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.

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