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A life-changing experience, for sure! It sees like 20 years has passed from when we picked your bike up last year - you've certainly compressed what most riders never experience in 20 years, into this past year. Very impressive!
And, IMHO, your new employer should give you a starting salary increase for this "commute".
:thumbsup:
Thanks for the great pics and words, a truly epic adventure. I'll be interested to see which route you take from Tibet to Kunming.
The little bike seems to be taking it well.
Can anybody please tell me how to make these route maps that show the progress of the trip? I've tried it with Google "My Places" but not had any success with that. Is there a download that I can use?
Not sure exactly what you want to do - but this thread has a lot of great GPS/google stuff in it:
http://www.mychinamoto.com/forums/sh...ng-Google-Maps
As far as my setup, I'm using a Garmin Nuvi 1255. There's a GPX folder on the device and a Current.gpx file that it uses to track where I've ridden. There's a file size limit and it will start overwriting itself if it gets too big, so at the end of every day I copy it on to my laptop and then use the device to erase the file and start from scratch the next day. I then use gpsvisualizer.com to upload the gpx file and display it on a google map. It's also relatively straight forward to edit the separate GPX files into one master file. I've done that - but gpsvisualizer seems to think the file is too big now! Haven't had time to figure out a work around yet - but for the day-to-day files it works pretty well!
Day 19: Yanshiping, Near the border of Tibet to Naqu, Tibet
The storm didn't blow over through the night. It parked itself right on top of us and snowed and snowed and snowed.
I was seriously depressed. We stared at the sky glumly. "How does your body feel?" Wang asked. My body was fine. It was my brain that was bothering me. It's one thing to get caught in a storm. It's another to intentionally go barrelling right into it.
Wang could tell I was nervous, in part because I told him repeatedly. He said he'd go see if he could find a truck to take us up to the pass. Part of me thought that it felt like cheating. Part of me thought safety first.
Wang came back, he had found a truck for 1500 RMB, which he thought was too much. He'd talked to several truck drivers who had just descended from the pass, and they said there wasn't any ice. "This time of year, the road doesn't ice over," they said. Ice has more to do with water reaching its freezing point than it does with season, I thought to myself. It snowed all night and it's freezing cold, how could there not be ice?
We pulled our bikes out of the spare room we had kept them in. To my chagrin, they both started right up. We packed the bikes, the gears of inevitability were turning. Wang said he'd go back to the driver and try for a lower price. He returned shortly thereafter and told me that the driver said the roads were fine.
And so full of trepedation, we set off.
We stopped to get gas on our way out of town:
http://i.imgur.com/YrjnQ.jpg
And then drove back into the storm. And this time, it actually was a lot better. It was much lighter out and the snow actually hadn't accumulated on the road. The truck drivers had been right. And after roughly forty five minutes, we saw blue skies!
http://i.imgur.com/7LEM5.jpg
I was absolutely elated, I'm still elated now just typing this:
http://i.imgur.com/4po7V.jpg
The road continued to ascend and we rode past the final town before the border. The realization that we were closing in on Tibet started to settle in. The road started to wind and a group of Chinese bikers came riding from the opposite direction and gave us the thumbs up.
And then we reached it:
http://i.imgur.com/eK0gR.jpg
Tang Gu La Shankou, 5231 meters:
http://i.imgur.com/r6SoC.jpg
Even the trucks were stopping to savor the views:
http://i.imgur.com/sE9WV.jpg
The pass sits in a basin, surrounded by snow capped mountains:
http://i.imgur.com/1lKXj.jpg
I can't wait to get Wang's photos!
http://i.imgur.com/YG2ZI.jpg
A family lives on the pass and were coming in from the fields:
http://i.imgur.com/fVR3x.jpg
And agreed to let us snap some pictures of them:
http://i.imgur.com/8utQm.jpg
We spent a long time on the pass, trying to savor every moment. Wang had crossed it before, but it was too cloudy to see anything. There hadn't been any checkpoints and we continued into Tibet. It started snowing again, but frankly, it didn't matter!
http://i.imgur.com/cOIM8.jpg
The weather had become more typical, changing every five minutes:
http://i.imgur.com/F5xkz.jpg
We hit the first village in Tibet. It turned out that Wang had stopped here before and so we went in for a cup of much needed milk tea:
http://i.imgur.com/WFKwZ.jpg
And by the time we had finished the tea, it had started hailing!
http://i.imgur.com/Vrh6v.jpg
It felt like the clouds were right on top of us:
http://i.imgur.com/dhOhV.jpg
There were yaks everywhere:
http://i.imgur.com/GNY50.jpg
And snow capped mountains:
http://i.imgur.com/QZPz6.jpg
And snow capped mountains:
http://i.imgur.com/63fE3.jpg
And rock formations:
http://i.imgur.com/dxMq9.jpg
I like this picture because it sums up a lot of what we saw - plains, yaks, power lines, and looming storms:
http://i.imgur.com/ORUbk.jpg
Ni hao!
http://i.imgur.com/uBbNO.jpg
We reached Anduo, the first city inside of Tibet:
http://i.imgur.com/ZXSer.jpg
And stopped for lunch in a stretch that looked like any other strip in any other city in China:
http://i.imgur.com/wDVkE.jpg
It was still relatively early, and Naqu, the next city, was only 100 km away, so we decided to keep going. Just outside of Anduo we climbed another mountain. The road we had just ridden wound below us:
http://i.imgur.com/Y4OPt.jpg
We continued to pass Tibetan villages:
http://i.imgur.com/iSHCl.jpg
Clear skies to the left, storms to the right. We got lucky this time, and the road turned towards the clear skies:
http://i.imgur.com/VSOMC.jpg
Another Tibetan village:
http://i.imgur.com/7Lact.jpg
We reached Naqu close to dusk and found a hotel. I rolled the bike into the hotel room:
http://i.imgur.com/sBYkw.jpg
And went to bed, thinking about what a great, great day of riding it had been.
Day 20: Naqu, Tibet to Environmental Protection Station, Qinghai
Having taken five days to get to Naqu, I decided it was time to get back on track and start heading towards Yunnan in earnest. I remembered reading one of CC's posts about a "graded road" that cut across southern Qinghai from Budongquan towards Yushu.
Wanting to make it to Yushu and ride through northern Sichuan, I woke early the next morning and headed back north towards Qinghai. The weather was perfect and riding back over road I had travelled the day before, I didn't stop many times to take pictures.
Although sometimes I couldn't resist:
http://i.imgur.com/2cCe0.jpg
One of several rivers that were still frozen:
http://i.imgur.com/Ti2Bj.jpg
This made me nervous just watching:
http://i.imgur.com/fC6CZ.jpg
I made great time back to Tanggula Shankou, covering 200 km before noon, and stopped for a rest and more pictures:
http://i.imgur.com/8SdjS.jpg
The weather remained perfect:
http://i.imgur.com/LZqLM.jpg
After hanging out with the other travelers who were taking pictures at the peak, I jumped back on the bike and set off for Yanshiping, where we had stayed the day before last. Riding over parts of this road for the third time in three days, the weather was finally clear enough to see the surrounding mountains. The snow fall had left a cool zebra pattern on the mountains:
http://i.imgur.com/JxNJ0.jpg
I rolled off another 100 kilometers, and at 300 for the day, I stopped for lunch in Yanshiping. This little fellow joined me for lunch and stayed by my side as I prepped the bike, but I never did get a smile out of him!
http://i.imgur.com/xNDhq.jpg
I was already a bit sore, but the weather remained perfect, so I decided to take it one city at a time, and I set off for the next city, Duoduohe, 100 km away.
Roughly 20 km later, I saw a group of bicyclists on the side of the road. I stopped, and it was my friends from the protection station three days before! We chatted for a bit and then went our separate ways.
I hit Duoduohe around four. The next city was Wudaoliang 150 km away. I had already ridden 400 km and was sore as anything, but the weather remained great, so I set off.
I was back along the Tibetan Railway, and, looking for an excuse to rest, stopped to take another picture:
http://i.imgur.com/ERk5b.jpg
I hit Wudaoliang after six. At this point, the protection station was only another 60 km away. When the day started I thought there was no way I could make it there. But now it was within reach and the thought of spending the night amongst friends was enough to push me on. So again, I set off.
I finally made it into the station at close to 8:00. I limped into the station with a weary smile - everyone was surprised to see me and immediately pulled up a chair for me at the dinner table. It was a perfect end to a day that began with the disappointment of leaving Tibet. I had ridden over 600 km, blowing away my previous high of 400+, covered two days of riding in one, and was back on schedule to hit fresh roads the next day. Weary, but happy, I collapsed into bed after dinner to rest up for the "graded road" I would ride tomorrow.
Thanks of the report.
Breath-taking stuff pat, you are the man!
So let me clarify, you never hit any checkpoints or anything in qinghai or t*bet? What happened in golmud with that guy, did he get you that pass?
Truly the stuff of dreams.
About the photos, how come you're in them so often? So setup a tripod for every shot? Do you take out the tripod everytime you stop? Man that must take forever .. take a shot on timer, run back and check the shot, then do again if needed .. How do you do it?
I think it's probably just the photos I'm choosing to upload - I remember reading somewhere that pictures with people/animals/etc. in them are more interesting than pure landscape - so if nothing else I try to put the bike in when possible (I feel like 90% of my pictures are bike + background).. I don't have a tripod - so it's probably a combination of occasionally having a riding partner, friends (like at the nature outpost), or if there are other people around I'll ask someone to take the picture.
I've tried the whole prop the camera up, take a timed picture, and run back to check it out.. but you're right - it takes too long and without a tripod they're usually pretty mediocre pictures!