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Wow - that traffic jam sounds wild.. four days to get out of Shanxi! That little detour road looked great. Glad to hear both rider and companion are holding up well - keep the updates coming! :popcorn:
(as an aside - the pictures look great - but it'd be great to see larger versions too... posting from the road can be hectic - but if you have time, you can upload them to imgur.com or another such site and then link back to them to get the large version.. see here.)
Okay so here are some belated updates on what was overall a very pleasant journey through Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Gansu and Qinghai. I primarily want to give everyone some first hand advice on the various road conditions I encountered. My main piece of wisdom: regardless of where you think you are going or what road conditions you expect, put on the knobbiest tires you can find. There was never a day that I did not regret putting on a pair of brand new Conti off-roads on the BMW GS.
Maps in China should only be considered aspirational statements about the distant future of China's road network!
My last post ended with us at the corner of Shanxi, Shaanxi and Inner Mongolia, attempting to sweat out four days worth of coal dust.
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It was at this point that we broke free of the heaviest traffic and entered Inner Mongolia. The background shot is of Laoniuwan ("old cow bend") a quite nice stopping point about thirty km north of Pianguan in Shanxi. There are numerous cave-house style guesthouses here.
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There is a road from Wanjiazhai zhen, just south of Lao-niu-wan, not marked on google maps, that crosses the Yellow River and then proceeds north to connect with Zhun-ge-er-qi, a largish town in Inner Mongolia. The road is heavily trucked, but in decent shape.
In Zhunge'er qi, I decided to poach the G18 expressway (gaosu), since national highway 109 is in terrible shape.
I had no trouble exiting the expressway near Dongsheng (Ordos) at the infamous ghost city of Kangbashi, or getting back on again. My impression is that it is not very difficult to take your motorcycle on the expressways in Inner Mongolia. The toll booth people were in fact quite gung-ho about the whole thing. I traveled south from Kangbashi on expressway 65.
I must put in a word about the surreal non-destination of Kangbashi: it is truly a remarkable testament to what will surely be the largest housing bubble in the history of real estate. Mostly empty, full of peasants wandering around looking for work and occasional parades of posh SUVs from elsewhere. I joined the peasants, looking for both food and a good place to sleep off the mid-day heat. Apparently the only food currently available in Kangbashi are a chain of small stands specializing in BBQ duck neck. Honestly, not the best meal one can hope for, especially after a night of baijiu.
In terms of sleeping spots, the locals directed me to a partially completed museum complex. I was able to park the moto inside the building and lay down in the shade with the dog. Try as I might to doze we quickly became the museum's virgin exhibition.
While fake sleeping, I overheard the following conversation:
"Is that the laowai's dog?"
"Yeah, definitely, it must be his dog. Must be a foreign dog."
"How can you tell?"
"Look at her eyes."
"What, are they blue?"
"No! But there is just something different about them. Those aren't Chinese dog eyes."
FYI, my dog is 100% Beijing street dog.
Also I got the only bad gas of the trip in Kangbashi at an official Sinopec fill station.
The riding in southern Ordos is terrific, especially once you get off the expressway and start exploring the lightly rolling dunescape. The environment is a mixture of little dunes, patches of woodland, and pasture. Due to recent natural gas exploration and preliminary drilling by China's state oil companies, the secondary roads in the region, although very narrow, and completely unmarked, are in relatively good condition, making for very pleasurable riding with almost no traffic.
I exited the G65 expressway about 60 km south of Ordos, onto provincial highway S313 which took me to the town of Wushenqi. This town is exploding with oil money, and the road here is in the process of being widened, but is in very passable. Within a couple months I'd assume that Wushenqi will connect very smoothly to Jingbian, a city in northern Shaanxi.
From Wushenqi I departed from the provincial highway and patched together a series of increasingly tiny roads. I was thus able to cross the Ordos desert in a more direct south-west line. I took a full day of riding to travel from Wushenqi to Dingbian, Shaanxi Province.
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I was navigating primarily by compass, Chinese gazetteer, and by asking everyone I passed where the hell I was going. The locals were extremely obliging, offering up lots of hospitality.
At one homestead I was treated to a fabulous lunch of roasted "chaomian" (barley?) mashed into watermelon.
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After a final couple km of wallowing in the mud, we came out of Ordos in Shaanxi at a spot called Ningtiaoliang. Here I again decided to try my luck with an expressway, the G20.
About five minutes after slipping around the barrier I became party to the first high-speed chase I've ever witnessed in China. A police van came blasting up behind behind me, lights flashing. Since every official vehicle seems to travel at high speed with the lights on, I assumed it had nothing to do with me. This assumption changed about five km down the expressway when the van physically forced me off onto the shoulder. There then unfolded an absurd puppet show as I tried to feign ignorance of all Chinese language and law, and they tried to convince me to follow them to a police station at the next exit.
They did not seem willing to let the matter drop. So I proceeded to trail the van to the next exit. Fortuitously however, the police were soon distracted by a disabled truck in the breakdown lane. I decided to proceed on down the highway at a reasonable pace, with the idea that I would give the cops the chance to catch back up. Before the next exit, though, I noticed a rest area, so I pulled over there to wait for the cops. While waiting, the cops drove by, apparently without noticing that I'd stopped. I never saw them again.
I decided, however, that the Shaanxi expressway was none too friendly, so I exited two stops down. The toll booth people seem to have been in a real rage, and were making full preparation to come out and have at it, when again, to my good fortune a truck spewing bees pulled by sending everyone scurrying for their netting. I slipped around behind the truck and put an end to the situation.
It has generally been my impression that most Chinese fully embrace the notion that laws are meant to be broken. While at the rest stop, the assembled crowd of drivers fully embraced the notion of screwing over the traffic police, and sent up a chorus of cheers as the police swept by oblivious.
But I have my reservations about this kind of action and generally try to stick to relevant laws and regulations. If not for the fact that China's binge on expressway construction has meant that every provincial road and national highway has been left to go to hell, I would not recommend going on the expressways. But in the case of Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia, and Shanxi, it is simply not often safe as a motorcyclist to travel by some of the secondary roads.
August 2: looped through eastern and southern Ningxia, beautifully surfaced roads, with non-existent traffic and plenty of curves and hills. Traveled from Yanchi county south east, first on provincial highway S302 and then south on S203.
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Passing the great wall.
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That evening, after passing the Xumishan grottoes in south central Ningxia, we began to ascend into the Liupanshan mountains. Around dusk I spotted an abandoned village below. We descended by a narrow trail and camped in the remains of what had once been a mosque.
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More images from southern Ningxia:
Numerous abandoned villages in the Liupan region.
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the route down to the campsite was a bit tricky.
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my copilot.
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The last remaining family of Hui Muslims in the village. They explained that they had no interest in moving on to the city. Since the reservoir had failed to fill as expected, they had little immediate cause to move on.
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luckiest pup in the world! :) and sooo envious of your amazing tours around the northwest.. can't wait to return to my beloved 大西北! :)
The south west corner of Ningxia was a bit sketchy at points, but excellent scenery.
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Just east of Xiji, in southern Ningxia we came out on National Highway 309. This was a bit disappointing as this highway was little more than a pitted donkey track for the next 70 km, or until a little over the Gansu provincial boundary. The only thing in favor of this route to Lanzhou was that there was very, very little traffic. The road feels quite remote, with very sparse, isolated, population. The final 265 km (Xiji to Lanzhou) took two days to complete on account of the rough road.
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The road climbs quite steeply in Gansu. In contrast to Ningxia, the land was much more barren, seemed more like mid-winter than mid-August.
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Even the dog was a bit rattled up by this stretch of road. Before ascending up the Tibetan plateau, she earned herself a new custom made cushion for her crate.
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I spotted this rig several times over the course of the ride from Ningxia to Lanzhou.
And you kept a straight face on while listening to that .. haha. Who said Chinese don't have a sense of humor?Quote:
Originally Posted by Maxo
I also took my dog on short rides around town. I had special messenger bag for him that I kept on my shoulder. But eventually he learned to climb out and put his paws on the handlebar pad, as if he's steering. If you're out in an empty road, it's a good idea. Somehow they just love wind in their face.
Also, better than cushioning, the best thing you can do for your dog is this ::
http://i.imgur.com/dHC5p.jpg
The more you could cut down on the noise levels, the more comfortable she'll be.
Good to hear you guys are still alive, what a trip! Many grateful words to you sharing, pictures like make me drool...
Is the petrol out there made of beans?Quote:
Originally Posted by Maxo