yunnan to qinghai

hello,
so we are in dali now. 5000 chinese km on the speedometer!
Now moving up north.

the road we took:



the gmaps tag doesnt seem to be working.
short gmap url: dali to shangri-la


update 10/06/2013
The part through the tiger leaping gorge and further all the way to shangri-la was beautiful. Almost no traffic, up and down mountains and great scenery.

We will probably skip Deqin because i dont think there is a road from deqin into sichuan without entering tibet.
Adjusting to the heights now and looking for a nice road to take..tips are more then welcome!

Some ongoing questions:
what great not too be missed scenic roads am i missing?
I read there are some serious road works in Sichuan...what to avoid?

tx..pics will follow..
grt
bazz

Some pics I took on the road from tiger leaping gorge to Shang-ri-la. This is not the main road. It's the road that first crosses the tiger leaping gorge and then continous through beautifull mountains and small villages. About 200km I think.

Starting from a room with a beautifull view

http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/1.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/2.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/3.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/4.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/5.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/6.JPG
Shang-ri-la is just a couple kilometers further now.
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/7.JPG

Now we're riding to Xiangcheng
So far as I know there are two other routes:
The main road to Xiangcheng
or the route to benzilan, derong and then Xiangcheng.
Anyone has done both and knows which is most scenic?
chrs

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bazz

Some pics I took on the road from tiger leaping gorge to Shang-ri-la. This is not the main road. It's the road that first crosses the tiger leaping gorge and then continous through beautifull mountains and small villages. About 200km I think.

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Yup this road here: http://goo.gl/maps/BB8Nf

One of the best rides in china i reckon!


Sorry can't hep with your other question. Maybe motokai might chime in here, i believe he had some interesting adventures up near xiangcheng recently...

great road idd!
your link isnt working.
But the link in my first post shows the route.


Decided to take the normal route to xiangshen. Hope there is not too much ongoing contruction. I'll give an update later.

Meanwhile I keep changing my road plan.
current route goes from deqen to litang to Kangding to Tagong to Garze to Yushu to Qumarleb and after that i dont know yet...east direction.
routemap: http://goo.gl/maps/HoZdK

we rode to Lithang and the road is really nice. I tought there was going to be a lot of traffic but no..very quiet and very very scenic. First 100 km to Xiangcheng is good road followed by a 70km unpaved stretch which is very 'bumpy'. We lost 1 luggage rack and 3 direction pointers here!
The road from xiangcheng to Lithang is also nice but there is more construction going on. Especially close to Lithang it is pretty bad.
After this we took the g318 to Kangding. At the moment I would not advise this ... most of the time there are construction works and the road is very very dusty. Took no pics of this last part. Afraid my camera would not survive this.


Some pics:
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/8.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/9.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/10.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/11.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/12.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/13.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/14.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/15.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/16.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/17.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/18.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/19.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/20.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/21.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/22.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/24.JPG

current route goes from deqen to litang to Kangding to Tagong to Garze to Yushu to Qumarleb and after that i dont know yet...east direction.
routemap: http://goo.gl/maps/HoZdK
tips and advice are welcome!

Spectacular! Thanks so much for posting. Did you ride all those roads we can see in the pix? Especially that switchback ascent of a broad rock face to a whitewashed village in the 9th image. Wow.

cheers!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bazz

We will probably skip Deqin because i dont think there is a road from deqin into sichuan without entering tibet.
Adjusting to the heights now and looking for a nice road to take..tips are more then welcome!

Some ongoing questions:
what great not too be missed scenic roads am i missing?
I read there are some serious road works in Sichuan...what to avoid?

---

Hey, sorry I'm late to jump in here but looks like you figured it out perfectly.
Also looks like June is a good time for the roads north of Deqen to Litang (via Xiangcheng).
My crossing earlier this year was full of snow and icy roads, particularly over each of the peak passes around 5000m and the higher plateau just north of Xiangcheng. Glad you found safe roads!

Great ride RR so far. Great pics. Keep it coming! :popcorn:


Thanks - ride safe.

Bazz just made it through. Tiger Leaping gorge is closed after an enormous landslide.
I went in August this route and landslides are regular. Depending on how servers, the round is closed for hours, days or weeks...welcome to yunnan's raining season

Quote:

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Originally Posted by euphonius

Spectacular! Thanks so much for posting. Did you ride all those roads we can see in the pix? Especially that switchback ascent of a broad rock face to a whitewashed village in the 9th image. Wow.

cheers!

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Tx!
Well, unfortunately that is the only road on the pics that we didn't rode. I couldn't find it once we were descended in the valley. But it looks great eh:)

From Litang we rode to Kangding and Tagong.
The first part was very dusty due to road construction. No fun driving in clouds of dust. No pics of the first part..already killed one camera with dust.
Some non dusty pics:

The monastery overlooking Lithang
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/25.JPG

Good roads after the dusty part.
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/26.JPG

For kilometers lang all rocks int the river are carved and painted..somebody has a lot of time.
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/27.JPG

http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/28.JPG

Taking a shortcut
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/29.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/30.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/31.JPG

Having fun around Tagong..and yes got pretty wet :icon10:
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/32.JPG

next time we go direction ganzi, dege, yushu
grts

Well here we are again.
This will be my final photo report of our ride through China(which I think is one of the most beautiful countries to ride a bike I you do some efforts to get of those busy roads).
The first picture are taken between luhuo, sertar, ganzi, baiyu, dege and on to the border with qinghai. We got away just on time. Last days it was heavy raining and it seems like it didnt stop to rain. The road from baiyu to dege is currently only open from 18.00. During daytime they are busy blowing up rocks.

We really like the colorful houses here. big difference with the rest of China
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/33.JPG

More than 10000 monks gathered at one place at Larung Gar close to Sertar
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/34.JPG

Beautifull driving to ganzi and baiyu
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/35.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/36.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/37.JPG
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http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/40.JPG

start of the rains in Sichuan
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/41.JPG

What 3 weeks Sichuan roads do to a litlle motorcycle
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/42.JPG

These pics are all taken on the road between yushu, qumulai, Budongquan, golmud and Dunhuang. A truly beautifull road all the way. I'm very happy we decided to take this route.
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/43.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/44.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/45.JPG
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http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/48.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/49.JPG

Frome here we got in some kind of huge 'mad max' scenery. I found it amazing.
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/50.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/51.JPG
http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/52.JPG
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http://panka.dreamhosters.com/pics/mcm/55.JPG

And to end some less good news. On the road to Dunhuang we had two flat tyres. bad start of the day but that was just the beginning. On a piece of very good and very straight road in the desert I managed to lose control of the bike and crash my self into the side. I tumbled over and made a pretty hard crash. Still dont know what happened and what made me crash.
I was hurt bad and couldnt really move a lot.
Some guy in a pick up stopped and load us and our bikes on his pickup.
It took him 6 hours to get to the hospital in Dunhuang. A long time of suffering for me.... Conclusion in hospital: shoulder broken on 3 places and spleen damaged badly.
Meanwhile spleen is removed and i'm recovering quickly. tommorow fixing the soulder and I'm almost new again.
Motorbiking will not be possible the first months so we decided to visit a last couple things in China and take a brake for a month or so on the philipines on some tropical beach. not so bad if I think about it :icon10:
After that back to bangkok we're our 'mothership' (a ktm950) is waiting for us to go back on the road.
So in the end...very happy to have seen China and even more happy I'm not damaged more.
Cheers and keep on riding China!
bazz

Hi Bazz

Great RR sorry to hear things did not work out to well at the end sounds like a bad one as well
You will soon be ok with a bit of rest when in the phillipines if you get time one of the best beachs is Boracay ......

Then back to Thailand ??? cant be bad i live 1/2 year up north Chiang Rai was in Pattaya for loads of years but i find north is better with some great bike rides as well

well good luck maybe meet up in Thailand for a beer

Hi Bazz,

I was reading your RR with envy 'till the point of your mishap happening around Dunhung, which is rather unfortunate. I feel your pain, which reminds me of many close calls I had on the road in the past. Like everything in life, there is no free lunch and those get-offs do come with the territory.

Hope you recover fully soon. Cheers!

wish you fast recovery! Remember your great moments on the trip should help!!
Good luck.

Hi Bazz, sorry to hear about your woes. Still, there are worst places to go spend a month in recovery.

Those pics you posted are breath taking. Do those roads exist on maps? Any chance you could post your route or tracks somehow. I want to go to those roads so bad...