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#18 Re: Harbin to Kashgar, and wherever else theres time for01-16-2014, 04:02 AM
After hanging out at the lake for 2 days, it was time to keep going west. There were a few mountains, and the land started turning to desert.
(28 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr
I'm from Arizona, and the landscape and plants in that area reminded me a lot of being home. It was strange.
(29 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr
We usually try to find places hidden from the road to camp, but because it was so flat you couldn't get out of the way. I thought it would be ok, since we were pretty far off the road, but it was really noisy with all of the trucks going by all night.
Setting up camp. We drank some of the tibetan baijiu and watched an incredible sunset before setting up the tent and crashing.
(31 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr
It was that night that I learned my lesson in desert camping. In Arizona, the dirt is mostly sandy, and doesn't get kicked up too easily. There, in the middle of nowhere Qinghai, it was incredibly fine dust. As we were sleeping, a strong wind blew, and by morning, even though we had the fly up, the inside of the tent had almost an inch of dust everywhere. It wasn't the kind of dust you could just wipe off either. It was so fine that no matter what you did, it just kind of stuck. So I accepted my fate of being covered in dust for the remainder of the desert portion of my trip. Luckily my camera bag had a rain cover that kept the dust out pretty well.
(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr
The next part of the trip, between there and Geermu, was the most barren place I have ever seen in my entire life. Seems ironic that it would be in China. Probably 300km of absolute nothingness. Only a road, sand, wind, and the power lines that followed the road. This was one of the toughest sections of the trip. I have no idea how anybody could have possibly done that before motor vehicles existed. The whole time (and according to the people I talked to pretty much always) There was a strong wind, blowing West to East. The poor overloaded 125 could barely do 50km/hr. It was hot, and we had to stop to let the bike cool off from time to time, but whenever you stopped you just got barraged by sand. There were no buildings, signs, or even big rocks to hide behind. On that entire stretch the only thing we passed was a gas station. I can't even imagine how bored the people who work there must be. There were big tanks of water that got refilled by trucks every so often, and some barriers to keep the sand from swallowing the gas station.
(32 of 121) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr
Mandatory middle of nowhere selfie
(1 of 1) by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr
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