Re: Shenzhen to Mount Everest
17
Left Golmud at 7.15 and now we were really on the next real Tibetan part of the trip. This meant we had Nyima riding pillion and all our daily destinations were set, if we'd had a break down we'd have had to have contacted the authorities and it would've been a nightmare, especially for the Nyima and the travel agency as their guiding licenses could have been in jeopardy.
We set off with Nyima on the back with me for 130 kms before swapping over all the luggage so George did 140 with Nyima as pillion, then me again for 70, then George for 70. After messing around unbungeeing and bungeeing bags on bike we decided that George's bike would carry Nyima and my bike, because it had panniers and all the tools/spares, would take all the luggage. From now on we'd just swap bikes a few times everyday, much easier.
We went through some very nasty, muddy roadworks and then a straight, fast but very bouncy road. It was actually quite dangerous because iof you hit the undulations too fast the back wheel often lifted off. I once had both wheels off the road, which was quite unnerving on a very heavily laden jialing. To make matters worse we were surrounded by absolute douchebags who took it as a personal affront to be overtaken by a motorcycle, these idiots would then reovertake us but they'd then be exceeding the driving skill and vehicles capabilities. Once guy cut back in front of George (bike with Nyima was always the lead bike) and both rear wheels left the ground on one of the aforementioned undulations, the land cruiser skidded sideways and the driver just managed to regain control before slowing down considerably. We past him again shaking our heads in disbelief. I has an altercation with some tosspot in a honda SUV who having been overtaken by George and Nyima, didn't want to let another bike go passed him. I ended up on the hard shoulder, managed to get passed and flipped him the bird. This was too much of a loss of face and he screamed past me, inches from the bike giving me the finger and then taking off over a large bump! I imagine his Mrs gave him a right earfull because he then slowed right down and I passed him again...and gave him the rods for good measure haha.
There were two high passes, the first 4768, the second, 5010, the jialings didn't seem to phased by the altitude. We arrived at Tuotuoheyan at 3.15 to find more hotel price fixing! None of the hotels had showers due to water shortages which I understand but these were really crappy rooms for 280. In the end we shared a triple for 380 and with George complaining bitterly about Nyima's snoring!
From then on the hotels all had guide's rooms for free which was great and halted my rage somewhat. I suppose these hotels only get business for a few months a year and need to make hay while the sun shines, but I was shocked at the prices and anyone planning a similar trip should budget accordingly. We had discussed camping but in most of Tibet it's not allowed so we didn't bother bringing any gear in the end, the bikes were loaded to the max in any case so god knows where we'd have stowed it.
4239 total
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George and Nyima ready to go
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George smoking a fag at 5000 metres
Re: Shenzhen to Mount Everest
Great ride report. Looking for for future installments.
:popcorn:
Cheers,
Dan K.
Re: Shenzhen to Mount Everest
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Originally Posted by
futianshenzhen
16
Left at 10.40 with me suffering from the previous night's excesses, one of George's whiskeys was 55% and he drank it like water, without a trace of a hangover. The road to Golmud was very straight, boring and fast. We arrived at 5.40 and met our Guide Nyima. We had dinner and a few beers then had an early night.
465 kms
3833 total
Hotel – 280 each. At this point I'd resigned myself to this trip being the most expensive ever hotel wise, this didn't stop me from bitching and whining about the sorry state of affairs however! The thing that really got me was that the hotels were shite! It wasn't as if there was only one really posh hotel that'd accept foreigners, they were 50-100 quai hotels charging the bloody earth!
Did you guys consider camping at all?
Re: Shenzhen to Mount Everest
really interesting RR.:thumbsup:
hotel/motel/inn price gouging isn't restricted to those locales either. Seemingly and frequently occurs in other places - outback Australia being one such place. I was often astounded at the prices commanded at nearly all the establishments I stopped at when circumnavigating outback OZ twice, which is why I most often camped as I absolutely refused to pay for 4 or 5 star equivalent prices for rooms no better than a no - one star dive...
Re: Shenzhen to Mount Everest
Quote:
Originally Posted by
CalmCarl
Did you guys consider camping at all?
Yeah but it isn't possible in most places
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Re: Shenzhen to Mount Everest
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Originally Posted by
zhu
I have developed the zhu scale of assholeness regarding 4wd's. Taking into account tailgating , horn honking, road hogging and blind corner passing.
Top of the list is the worst;
Any black Audi
Bmw
Jeep
Toyota
Bread Van
Blue truck
Santana
Hello Kitty Smart Car
Granny leading Donkey
Kid leading Goats
Dogs
For us there's only one real candidate and I'm even gonna be colour specific! 99% of people who drive these white land cruisers with side flashes are complete f$#*tards
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Re: Shenzhen to Mount Everest
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Left Tuotuoheyan at 9.15 and rode straight into a pea souper, couldn't see more than 10 metres in front of the bike at times. We went over a pass of 5231 metres which would be the highest we'd get all trip. The rode was very bouncy again but quite fast and we soon made it into Tibet proper and our first checkpoint. It took around half an hour to get through and was a fairly simple process really as we had all the correct paperwork. There was on Han and one Tibetan policeman and they were both young and thought the bikes were really cool. The Tibetan guy was hilarious and was showing off his powers to us, he'd ostentatiously flag down a truck then turn to us laughing in a look at me isn't this funny kind of way. George and I didn't really know what to do or say but we were soon on our way.
The checkpoints were many but not that bad really, Nyima would have photocopies of all the documents handy and often they'd only take 5 minutes. Of much more annoyance to me was filling up with petrol, not only do they have the stupid an qian di yi teapots but you need your driving license, passport and registration documents at each station! Once you'd lined up and received your registration receipt you then had to join a Tibetan “queue” for a teapot. This called for a no nonsense approach and you really had to hold your ground if you wanted to be filled up in less than 40 minutes. Mostly we'd follow a guy with a teapot and get in after him but there was always someone who thought they could push in front of the foreigners, we'd be firm but try and make a joke out of it and we usually held our place in the queue and more importantly didn't get shanked!
George had his mirror smashed off by a white land cruiser on the wrong side of the road which was very disconcerting so we stopped for 10 minutes. Those land cruisers had absolutely no respect or consideration for any other road users. We continued on and went over a 5170 metre pass where we met some Chinese bikers on 125s. They were cool and we stopped for a chat but they were hardly covering any ground due to the altitude. We then went on another of my dirt excursions, on which George dropped my bike, but the photos were well worth it. Just heading off the road for a couple of kilometres offered incredible rewards.
There was a checkpoint just before Nakchu which took a while, we played dumb and let Nyima deal with the paperwork and we headed into town to register at the local cop shop. That thankfully was much faster but amusingly enough we were told that we could only go to the hotel, a restaurant and a massage place, everything else was off limits for some reason! We didn't care and had an early night after dinner in a restaurant near the hotel. The hotel only had 2 rooms so George and I shared a suite for 580 and we paid 280 for Nyima's single room. It was the only hotel that could accommodate foreigners however the hotel staff had seemingly never seen one before so registration took at least 3 hours and was only completed by a consultant! We finally got our passports back in the morning.
Arrived at Nakchu 4.45.
425 kms
4642 mks total
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Taking 5 after having a mirror smashed off
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Statue at one of the 5k plus passes
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This little excursion was a lot more challenging than it looks. One bike was dropped but no damage
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