a certain level of commitment to the maintenance of their roads, so a provincial road in Shandong might be pool table material compared to a provincial road in Anhui. On top of that we didn’t know if there are any petrol stations or places to stay on the road. Nothing was marked on the GPS or the paper map. We decided to take the 263 anyway.
The GPS pointed us to a petrol station close to the intersection of 315 and the provincial road. We needed to fill up before heading out on the deserted road. This petrol station was one of two buildings that USED to sell petrol. They were abandoned.
So we drove down the road to nearest village to ask the manager of the sole restaurant about the roads. They told us that the road is okay, but there are no places to stay until Golmud, and weren’t sure about petrol stations. Even though they only had #90 grade petrol, I asked for enough to fill up my tank. It turned out to be twice as expensive as at the pump! Lulu decided against filling up and wanted to take her chances on the provincial road. She didn’t want to spend extra money on what might be low-quality petrol. She was feeling worse for wear and rather unhappy with the current circumstances. I suggested that we find a place to stay at the village, even though I wanted to keep going after only 100kms. She waved the suggestion off and we kept going.
We found a petrol station 100 kms down the road. I was kicking myself for taking the expensive stuff and set about tightening my chain while Lulu got petrol. She really wanted to stop for the day, after about 200kms driving. I was against the idea, but if we could find a place to stay at the buildings beside the petrol station, then I couldn’t argue with her.
We found a trucker’s dorm, which was one room and 8 beds. The price was right and Lulu wanted to stop, but I was concerned about my things (mostly for the photos and video we had taken) sleeping in a room where people could come and go freely. Another lively discussion (argument) and we were back on the road.
Instead of the passive/aggressive attitude we had to each other whenever we had a problem, this time we actually had a discussion on one of our road breaks. After Charklik, we continued to sort out why we get on each other’s nerves so much, rather than blaming the other person for the problems.
On the flat, windswept plain, more flat than in Xinjiang, any buildings are noticeable from miles away. 70 kilometres downroad from the petrol station the next clump of buildings that rose out of the wasteland had a restaurant and a free room. The family that owned it were Hui, ethnically Chinese but followed Islam. The Chinese government have designated the Hui as one of its 56 ethnic minorities, which I think is a bit strange given that the only difference between Han Chinese and Hui Chinese seems to be their religious beliefs.
The curious daughter of the owner came to say hello to the strange looking people who just drove in from a faraway land. She wasn’t shy at all and we showed her some of our photos and the GPS while she hung around until she got bored.
02-16-2012, 09:09 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Wutumeiren to Golmud – Day 84 - 31st May 2011
We continued on along the S263, knowing that we had an easy 200 kms ahead to Golmud. Lulu was feeling much better and we started the day well. The first tourist sign in a couple of days popped up at the turnoff to a Populus Diversifolia Forest Scenic Spot. I had no idea what Populus Diversifolia was, but it seems to be a tree that grows in very dry areas and can grow with salty soils. We would have gone inside to check it out, but the swarms of hungry mosquitoes, drawn to us within minutes by the sound of our bikes, had us driving in the other direction in no time.
The arid wasteland slowly gave way to trees and fields as we drew nearer to Golmud, crossing bridges over streams. And with the greenery came more traffic, particularly noticeable were the motorcycles, the last of which we had seen 200 kilometres before the border of Qinghai.
We had no problem finding a place to stay, and were settled in soon after getting to town, the second night without a shower available. Our place was beside a building that looked like a Buddhist temple being converted into a mosque (or the other way around?).
We visited the internet cafe to check emails and check out what had been happening in the big wide world since we had last visited the world wide web. We were out of touch, but I think that’s a part of the reason why I do this. It gives me a chance to get lost, and to view the world through my own eyes and not a screen.
I was also thinking about our route and whether we should go to Xining and then to Yushu up the G214 from there, or take a shortcut from Xiangride straight through to the G214 and save a couple of days. There was also the possibility of taking the G109 towards Teebet to Budongquan and then turning off towards Yushu the S308 country road, but I wrote that off as likely being a bad road that could hold us up (On the way to Kunming, Pat took that road on his before we met up and he said the road was a bit bumpy, but fine to ride). On the Qinghai pages of my ‘Road Atlas of China’ it shows a county road that’s a continuous thin red line from Xiangride to Maduo, but it showed up on googlemaps and my preloaded GPS map as either two roads that come close to meeting up, or one road that has a big chunk missing from the middle. I put the descrepancy down to my outdated GPS map and google not having accurate information to roads in China. I would rely on my Chinese paper map instead. If any source of information should be correct, it should be the map of China made in China. When we got to Xiangride, we would ask about the condition of the road, but I already had my heart set on it.
02-16-2012, 09:41 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Golmud to Xiangride – Day 85 - June 1st, 2011
We snooped around Golmud looking for a cash machine. We needed a cash top up as neither of us had made a withdrawal since Kashgar and we were looking at a couple of days before getting to Yushu, the next place we could get money out.
Golmud’s a nice place, with tree lined streets and a relaxed atmosphere, not dissimilar to the oasis towns we drove through in Xinjiang. It’s the third largest city on the Tibetan Plateau (after Xining and Lhasa) with around 200,000 people and is well known as a major stop on the Tibetan Railway.
The cash machine worked for me, but Lulu’s account had 1000 rmb deducted but no money. The teller wouldn’t solve the problem there and then, and we weren’t going to wait for days for them to sort it out, so we would just have to make do with what I had until we got to Yushu.
Through Golmud and onto the G109, and soon the landscape was desolate as that we saw from the road driving into Golmud. The partly constructed power pylons continued to follow the road, as they had for the past couple of days, as sign of China’s increasing power demand. At least three major hydroelectric dams have started operating in Qinghai in the past 5 years.
I was really keen to get off the long, straight roads and impersonal scenery and into the mountain range that had accompanied us for the past couple of days; the Barhan Buda Shan, a sub-range of the Kunlun shan.
Later in the afternoon a big angry cloud ominously reached over the mountain ranges towards the road. It looked more aggressive and broad than the spring squall that we had to stop for in Xinjiang on our way to Kashgar, and I hoped that it would behave itself. Luckily we passed it without much trouble. I wouldn’t have wanted to cross the ranges in the middle of that storm.
We passed 300 kms and a river came up to meet us as the roads became more curvaceous, and again we were driving through a lush valley, the grain fields fed by small canals from the river. A mosque stood majestically in the centre of one of these fields. We were coming into Xiangride, a small town and our stop for the night.
We filled up the bikes and started looking for a bed to sleep on. We got kicked out of one place after unpacking the bikes, but just went across the road to a more expensive bingguan. There was a price for rooms with a shower and rooms without. I really needed a shower because I hadn’t had one since Charklik but Lulu didn’t want to pay the extra money (it was about 20rmb extra, 10 kuai each) so I paid the difference between the two types of rooms, as well as my half of the room bill.
Lulu wasn’t hungry, so I left for dinner by myself. As I left I told her I would be disappointed if she used the shower.
As had been the case in almost all the towns since we entered Xinjiang, Muslim eateries and Han Chinese eateries were each as prevalent, the latter offering beer with your dinner.
I got back to the guest house and Lulu wouldn’t talk to me which, again, annoyed me much more than it should have. By now she knew what ways to get up my nose if she wanted me to pay for something, and being ignored was one of them. I was still fuming as I got into my bed and turned off the light, but was just about to drift off to sleep when there was a knock on the door. “Bloody hell!!! Who could that be??!” And I knew it could only mean problems at this time of night. It was the police. They wanted my passport because the receptionist hadn’t photocopied my passport as we registered. I dozily got it out of my bag and gave it to them and said “Baibai” and they left. Suddenly I was struck by panic. “That was a really damn stupid thing to do Jeremy!! Giving your passport to some dude in a uniform, just because he’s dude in uniform. He could be anybody, and even if he is a legitimate police officer, I still might not see my passport again.” I had read enough traveler’s horror stories to know the possibilities. I put on my shoes and ran down the stairs after them, got in their police mini-van and drove to the station at the other end of town. They made copies of my passport, asked me some questions about what I was doing in their town, and asked me if I was going to Teebet. I said “No no no, foreigners can’t go to Teebet” which seemed to satisfy them. I had heard that there had been some ethnic unrest recently, and there was a rumor that it was closed to all foreigners, even those with the right permits and traveling with a tour group. This might have been why they were on alert for any foreigners in the area who might look like they’re trying to sneak across the border. They were just doing their job and were very courteous and considerate which was fine. I just wished that they had done it earlier.
02-17-2012, 05:21 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Xiangride to Gouli – Day 86 - June 2nd, 2011
Lulu had few words for me in the morning. I decided to let her be.
We had some repairs done for Lulu’s bike at the local repair shop, and a chain link removed from my chain to tighten it. I mentioned to Lulu that her chain needed tightening, but she just ignored me. We asked the guys what the road to Maduo was like. They said it wasn’t good. “Not many people use that road, but motorcycles go through sometimes”. A phrase we had heard on the G217 in the Tian Shan.
I figured that by taking this shortcut through the mountains to the G214 we would be saving about 400 kilometres and at least one day’s driving. If we could get through quickly we may even save enough time to visit Mount Amnye Machen, Tibetan Buddhism’s second most holy mountain. I thought we could get through in less than two days.
We followed the Xianjiajiang river into the mountains on gravel roads, past a couple of small settlements and a motorcycle or two.
We met a Dutch guy riding from Laos to Amsterdam on a mountain bike coming the other way. It had taken him three days to get through from the G214. He had gotten lost on the bad roads. It had snowed the previous night but luckily found a herder family to stay with. He also had a tent and supplies in the bags tied to the back of his bike, so he was well prepared and I was amazed at his gumption. I figured that I should really shut up about fatigue when this guy is riding through +4000 metre altitude, over gravel mountain roads, on his own steam. The stuff legends are made of.
Lulu started to talk to me not long after that, and soon we were back to working as a team. Apparently she was pissed off that I would deny her a shower, even though it was available. She suggested that I take her resilience for granted, and that I should act more supportively, rather than treating her as an equal. I didn’t agree that I should carry her along, but I would help her where possible, as I felt I had been.
Coming up to the only marked intersection on the road, we weren’t too sure about the way. The GPS gave us a general idea which way to go and luckily, it turned out to be correct.
We were encountering a noticeable amount of diverse wildlife in this remote valley. For five minutes we watched a Bearded Vulture circling over the valley. The Bearded Vulture is Eurasia’s biggest raptor, generally regarded as sacred in Tibet as it doesn’t kill it’s prey. Vultures and other birds of prey are an important part of Tibetan Buddhist sky burial rituals. We remembered the ubiquitous small pika from our Tian Shan crossing. Tibetan Gazelle sprinted across the road at any sign of untoward movements. They have seen a precipitous decline in number in the past decade due to human activity encroaching on their habitat. We also started to see herds of yaks for the first time.
The road we were on still had road markers, but didn’t mark the name of the road, only the distance to the end of the road (which was back at Xiangride). We stopped at the first occupied house we saw in 25 kilometres to ask if we were going in the right direction. A Teebetan guy with pink hair told us that we had gone past the turnoff a couple of kilometres back. He also said that if he wanted to get to Maduo, he would leave in the morning and get there late afternoon, and he offered us a place to stay for the night. Naively, we turned his offer down as we thought it would be fine and wanted to keep going. He mentioned that there were a couple of herder families in the area, the easiest to find would be the one after we crossed a river.
http://aroundchina.smugmug.com/Trave...TL/0/O/385.jpg
We doubled back and I saw how we could have missed the fork. The only thing that distinguished the route from the surrounding rocks was that it was slightly raised and cage vehicles had flattened two barely perceptible tracks. It was rough gravel and the going was tough, but the scenery was stunning.
It started to rain as we got to the river. It was bigger and swifter than the ones we had come across in Xinjiang, but not deep enough to cause a problem. It certainly got my blood pumping as I drove both our bikes over.
Darkness crept up from the shadows cast by the looming mountains and soon it was too dark to pick out the gravel track in the river beds that we were crossing, and it was getting cold too. We needed to find a place to stay quickly. In the deep twilight I saw a blue tent on the flats near the river and tried to figure out a way down from the shelf above the river flats. The guys from the tent must have seen our headlights as we skidded around in the soft mud trying to find a way down in the darkness. They greeted us and Lulu asked if we could stay for a night. “Of course”, they replied “You need to go back up near the road and drive down to the tents that way”. “But”, they warned, “It’s very slippery”. Lulu asked one of the guys to drive her bike down and he climbed up, was on the bike and down the track in no time. I found it a little harder however, unable to control the bike on a slippery, >30 degree incline. I fell over in the mud about five or six times before I got to the bottom of the 25 metre long gradient, myself and the bike covered in mud.
The tent was large, (maybe five metres by five metres) and made from heavy cloth, presumably of animal hide. It was warm, had a dirt floor and a stove sitting in the middle, with a chimney reaching up through the roof. It was definitely homely. We were freezing and wet and after we put all of our dripping luggage in the corner we spent a long time warming up beside the stove, with help from the tea, tasmpa and fried bread. Qinghai is sometimes known as Eastern Teebet, and I could really feel the Teebet now, having experienced the harshness of the conditions, sitting in this tent with these tough but very generous people.
We had driven just under 130 kilometres in 11 and a half hours and we were very tired and were grateful when it was suggested that we go to sleep. I couldn’t be bothered getting out of my now-dry motorcycle gear, and it would keep me warm under the thick warm blankets anyway.
02-17-2012, 07:00 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Gouli to Gouli – Day 87 - June 3rd, 2011
We had an early morning start. It seemed as though they had a big day ahead of them. The whole family was up and about doing this and that. Just as we were about to leave, one of the guys jumped on the big white yak that had been tethered next to the tents and rode off towards a low white building on the other side of the river. So awesome!
We asked them how far it was to Maduo. Only 80 kms?. Great! That shouldn’t be too hard to do. After all, we did 130 kms yesterday on pretty bad roads. I was a little concerned at my petrol level though. I was well on my way to empty after yesterday’s drive. The altitude was killing my fuel consumption. No worries though. We’ll be right. It’s only 80 kilometres.
We thanked them profusely. Without them, we could have gotten ourselves into a very messy situation. We didn’t realise then how lucky we really were to find them just before darkness covered every sign of them. I tried paying them 50 kuai for their trouble, but they refused to take it. Genuine hospitality.
We set out to continue on our intrepid journey into the wilderness. The gravel roads turned to dirt roads which disappeared into dry riverbeds and we had to pick our way through them, trying to spot the twin streaks of flattened stones to make sure we hadn’t lost our way.
We came up to an iced-over lake. It took us more than an hour to drive less than 20 kilometres up until that point. The tracks led up to the ice, but I wasn’t courageous, or stupid, enough to even try walking across it, let alone drive a bike across. Lulu waited while I tried to find a way around the ice, but I got seriously bogged down. I told myself that this can’t be the way, and we started looking for the road the locals use. (In the photo below, if you look to the right where the ice thins out and the moraine is exposed, you will see part of the track that we would take on the following day).
We found another track, heading west (we wanted to head south) which looked well used. A real feeling of trepidation got into my bones. We were in the wilderness, with nothing but our bikes and our brains to get us to civilisation. These bikes were designed for street-riding，and everything was stock; no special modifications because we didn’t have the time before leaving to sort anything special out.
Using the compass on the GPS as a guide for direction, we drove up the adjacent valley, maybe 5 kms up until the rising ridges surrounded us on three sides, and melting permafrost made the ground swampy and the way up to the pass impossible, blocking our way forward. Frustration replaced my feeling of trepidation, knowing that I had wasted a good portion of whatever petrol I had left. Dropping the bike several times didn’t help either.
After backtracking almost to the valley mouth, I finally ran out. I saved what I had in my petrol bottle for Lulu’s bike so we could make sure that we had some way of getting help if we needed it. I pushed my bike to the riverbank, underneath a hill to try to keep it away from eyes that could see opportunity in an abandoned bike. I poured the rest of our pitiful petrol supply into the tank and put my tank bag on Lulu’s bike (with my valuables inside). I was off to buy some petrol from the guys we stayed with the night before.
Lulu suggested that she stay behind. She was quite happy to sit there, look after the bike and the bags, and read while I went and got the petrol. I agreed, but as I drove away a plague of scenarios filled my head. What if there’s a snowstorm while I’m away? What if the bike broke down? What if I get to the tent and they don’t have petrol? I wouldn’t have enough to get back and collect her and she would be left out here for God knows how long. After 10 minutes of driving I turned around. I didn’t give a toss about whether or not the luggage and bikes could be stolen. If something happened to her, I wouldn’t forgive myself; sticking together in that situation was by far the best choice to make.
At least two of my what-if scenarios would become reality.
As we drove back the sky darkened and it began to rain. The rain turned to hail as I tried to keep the front tyre straight on the increasingly slippery tracks, which now had a thin coating of mud on them. The visibility was poor through my droplet covered glasses and I failed to see a pothole. The bike was yanked out from underneath me as the front tyre skidded down the side of the hole, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Lulu thrown far clear of the bike. Dazed and bruised, but not broken, I got up to check if she was OK while the ice continued to rain down. She needed a couple of seconds and she was up too, and not a peep of complaint. Once again I was amazed at her resilience. She just got back on the bike and we were ready to go after less than five minutes. Lucky again! The conditions ordered a more leisurely pace, even though I wanted to get out of the freezing cold as soon as possible and back to the tent.
The blast of hail lasted for another 10 minutes before it eased off and we had a much easier ride, but I was soaked and freezing. By the time we crested the last low pass before our friends’ valley, I was shattered.
The herders had moved the blue tent up to the ledge above the river flats and had about 40 yaks tied to posts there. However, our main interest was warmth, and they invited us in to warm ourselves by the stove.
We asked them if they had any spare petrol. They said they had none. Only what was in their bikes, to be used to herd the yaks. We were desperate and we offered to pay the youngest son, who was 20 (but acted a lot older) to take us to Maduo. We didn’t want to leave the bike and our bags out there all night. He reluctantly agreed, even though it was snowing by now, and we got on his bike with a blue, 8 litre can and we made our way up the slippery pass. It was tough going to get just 1 kilometre, but at the top it was easier. We drove off the main track and stopped outside a couple of tents similar to the ones our friends lived in. They invited us in, members of the family we stayed with. Inside were a collection of Tibetan herders, a friendly old lady spinning a prayer wheel, a pet lamb staggering around and a steaming pot of tea on the stove while the snow got worse and worse. They didn’t have any petrol to spare and I thanked them for the tea. It was far too cold outside, even for my friend who was wrapped up tight in yak-hide, and we both knew there was no getting to Maduo. We made our way back to the valley.
Just before dusk, the snow stopped and our mate suggested we go find his brother-in-law down the valley. I jumped at the idea, knowing that we were stuck here until we found some petrol. He hopped on the back of my bike and we were off.
After a couple of kilometres down the main track, he pointed me up a dry riverbed up a narrow gully. A couple of dogs howled a hollow welcome at the ridgeline as we climbed up the road and we soon found ourselves at the bottom of a bowl shaped depression. The snowcapped peaks shrouded in mist in the background added to the breathtaking, twilit scene. The family we had come to visit was herding their sheep around the edge of the bowl. In the twilight, my friend called out to the dark shadows looking down at us next to their tent, with a white jeep parked alongside. We were soon up draining the tank into five small discarded Pepsi bottles. I thanked them profusely, confident that the heaven-sent life fluid, the stuff I had generally taken for granted up until that day, could get Lulu’s bike to the next petrol stop.
We returned to another night in the tent. I had driven 94 kilometres in over 12 hours. I slept soundly, confident we could make it to Maduo just on Lulu’s bike if we needed to. There we could get petrol and drive back to rescue my bike.
02-17-2012, 10:57 AM
Maux
Re: Around China in 100 Days
I'm enjoying this RR more and more. I haven't commented but I've been keeping up with it since you started. Quite an amazing trek! As others have said, I really appreciate the frankness of it.
Also you have convinced me to buy a backpacking tent. If I ever manage to go on a substantial trip I think it will come in handy!
02-17-2012, 03:07 PM
bigdamo
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Quote:
Originally Posted by Maux
I'm enjoying this RR more and more. I haven't commented but I've been keeping up with it since you started. Quite an amazing trek! As others have said, I really appreciate the frankness of it.
Also you have convinced me to buy a backpacking tent. If I ever manage to go on a substantial trip I think it will come in handy!
Maux I would highly recommend at least a three season tent probably a four season tent would be better and dam good sleeping bag and mat plus stove etc etc if your going up into the mountains of NW China and I wouldn't buy it in China.
02-18-2012, 05:40 AM
Maux
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigdamo
Maux I would highly recommend at least a three season tent probably a four season tent would be better and dam good sleeping bag and mat plus stove etc etc if your going up into the mountains of NW China and I wouldn't buy it in China.
Well I've got a nice Eureka Timberline Outfitter 6 in the states and I'd love to get it when I take a trip back soon. I've also got a nice multi-fuel stove which can run off white fuel or gas (and I *think* kerosine), which always comes in handy because specialty fuel can be hard to come by, even in the states. The stove only holds about half a liter but it could also be my "backup reserve" fuel, heheh. The Outfitter is a great tent but it's also bulky and heavy at about 18 pounds! I don't plan on camping out much, so I was thinking of a backpacking tent just in case I get stuck in the middle of nowhere or have no luck getting a room.
Also I wanted to see what you guys thought of carrying a set of copies of my passport and visa. In the event that someone needs a copy of it I think it might be handy to have a pack of spare copies. It might get around the bother of going to the police station just to make a copy.
02-18-2012, 10:20 AM
bigdamo
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Quote:
Originally Posted by Maux
Well I've got a nice Eureka Timberline Outfitter 6 in the states and I'd love to get it when I take a trip back soon. I've also got a nice multi-fuel stove which can run off white fuel or gas (and I *think* kerosine), which always comes in handy because specialty fuel can be hard to come by, even in the states. The stove only holds about half a liter but it could also be my "backup reserve" fuel, heheh. The Outfitter is a great tent but it's also bulky and heavy at about 18 pounds! I don't plan on camping out much, so I was thinking of a backpacking tent just in case I get stuck in the middle of nowhere or have no luck getting a room.
Also I wanted to see what you guys thought of carrying a set of copies of my passport and visa. In the event that someone needs a copy of it I think it might be handy to have a pack of spare copies. It might get around the bother of going to the police station just to make a copy.
I got a nice three season tent (2 man)from the states it is about 8 pounds and not that bulky.I can have it up in under 5 minutes.It cost me $80.00.
02-24-2012, 01:03 AM
cryptographicide
Re: Around China in 100 Days
This ride report is wonderful. It has all the info that I have been looking for while planning my trip around asia: what places are like, road conditions, average possible speeds, issues. This is so appreciated. I'm looking forward to the rest of the report.
02-25-2012, 05:39 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Gouli to Maduo – Day 88 - June 4th 2011
The plan:
drive the bike and Lulu the rest of the 80 kms to Maduo
get some petrol
drive the 60 kms back to my bike with Lulu
fill up my bike
then both drive back to Maduo.
We started to have problems from the very start. The clanging chain on Lulu’s bike gave up on the way up the first minor pass and the master chain link broke. Luckily, the guys we had stayed with the night before were going in the same direction and gave us one of their spare chain links, and we were moving back up the road in a matter of minutes. They darted off up a side track leading to some white tents at the foot of a mountain and we waved goodbye. We were on our own in the frigid air.
The snow from the day before had made the dirt track very muddy, and it was very hard to drive the small 100cc bike through all that. It was incredibly beautiful though, snow dusting everything. There was more wildlife along this route than the day before with wild donkeys and Tibetan Gazelles (Lulu called them the “White-ass animals” because of their distinctive white rump). This might have possibly been because we were the only motorcycle to come along this stretch that day, so they hadn’t been disturbed from the trail.
It took us over an hour and a half to drive the less than twenty kilometers to where we had left my bike and our bags the day before over the muddy tracks and dry river beds. I had been anxious about leaving our things out for anyone to come along and take, and we weren’t sure whether the bags were waterproof, so I was elated when we saw that everything was dry and where we left it. We took some food and my tools before making our way over tracks that headed in the direction described to us by our hosts.
A couple of hours later, after getting lost again, breaking the chain and fixing it, the chain broke for a final time and couldn’t be fixed. I sat in the dirt, trying to figure out a way to get us to Maduo.
We decided to stick together so that if we got into any more trouble, we could help each other out. I started pushing the bike, which I thought was a good idea because if we met anyone who could help us fix the bike we could fix it on the spot. After pushing it over an exhausting thirteen kilometers (I promised myself that I would stop and give myself a break after each kilometre) I heard the sweet sound of an engine behind me and found that Lulu had flagged down the only other motorist we had seen on the track that day. Warm relief swept through my aching muscles as he drove up and dismounted.
Lulu translated that he didn’t have a spare chain link, but for one hundred and fifty rmb he could drive one of us to Maduo to get one. We thought this was a bit steep and Lulu counter-offered with twenty renminbi(:D). Not possible. A thirty kilometer drive over bad roads would be at least one hundred and fifty. Low on cash, we thanked him for his time and went back to our task of getting to Maduo by ourselves, and he drove off. I was a little disappointed, but neither of us could justify spending a day’s expenses to get a measly little chain link, even in the middle of nowhere.
The dark grey clouds gathered overhead and soon drops of water started to patter on the plain. It should have been cold as I had taken off my jacket, but the exercise kept me warm. Up ahead I spotted a dark figure riding a motorcycle just as it started to hail. It was the same guy from before and after dismounting he held out his hand. On the palm of his black woolen glove lay a small, shiny silver piece of metal. He had found a nearby tent somewhere in the nothingness and was willing to let us take this chain link off his hands for fifty rmb. This piece wouldn’t be more than five Yuan in a town shop so I tried to bargain as the hail intensified. He didn’t budge, knowing we didn’t have much of an option at this point. I handed over the cash and got to fixing the bike.
The bike was as good as new again, and on the way to Maduo we had to drive for well over an hour through rivers, sopping wet mud and fetid pools of water fed by melting permafrost, which wasn’t easy but it sure beat pushing. Finally, I saw a long black flat strip running almost parallel to the track we were on and I realized it was a road. I laughed hysterically at this humble sign of civilization and comfort. I have never appreciated tarmac more in my life then right then and knelt on the rock hard surface just to make sure it wasn’t a fatigue induced hallucination.
The distance marker on the side of the road said that Maduo was fifteen kilometers away. Not far at all, I thought. In no time we would be in a warm room in dry clothes. As we drove our first kilometres on the incredibly smooth road, snow started to fall. Lightly at first, then heavier. It wasn’t the soft, dry kind of snow, it was the wet, slushy stuff and it started to make me very, very cold, particularly my hands in their not-so-waterproof gloves and my face, unprotected by a visor that would fog up from my breath if closed. I started to get very drowsy, had trouble seeing straight. I was very, very cold, but I kept going because in my confused state, I thought it best to keep going. Maduo, the destination for the past three days, was 10 minutes drive away. Just keep going. But when I couldn’t keep my eyes on the road any longer I had to stop the bike and peel my numb, seized up hands off the handlebars and walk around to get the circulation pumping through my body again. It was the 4th of June, and I had hypothermia. Lulu volunteered to drive for the last kilometers into Maduo.
To top it all off, the bike ran out of petrol beside the 1 kilometre marker and we had to push the bike the rest of the way. I actually preferred pushing at this point because it warmed me up while the snow continued to fall.
We wouldn’t make an issue with room prices. Just somewhere that was warm, dry and had a hot shower. We pushed the bike down the main street of Maduo, and took the first available room at a nice looking bingguan. We trudged through the lobby and up the stairs to our heated room, changed into the one spare shirt I brought with me, and went out for the most deserved dinner and beer of the trip.
The Xiangride-Maduo experience was amazing and left us both exhausted. It was the most intense 340 kilometres we would encounter. The incredible landscapes, the people, the wildlife, the roads, the climate, were all totally different to the China we had seen in eastern China. It was hard and it required a lot of serious decision making and by the time we got to Maduo, it certainly felt like an achievement, even if it was two days late and only on one motorcycle that had no petrol in the tank.
We would have to worry about getting my bike back on the next day. It was recovery time.
02-25-2012, 06:05 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Maduo: Bike rescue – Day 89 - 5th June 2011
I needed to find someone to take me out to get my bike. Lulu couldn’t handle another day of those roads, and neither could her bike (it already lost it’s front mud-guard and needed some welding done) so she was going to help find someone to get me there, and have a day off in Maduo.
The hotel manager told us that there was a horse festival that day, so it may be hard to find someone cheap. It took us about an hour, walking around the main street asking guys on motorcycles if they would like to make a quick buck. We found a young T*betan guy of about 20 who was interested. He was driving a Volkswagen Santana (not exactly 4WD material), but we told him to arrange a motorcycle after we got our loaned 8 litre petrol can filled up. He drove along the road out of town, locals sitting on the hillocks in preparation for the horse festival. But he just picked up a friend of his and drove past the festivities and onto the dirt/mud track heading out into the wilderness. I didn’t know where he was planning to get the motorcycle from. Surely he knew about the state of these roads and wasn’t planning to take them on with an old Santana. I tried to ask him where he was going to get the motorcycle, but that didn’t work. I resigned myself to fate and tried to enjoy the bumpy ride.
Within 10 minutes, the car got stuck in shallow mud. We managed to push it out with the help of a motorcyclist, who warned us that taking that car will be a rough time.
Another 10 kms along (about where I had repaired Lulu’s bike the day before) the kid stops to say that he will go no further. I told him that he’s not getting paid until I get my bike. He says that the roads aren’t good. “Yeah, we told you that mate, keep going”. The atmosphere in the car was getting a little tense as the suspension bottomed out a couple of times and the tracks got so deep that the underside got scratched by the hump in the middle of the track.
He stopped another Tibetan guy 20 kms down the tracks to make sure he knows where he’s going, which I find is unnecessary seeing as I was bringing my GPS with me and it had recorded the track from yesterday.
After a couple of hours driving, we got to the moraine lakebed and I asked to be dropped off at the southern end of the lake, the side closest to Maduo, as there was absolutely no way that he was getting that car to the other side. He told me that he would wait 30 minutes for me before going back because he was worried about the clouds reaching southwards from the peaks in front of us. I didn’t know how long it would take and I wasn’t so keen on taking my four bags as well as Lulu’s two through the tracks we had difficulty with yesterday. I tried to hurry.
It was at least five kms away, and going was slow at 4300 metres, carrying a 5 kg petrol can along with me. I had to stop more than a couple of times.
I finally got to my bike. It was still there after the second night in a row!! I filled it up with the petrol, stacked Lulu’s bags on the back and tied everything on. It looked bloated. It was going to be tough getting through the lake mud with so much weight over the back tyre.
I knew exactly where to go now, and I was alot faster than the day before. The boys had gotten lost turning up the same wrong way we had turned up the day before. They raced up behind me and I gave them the bags.
Until, 200 metres from the road, the car got bogged down in freezing cold mud. I spent an hour digging around in melting permafrost mud to try and get the front wheels out because I knew it would cost me if I couldn’t get it out. The mud was the consistency of a chocolate ice cream milkshake and no matter how deep I dug or how many rocks I put under the front-wheel-drive tyres, they weren’t budging. The VW that had gone where no VW had gone before had given up.
One of the boys called their mate to see if they could haul them out. Apparently it would cost a further 200 rmb and rescue would be at least an hour away. I drove back to the hotel, dropped the bags off, and went back to collect the boys as the sun began to set and the air became frigid. I was a little concerned about the growing cold, because they didn’t have much more than monks robes on, but by the time I had gotten there they had been picked up by their friend and we agreed to meet at the hotel to sort out money.
After well over an hour of very tense conversation, we settled at 800 kuai all up, which was what our guidebook put a day’s 4WD rent at. At that point I was so exhausted after four days of the hardest motorcycle driving I had done that I could keep the fight up for only so long. Lulu was so fiery that she wasn’t much help. And it was worth it to have my bike back.
Our team was finally back in one place.
02-25-2012, 06:31 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Maduo to Qingshuihe – Day 90 - 6th June, 2011
It would have been nice to take a day off, but we were running low on cash and the foreigner-approved bingguan we were staying at was expensive. It was run by a nice policeman, which may have been the reason our young friends had been keen to keep the door to our room closed during our discussion last night. There were no cash machines in Maduo, and the next one would be in Yushu.
We had a look at our map and tried to guess how we got to Maduo, because I was quite sure that the way we took wasn’t the one marked on the map. This is my guess:
At breakfast we passed Young Monk on the main road. We said nothing but gave each other a nod.
Lulu’s bike was a bit worse for wear after its harrowing journey. We took it to the local repair shop where Lulu had an animated conversation with some of the locals about our (mostly my) unfortunate negotiating skills from the night before. Some of the older locals didn’t seem happy, and I had a suspicion that Young Monk would be getting a talking to later.
Northern Qinghai is nothing like the hyper-arid basin that we were driving through in southern Qinghai. We had good quality twisty mountain roads, clear blue lakes and high mountain passes with prayer flags. This is the region of China where the Yellow River and the Yangtze, the two most important rivers in China, start their long journey down to the sea.
We helped a Buddhist guy put up some prayer flags at one of the passes, where every time they flutter in the wind, the prayers written on them are sent to heaven.
It was a day of long roads and few buildings and no petrol stations until Qingshuihe, a town even smaller than Maduo. We were worried about the dark clouds in the direction of our destination. We asked a local if it would be a problem. He said no, but we didn’t want to risk the possibly freezing cold journey up to Yushu. We would have to save it for the next day and have a nice warm sleep with electric blankets in a rectangular block of concrete without a lockable door.
02-25-2012, 07:48 AM
soberpete
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Quote:
Originally Posted by cryptographicide
This ride report is wonderful. It has all the info that I have been looking for while planning my trip around asia: what places are like, road conditions, average possible speeds, issues. This is so appreciated. I'm looking forward to the rest of the report.
Two's up on cryptographicide. Roadrunner, that's a heck of a story and from trying to imagine myself in your shoes at the time, I feel exhausted!
Amazing photos and videos. It must have been an effort to stop and take them all so thanks for all the hard work.
02-29-2012, 02:49 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Qingshuihe to Yushu – Day 91
We hit our last high pass before Xiewu and started descending in altitude significantly. The bike had been spluttering and having trouble with power on inclines, but now it was much happier.
We stopped at Xiewu, not far from Yushu, where we visited a well-known gompa. The best thing about this gompa was the protector temple at the top of the hill. It was probably the most authentic of any building I had seen in China. I had a short talk with a friendly monk who was sitting at the back, who went back to reciting prayers and banging on a drum beside his head as I left.
Women are not allowed in the temple, so Lulu stayed out on the dodgy gravel hillside track that wound precariously upward. There were a few large birds of prey hanging around, so there must have been a sky burial site nearby.
Carrying on through the valley, we came across a Buddhist woman making a pilgrimage to Jokhang temple in Lhasa. She had wooden boards tied to her hands and knees, and a leather apron protecting her torso. Every few steps she would kneel down, say a prayer and then lie prostrate on the road. Lulu said it may take her 6 months to get to Lhasa. I asked where she would sleep, and she said that local villagers would probably take her in each night. It looked like a painful way to get somewhere, and showed incredible dedication.
We visited our second buddhist temple of the day. The temple itself was nice, but the silence and serenity associated with such temples was rudely interrupted by the gravel quarries in the valley below. I thought it was a shame that someone had decided to put noisy, smoky buildings right next to such a piece of heritage (later, my self righteousness took a back seat when I figured that these quarries were urgently needed for the rebuilding of Yushu, further up the valley).
We had come across the T*betan guard dogs before, but here I nearly got bitten by a particularly aggressive dog when one of the monks wasn’t watching. I always carried a rock around dogs from then.
After a monk rescued us from the crazy dog that wouldn’t stop barking at us, he showed us around the temple. Most interesting of all was the morning prayer hall, adorned with wild animal skins, gold-painted tapestries and ritual dancing costumes.
I had noticed that since we got into Qinghai, the temples had stopped asking for entry payments. I asked the monk if they get money from some kind of social welfare system, but he said that the temple only gets money from people who willingly donate, mostly Buddhists from the surrounding areas who visit the temple.
About 5 kms south of Yushu, we came to ManiShiCheng (Literally, Mani town), pretty much just a village, with a massive mound of mani stones (reputedly over 2 billion) almost dwarfing the Gyanak Mani Temple beside it.
Mani stones are rocks with the Buddhist mantra “Om mani padme hum” (which has several different meanings, but relates to purification and enlightenment) painted or carved on them in the T*betan script. If you’re in this part of the world, it would be impossible to miss these recurring symbols. Many hillsides have white rocks arranged in the shape of the prayer.
I had been getting very low on petrol, and hoped to make it to Yushu before I ran out, but 2 kilometres from the town, I was out. I had to call Lulu and wait for her come back and drain the tank of her bike. It seemed as though she was rescuing me a lot those days.
After some rough roads in to Yushu (also known as Jyekundo), we found that there was just rubble and random concrete walls where the centre of town used to be. It had been over a year since the magnitude 6.9 quake hit, and I guess I was naive in thinking that it would be back to working order by now. I knew that it wasn’t going to be the Yushu described in our 2009 guidebook, but I was amazed at how much of a disaster zone it looked. There would be no ATMs here, let alone hotels. Just rubble and the statue of King Gesar, hero of The Epic of King Gesar, an epic reputed to be one of the longest in the world.
Fire servicemen on an ATV point us in the direction of a makeshift town with places to stay a couple of kilometres away.
It was tent city; Blue tents everywhere. On the main road they were mainly shops and we had an interesting time trying to bargain for a tent-room. And at this point, we weren’t being stingy with our bargaining to be stubborn. We really didn’t have much money at all. No more than 200 rmb. We eventually settled for an 80 rmb tent, which had electricity, but no running water, and the toilet was a tent 5 minutes away. I went to explore and it was just a wooden board with a row of four big round holes in it over a ditch.
An English movie was playing on TV in the tent-restaurant as I had beef noodles and a beer for dinner. It had been another incredible day in Qinghai.
02-29-2012, 03:08 AM
Roadrunner
Re: Around China in 100 Days
Yushu to Xiewu – Day 92
We hit up the internet tent-cafe after lunch to see if we could find a bank somewhere near. We were on our last 100 kuai. No luck, so we had to ask for directions, but the answers we were given were very vague and sometimes contradictory. We also wanted to find a Lifan shop afterwards for repairs and maintenance for the bikes, but couldn’t find any. Our poor bikes would need to get attention in the next major town we come to. It was time to do a bit of sightseeing.
Because of the confusion with the makeshift roads, and my GPS map being a bit out of date, we got quite confused about which road to take to the Wencheng temple, but we got there in the end.
We got back on to the G214 (a road I could follow if I wanted to keep going straight on into T*bet) through a winding gorge for 15 kilometres until we came to the turn off to the Wencheng temple. The turnoff led through a valley shrouded in prayer flags.
At the internet cafe, Lulu had contacted another rider, Christine (known as MeowZeDong on MyChinaMoto) who was driving from Yunnan to Xinjiang and it looked like we would be crossing paths. I called her to see if we would be able to meet up and swap a few stories, but unfortunately the bike she was riding (a Galaxy XTR250L) had come to a nasty end. Luckily, she was fine but heading back to Hong Kong to get back to her job. She’s a very talented photographer and writer, so it was really disappointing to hear that.
We got to the end of the road and there was a hot spring spa, only 20 kuai each. We seriously thought about it, but we were so low on money that if we couldn’t find an ATM today, we would have to spend our remaining money on accommodation. I didn’t want to be sleeping on the bike that night.
We drove back to the Wencheng temple, which is where the Chinese princess Wencheng rested for a month in the 7th century on her way from from Xi’an to Lhasa, before her marriage to Tibetan King Songsten Gyampo. Parts of the temple date from the 8th century CE.
As we got going again it started to rain. We got back into Yushu determined to find an ATM. We followed directions from locals who said there was a bank at the government headquarters a couple of kilometres north. The headquarters was a swarm of tents and a couple of buildings overshadowed by a big fort-like temple. No points for guessing where the big-wigs had holed up in.
Lulu got very muddy because she wasn’t able to have her front mudguard fixed. She didn’t mind. We were solvent again!!
Anxiety number one resolved. We had wanted to stay in Yushu for a rest day before we came into town, but realised there really isn’t much in the way of ‘town’ left. So our sleeping-place-destination changed to Shiqu, across the border into Sichuan.
After a quick Sichuan style meal, we stopped at a shower shop. All over China, there are places dedicated to selling showers. We hadn’t had one since the first night in Maduo and after being wet, muddy and cold the high pressure showers were absolute heaven.
I put on my damp riding gear, but my muscles were glowing and warm after the shower so I didn’t mind so much. We had to get going after all.
Before long we were cold and wet again, and it started to get dark as we arrived in Xiewu, the last town before Shiqu. It was a no brainer for me. I didn’t want to be up and driving around in the cold mountains of northern Qinghai in the dark, miles from civilisation. Lulu wanted to move on, and I had to convince her that it was a bad idea. What a weird role reversal.
We stayed in a T*betan family’s lounge above their convenience store. The place was warm and homely and they were very nice, generous people and gave us free milk tea when we asked to buy some.
There were three beds and we were sharing the lounge with a Chinese truckie who was also paying, which we hadn’t expected and he kept us up for a while after we went to bed and turned the lights off, talking loudly into his phone in the other bed right next to my head. It wasn’t new, we had experienced this before, but it was more than a little irritating as I tried to drift off to sleep.
