Re: RR: South of the Clouds
Day 1: Kunming -> Luquan
We decided to stay in Kunming for one day to do some sightseeing, to enjoy the sun after the cold north and to do some crucial last time shopping.
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Love on first sight.
The next day finally was the first day of our roadtrip. We didn’t leave as early as planned, partly because we tend to sleep to long and partly because we didn’t know motorcycles are banned in the centre of Kunming. So we walked to the office of Ride China, which was really close to our hotel, just to find out we had to pick up the bikes somewhere else. Totally not their fault since they sent me an email which I hadn’t checked yet. But Jah, the guy who rented us the motorcycle, was really helpful and explained the cab driver over the phone where to bring us.
By the way, time for some recommendation: If you want to rent a bike or even do a guided tour around yunnan (or into Sichuan or even Tibet), check out ridechina.com. The bikes were in good condition, everything went really smooth and Jah was helpful with any problem we encountered on the road.
So getting to the bikes, packing all our stuff onto them and handling the paperwork – 100 Kuai bills are really a pain in the ass when handling larger amounts – we were on the road at 12:30 am, way later then we planned. To make things worse it started to not only rain cats and dogs but also to hail…
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That's not how you want a bike trip to start.
David unintentionally decided to test out the capability of the front brakes – yes, they work well, lesson learned, be easy on the brakes under these conditions… Luckily nothing on the bike was damaged so we could go on. Worst part of the day was going through a tunnel half way. Not only was it poorly lit (better say, not lit at all…) but all the mud, rain and exhaust emission added up to the most slippery thing I have ever encountered apart from ice. I lost my bike just going straight, still don’t know how that worked. Out of shock David unintentionally decided to test out the capability of his rear brakes – yep, they work well too… Anyway, since we were only doing like 20-30 kmh nothing happened and we could go on.
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Checking up the bikes before going on.
We were not the only ones to struggle that day though. I saw at least a dozen accidents, many of them trucks or busses crashed rather badly like getting stuck in the ditch or even one truck flipped to its side. What a great impression to start your first roadtrip in China!
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That would take some time...
After lunch things got better, the rain stopped and the roads become much better, yet still being wet of course. Originally we wanted to get to Yuanmou, but because of our late start and the conditions we only made it to Luquan right on sunset. Still soaking wet we stopped in the middle of the town to discuss where to look for a hotel, but coincidental we just had to turn around to find one. It was really cheap (60RMB for the double room) and they let us put the bikes in the Lobby.
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Safe Parking.
We used the last couple of hours of the day to explore the town – nothing special really, just a usual small Chinese town. We found a good restaurant though and were surprised by Long Island Iced Teas based on Baijiu… Hard to believe but they actually were quiet good!
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Summary of the day put into a picture.
Daily distance: ~85km
Total distance: ~85km
But don't worry, from here on things got way better. We had beautiful weather for the whole trip except one day and those turned out to be the worst roads of the entire trip. After that (except for small parts and the obligatory road constructions) we only had great roads and awesome landscapes, more on that in my next post!
Re: RR: South of the Clouds
hey Andy nice report. Those tunnels are the pits of hell . Well done not getting run over by a truck!
Re: RR: South of the Clouds
Oy vey, what a way to start out the trip with some minor crashes! Good luck!
Re: RR: South of the Clouds
Yes, that's really not how you want to start a trip! But since we already finished the trip I can spoiler you: These were our only crashs (except my mate doing some falling over when standing still ;) ) and both us and the bikes returned to kunming in fine condition.
Re: RR: South of the Clouds
The next day we hit the road at 9:30 am – it could have been earlier if it wasn’t for the snooze function on Davids cell phone. But for the next 2 weeks I’d have to get used to him taking a lot of time in the morning anyway
We continued to follow the G108 North/West. At first the roads were still soaking wet and muddy at a lot of sections as well but at least the scenery got better already. It was also very cold; at one point we even encountered snow along the roadside at a mountain pass. Fortunately everything changed the second we entered the valley behind that mountain. The sun showed up and the roads became better!
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First glance at the beautiful sceneries awaiting us.
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Road conditions we still had to cope with.
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Snow!
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The valley behind that very mountain.
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Awesome roads!
We made it to Yuanmou around 3pm and had lunch there. After half an hour we pushed on, excited that it was finally time to leave crowded G108. We wanted to make most of the way towards Dali on X322. Since X322 meets G108 much further north we decided to take some small roads as a shortcut. Turned out to be no shortcut at all though – while there was only one small road on our GPS there were actually a lot of equally sized roads leading to all kind of villages or just into the fields so we got off track a lot.
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It was either getting wet or driving way way back. After we saw locals doing it like it was nothing we finally dared to cross it ourselves. You can see the stones in the water on the left, there was actually a not so deep path. But better not get off it...
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A reason to stop that we would encounter a lot later on our trip.
Once we got onto X322 – it was half past four by now – we encountered amazing tarmac that we would not have expected. Sadly no photos from this part since we had to hurry to find a hotel before sunset. We made it to Hewei Reservoir by 6pm. Surprisingly there were hardly no places to sleep at all – or we were just not good at spotting Chinese hotels yet. Took us a while to cross the lake once entirely because there was a sign to scenic spot, a stone forest which name I forgot. We thought maybe there would be hotel around, but they could just offer to let us camp inside the area for 100RMB per person – yeah, thanks, but no thanks, if we are going to camp we gonna do that for free somewhere else…
We knew we passed one hotel which looked a little bit pricy from the outside but since we had no choice we drove back to it, arriving at half past 7. Turned out it was totally empty yet still open. Since it was already dark they saw an opportunity to overcharge us, asking for 188RMB the night. They couldn’t really argue our reasoning that they had no guests at all so we at least got em down to 100rmb. A small success after another day of covering less kilometers than planned.This should change the next day, when roads and weather were awesome all day.
Daily distance: ~135km (including getting lost and driving roads twice)
Total distance: ~220km
Re: RR: South of the Clouds
Day 3 Hebei Lake -> Dali
On day 3 we managed to start fairly early at 8:30 am – we wanted to make it to Dali until evening. The road continued to be very good tarmac so we made it to Dayao for lunch at 12:30.
After a rest of half an hour we continued but the road became to dusty cobblestone – not a real problem regarding riding safely but the constant vibrations do weary you. But the beautiful landscape sure made up for that.
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Vibration Victim - a crack in the windshild from the crashs before got bigger, but nothing that couldn't be fixed with good old tape.
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At some point the cobblestone transitions S316, a very broad road with new tarmac which made me desire a superbike. This is one of the few roads you can encounter which provides a knee-to-the-floor level of grip while having hardly no traffic at all (as is said, it became like this out of nothing and leads to basically nowhere except for some villages). I have no clue on how much incline dualpurpose-tires can take so we went much slower than probably possible but it still one of the most fun parts. No photos from this part since we were to busy enjoing the ride
Further southwest around 3pm it was either following the S to Xiangyun and then going parallel to G56 or crossing via small roads directly towards the lake in the east. We did the later one, but the road we took turned out to be access road to an opencast mining site. While it sure was fun to ride what was essentially a dust/sandtrack the opposing truck traffic was annoying. The road was hardly wide enough for the truck alone and they always produced a huge cloud of dust.
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Trucks spoiling the fun...
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...yet providing nice photo effects.
After we passed the dust tracks and rode on the usual tarmac/concrete we faced another obstacle: The road was completely closed because the put new tarmac on a 2 meter section… While all cars ahead of us turned around we saw the opportunity of passing offroad and wanted to go on – only for David to find out that the entire electrical system stopped working. Only my bike had a kickstarter installed so we had to switch it over to his, but luckily once the engine was running everything was ok, so it seemed to only be a problem with the battery.
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View to Haishau Reservoir.
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Men at work.
They way further on was great until we hit Dali New City’s traffic, on top it was getting dark since the coal pit and the bike problems had slowed us down. Anyway we made it to Dali Old Town at 6pm & found a good&cheap hotel pretty fast so we still had time to spend in the touristic old town.
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Dali Old Town
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Leisure Time.
Daily distance: 240km
Total distance: 375km
Re: RR: South of the Clouds
Great trip report... looks like a blast. On your rides right now, do you ever feel that you need to stay on your tip toes a little bit more? Do you ever feel that you're going to get taken off the road at some point.. I seldom see the chinese riders with any gear on so it makes me wonder... is it too hard to have a budget jacket at least? http://www.motorcyclehouse.com/motorcycle-jackets.htm
Re: RR: South of the Clouds
Except for the first day with very poor conditions i never felt in danger at anytime. Then again, since I wasn't familiar with the bikes behaviour in extreme situations I was never riding as close to the physical limit as I would with my own bike. Regarding being on your tip toes - I'm always anticipating other drivers doing something stupid, in europe as in china. Probably it's more likely that other people put you in danger so you have to react, but you face that every where you ride. So actually, no, i was not on my tip toes a little bit more because i always am :D
But of course we wore safety gear on the entire trip. We got those motocrossstyle-jackets (you know, those with paddings on ellbows, shoulders and back), knee/shin protectors, helmets, leather boots and gloves. Not the same standard as i wear back home (fullbody leather suit) but good enough for the speeds we were doing. If you see a picture of me not wearing that jacket it's because i wore it under my other clothes (it was to small to fit the other way).
I know what you mean though, most chinese drivers do not even wear helmets. I have no clue why.
Re: RR: South of the Clouds
Day 4: Dali -> Lijiang
The planned distance for the next day was only 170km since we only wanted to get to Lijiang, one of the main tourist cities of Yunnan. So we didn’t have to hurry in the morning and had time to check on David’s bike. As we assumed it was only an electrical problem, the main (and only) fuse was burnt. David replaced it with a spare one and everything worked again – for now. Later on it would break again. We don’t know why but didn’t bother either, David just got used to starting the bike like in the old days (after he figured out how to kick-start a bike, he wasn’t really a fast learner on that one )
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Problem found & (temporarily) solved!
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The mountains towering above Dali's West
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Sunrise over Erhai.
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Over the bridge noodles.
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Entrance to Oldtown by daylight & first police encounter.
After a quick breakfast – we finally had Yunnans specialty “Over the Bridge Noodles” – and our first police check we we’re on the road at about 10:30am. Good for us that we decided to hit the road only fully legal, this wouldn't be our last checkpoint. Unlicensed Riding may be possible in many parts of china but in Yunnan you appereantly can definitely get in trouble without license or plate. The ride to Lijiang itself was pleasant but yet not really thrilling. We went on the well maintained S221, apart from the occasional road work and the last bit, where we had to avoid the part where S221 becomes to an airport expressway with toll gates, there was nothing special apart from the beautiful as ever landscape.
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Somewhere on the road the road we stopped for an oil change for David’s bike like the owner asked for because it had a new engine installed. 55 RMB including labor, you don’t even get half the amount of oil for that money in Europe…
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He was really quick with it!
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Those are literally everywhere in China!
Even though we stopped at the mechanic and had a break for lunch we still arrived at Lijiang at an early 4pm. Unfortunately a longer visit of the touristic areas was prohibited by our struggle to find a hotel. Problem was, most of the hotels are situated in the pedestrian area of Lijiang Old Town. Our only requirement for hotels (besides being cheap) was a safe parking spot for the bikes though… We spent a lot of time searching for a particular hotel we found online but the address apparently wasn’t correct. We ended up in a hostel which was actually exceeding our budget limit of 100 RMB per night slightly, but it was pretty good and in walking distance to the Oldtown pedestrian area where we finally spent the evening. The Oldtown is worth a visit, but of course it’s one of those Chinese pretend to be oldtowns crowded with the usual souvenir shops. Not many pictures off this again because my cellphone just can’t handle nighttime…
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Avoiding the Highway led us directly past the runway.
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Another nice shot made possible only be the detour.
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Preview of what the north of Yunnan might offer (we didn't went more north than Tiger Leaping Gorge, maybe trip opportunity for summer).
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Lijiang Oldtown
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More Oldtown - white noise really ruins every shot of mine at night...
Daily Distance: 170km
Total Distance: 545km
