Harbin to Kashgar, and wherever else theres time for

[HarbinSteve]

So after starting off on our long detour to Ordos, it started to get dark, we were soaked to the bone, and we decided to start looking for a place to stay. Cue bike problems. For some reason the bike kept stalling. I would let it rest for a minute and then it would start up again. Then fifteen or twenty minutes later it would die again. I though maybe the air filter was soaked from riding through a deep puddle earlier, but I took the cover off and it was bone dry. After messing with things for awhile I just guessed it was water in the gas. (later I would find out my gas cap sucks...) But there were no gas stations nearby so I just had to keep on riding while my bike decided to die randomly.

I didn't take notes or anything while I was going, but I think by that point were were back in shanxi, and we went to the first town we could find to get a hotel. We decided anywhere with hot water for a shower would be fine. After asking a bunch of hotels, we finally found one. (most of the hotels there had solar water heaters, so because of the rainclouds, nobody had hot water)

"are you sure you have hot water?"

"yeah definitely"

"We can take a shower and the water will be hot?"

"yup"

They seemed pretty confident, so we checked in and went upstairs. There was no hot water.

"You said there was hot water"

"we do have hot water"

"where is it?"

"its cloudy today so it didn't heat up"

After yelling at the lady who lied to our faces, she ended up bringing us three electric water kettles and some buckets, so we ended up kind-of getting a hot shower, and then we washed our mud soaked clothes and laid them to dry.


(9 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

[HarbinSteve]

The next day the weather was decent we finished our several hundred km detour to Ordos, where we had tracked down an outdoor supply store to buy sleeping pads at. Ordos is crazy big, has massive 8 lane roads everywhere, not nearly as abandoned as everybody makes it seems, and ten times more buildings under construction than I have ever seen in any other place.

We found the store by calling the owner and asking for directions. We got there about 10 minutes later, but the door was locked. So we called the owner back and he said he was in the grasslands backpacking, and asked if we could wait 3 or 4 days for him. That was not what I expected after he had given us directions to his store. We told him we needed it that day, and he ended up calling his neighbor to come unlock it for us and help us find what we needed. We never got to meet him but he helped us get what we needed.

We headed out of Ordos and found a nice lake on google maps which we decided would be a good place to camp. We drove there and arrived to find out There was no lake. And after asking some locals, there hadn't been a lake there since around 2001. So we camped in the middle of the lake.

Before we set up camp we rode back to the highway to find some dinner. We found a place that sold "hui fan" and even though it was over our budget (30kuai each) we tried it. It was one of the best meals on the whole trip. Huge chunks of slow cooked mutton with onions and some other delicious things on top of rice. Definitely worth it. I saw a storm front moving in and asked the owner if it was going to rain.

"now way, not a chance"

After eating for a few more minutes I saw it moving in pretty quick, so we paid the bill and rode back to the lake as fast as we could. We hopped off of the bike and began to franticly set up the tent. We had barely got the fly on as it started to pour. We threw the saddle bags and all of our gear inside, and zipped up. We had to lean against the sides to prevent the tent from blowing over, and put all of our stuff on the sleeping pads,because the tent was quickly filling up with water. After about an hour and a half it passed, and the sky cleared up and was beautiful. Luckily the "lake" bottom was mostly sandy, and we did not get stuck in a muddy mess.

Camping in the lake after a huge storm.


(10 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Drying clothes in the morning


(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

[HarbinSteve]

lonely tree


(1 of 6) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

After a good night of sleep we got on our way. The grasslands started to turn into desert, and it got hot. There was no shade anywhere, and the sun was beating down on us, all we could do was keep riding. Luckily for the water-cooled lifan, it was no problem.

Stopping to stretch somewhere between Inner Mongolia and Ningxia


(2 of 6) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Hiding from the sun under a bridge, now equipped with sleeping pads


(4 of 6) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Empty roads


(5 of 6) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

We rode until it started to get dark and found a nice sketchy clearing in the bushes to crash for the night. The sunset there was beautiful.

Setting up camp


(6 of 6) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

[felix]

Looking forward to the rest, really hope you got some nicer camping experiences later in the trip!

[euphonius]

I"m enjoying this too. Definitely worth the wait!

Excellent storytelling. These are such typical TIC stories, but they beggar belief anyway: Sure we have hot water! No way will it rain! Oh, you wanted to know our address because you are coming? Sorry, we're closed till next week. Then, OK, I'll get my neighbor to open the store for you. Really, this is China!

euphonius

[HarbinSteve]

After passing into Ningxia, The scenery and overall feel of things started to change. Before I felt like it was a conveyor belt of endless Easter/coastal China. Every city/village/person was typical han. But once I got to Ningxia I all of a sudden felt like I was making some actual progress on my way to Kashgar.

The people in the first town I stopped in all had some pretty unusual lilac colored hats, and the architecture had a noticeable shift in style.

I wish I would have taken more close up pictures of people and buildings, but I didn't. oops.


(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Also, it got hot. The mornings, evenings were nice, but when the sun was up hot, it was really hot. And there was absolutely no shade. I don't remember seeing a tree for hundreds of kms.

We escaped the sun by hiding under a (rare) overpass for a while.


(13 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Went through a wind farm that kind of reminded me of Palm Springs. Somewhere near the border of Ningxia and Gansu.


(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

After a while we started getting into some pretty desert-ish landscape. I was pretty exceeded to find a 西, and stopped for a picture.


(19 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

It was around there that people started growing a lot of watermelon. Tons of it everywhere.

We saw a big thunderstorm off in the distance, but it came up really fast. Luckily it was just about lunch time, so we hid in a restaurant and ate a really slow lunch while we waited for the storm to pass.


(20 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Once we were in Gansu, it seemed like most of the tourist traffic stopped (except lanzhou, of course). There wasn't much except the highway. Really the only traffic there was was big semi trucks heading out to xinjiang. For the next few days/weeks we kind of lived the trucker life, taking the same roads, and eating washing faces and brushing our teeth in the same places as they did. I talked to some of them while eating a few times, and it seems like they have a pretty rough job. A truck always has 2 drivers, and they drive 24 hours a day, in every kind of weather, everyday until they get where they are going, stopping only long enough to find the next load, and then its back on the road. Every time I saw them stop for a meal, they would wash their faces, brush their teeth, eat quickly while chugging red bull, and get back on the road.


(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

In Gansu it was really amazing to see what a difference irrigation made. Completely barren dessert could be used to grow plenty of food. Seeing the contrast between the two was breathtaking.


(21 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

[HarbinSteve]

After camping in a beautiful valley, we were headed for Lanzhou. It was a fairly steep mountain road, and the overloaded 125 was doing its best, but all of a sudden I felt a jerk. I pulled over and inspected everyone, and saw nothing out of the ordinary, so we continued on. Then there was another jerk, but on the narrow road there was no place to pull over. It felt as if the brakes were on, but I had no choice but to continue. After a few hundred meters, there was a pullout carved out of the mountainside. I put the bike up on the center stand, and after finding nothing wrong with the brakes, and nothing wrong with the engine when it was in neutral, I realized it must be the chain. Upon inspection I found that somebody had forgot to pack their sock, and it must have fallen and gotten caught in the chain, which wrapped really tightly around the front sprocket and was a huge mess to get out. Luckily the problem was simple, as having a serious issue on that road would have been a really really big problem.


(22 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

After that, the ride to Lanzhou was uneventful, and we made it by afternoon. It was nice being in a place where I could actually find a place to stay that didn't look terrified to see a foreigner walk in the door. We found a good hostel for 35 RMB s night. They even let me park my bike in the lobby!


(23 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

We stayed for 2 nights so we could shower, wash clothes, rest, and eat the obligatory bowl of 拉面, and then it was off to Qinghai...

[HarbinSteve]

The road to Xining was uneventful, and pretty good riding. It was just the same old, so I didn't stop to take any pics or anything. I was a little worried about how the bike would do as the altitude increased, but it had no problems.

As we were riding, one of the cheap elastic bands that had been holding our sleeping pads on broke, so when we got to xining, after stopping for some roadside watermelon, we set out to find some. Murphys law as in full effect. We had to try about 10 places before we found somewhere that actually sold rope. It was weird. Sometimes practical things like that are much easier to find in a tiny town in the countryside than they are in a big city.

Originally we had planned to couch surf in Xining and stay there for a few days to check it out. I had considered trying to get a job at 民族大学 there, so I wanted to check it out. After our host fell through, and we saw that xining was pretty much just another typical giant chinese city, we decided it wasn't worth getting a hotel there and decided to try to make it to the lake before sunset.

Once out of the horrible city traffic, the drive from xining to the lake is nice. A lot of green, which was a nice change from the desert we had been riding through. There were beekeepers along the side of the road, so every once in a while we would have to ride through a bunch of bees. I even got one inside my helmet at one point. My visor was down, so I don't know how it got in, but it was kind of scary. I almost pissed my pants, but I didn't get stung.

After that we decided to stop and by some honey, and it was really good. It turned into breakfast (with nang) for the next few weeks.

We stopped by a cool waterfall at the entrance to some national park or something. The entrance was a long tunnel through a mountain, but we didn't have time to explore.


(1 of 2) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Along the way it looked like they were trying to make a forrest or something. There were tons and tons of trees they had planted. Every one of those sticks has a baby tree at the bottom. It went on for miles.


(2 of 2) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

The weird thing was it didn't look like they were the kind of trees that they grow to cut down for wood. Maybe they are starting to care about the environment? Who knows.

As the sun began to set we were getting pretty close to the lake.


(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

I thought a giant lake in the middle of nowhere would be easy to find a campsite, but I underestimated the business mind of the Chinese. We went down a long dirt road that hadn't been maintained, thinking it just ended near the lake. It was dark, and there weren't any lights around, so I though we were in the clear. The second I pulled up to the beach, a guy popped out of nowhere and said were would each need to buy a ticket for 20yuan.

"its dark out, why do we need a ticket?"

"thats the requirement, anybody who comes here needs to buy a ticket."

"we just want to sleep, then were are going to leave early in the morning."

"oh, you want to set up a tent? Thats an extra 30 yuan per person"

"we only have one tent"

"Still 30 per person, plus 20 each for the ticket"

"are you kidding, thats more than a hotel!"

"this is a famous tourist place, it is more expensive"

After continuing the ridiculous conversation for awhile longer, I realized he had nothing else to do but argue, and wanted to get some money out of us, so we weren't going to win. I turned around, down the sketchy dirt road in the dark, and kept looking. I decided it wasn't worth going to the edge of the lake, cause the same thing would probably happen again, so we found a nice grassy field and settled in for the night.


(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

The night there was freezing. The cold wind from the lake and the high elevation were a bad combo. We had down sleeping bags, rated to 0 or something, but they were from taobao, so... Needless to say, we both shivered all night.

Morning


(24 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

We had some of the leftover watermelon for breakfast. It had sat out all night, so it was nice and cold. The Chinese health/medicine ideas never cease to amaze me. Baxi saw me eating the watermelon and started to freak out.

"Don't eat that!"

"Why not?"

"Its cold!"

"Yeah, watermelon is better cold."

"No, you will get sick!"

I decided it was worth the risk, and had watermelon for breakfast.


(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Baxi saw how much I was enjoying it, and that I wasn't dying, so after taking a picture of me (maybe to show the police if I died) she decided to risk it and join me finishing off the deadly cold watermelon.

[HarbinSteve]

The weather around the lake was really interesting. The air was really really cold, but the sun was really really hot. There wasn't really a way to be comfortable. If you were in the shade it was freezing, but in the sun you could feel your skin getting burned. It is also super windy, all the time. Day and night, the whole time we were there it didn't stop.

We decided to stay around the lake and hang out for a day or two, so we started along the round that follows the south side of the lake. The dunes on the southeast side of the lake were really beautiful, but they were littered with locals offering ATVs for rent. Every 50 meters there was another group of people waving bright flags trying to attract customers from the desolate road. There were so many people renting atvs that it seemed like even if the lake were packed to the brim with tourists, they still couldn't make that much of a living.

It made me a little sad to see such a beautiful place being trashed like that. The locals didn't seem to care about protecting nature at all. At every site, where the family renting the atv's was living, there was a giant pile of trash, being blown all over the pristine land by the strong wind. It didn't seem like anybody made any effort to put it in a bag, or even dig a hole to keep it from being blown into the lake. I hate to think about what they do with the tires/oil/gas from the atvs.

Once the dunes ended, the was pasture. A lot of it was sheep, and the rest was youcaihua, the yellow flowers. We were a little early in the season, so they weren't blooming yet, but apparently, the entire place turns bright yellow.

Aside from the shoulder of the road, all of the land was fenced off with barbed wire. Almost every section of land had some ancient Tibetan, some holding yaks, wearing bright colors and holding a sign welcoming you to experience their "hospitality" for a small fee. We thought about staying, but decided it was probably not worth it, as it was clearly for tourists, and I could sleep in my own tent for free.

It was harder than I thought to find a place on the lake that didn't need an entrance ticket, but I was determined. After a while, I found somewhere that wasn't fenced, and looked like nobody was watching it.


(1 of 1)-2 by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

It was hard to ride through the sand, but with some help from baxi, we made it to the water. It was a beautiful color.

Success!


(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

We got lazy and decided to hang out there and enjoy the lake for awhile.


(25 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

[HarbinSteve]

After a lazy afternoon, we went to find some food. Because all of the roadside restaurants were geared toward tourists, we couldn't find any other tibetan food, so just went for a bowl of noodles. All of the prices there were 2 or 3 times as much as other places. We went to a general store and found some better rope to hold our stuff to the bike, bought some local form of baijiu, and set off to find a campsite.

We found a place between barbed wire fences that looked nice. It was soft green pasture, really inviting to sleep on. There was a stream running through it to the lake, and the locals all came there to fill up buckets of water to take back to their tents.


(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Since there was great cell service there, as there is everywhere in China, baxi was on weibo and found out there was a meteor shower that night. We were pretty stoked, because with the high elevation and no cities around, we had a perfect view of the stars.

Sunset by the lake


(27 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

A woman who had a home stay in the field next to us wandered over after it was dark, and tried to get us to stay with her.

"What are you doing"

"watching the stars"

"What stars?"

"The ones in the sky..."

"Where are you staying tonight?"

"We have a place"

"What are you doing here? How long are you going to stay?"

At this point baxi was getting annoyed, and she told the lady to get lost. It worked, and the rest of the night was great. The meteor shower was incredible.