Chongqing to Urumqi

[futianshenzhen]

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This could be somewhere in the US

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Maybe i'll jack it all in and start a camel farm


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7th

The breakfast didn’t start until 9.30 which was way too late for me. I was usually getting up at around 6 and leaving as I did today at7.30. Because I was still on Beijing time it meant that effectively I was waking at 4am which suited me fine as you could then ride until 10 pm in daylight if you so wished. The roads were pretty dull and there were a few camels wandering about, the first I’ve seen without shephards. I stopped for lunch in Burqin and made friends with the boss who couldn’t believe I’d ridden from Chongqing. His wife cooked up some awesome spicy beef dish and I was on my way North to Kanasi Lake which is only 15 kilometres as the crow flies from Kazakhstan. With Borat catchphrases making me smile I rode on to Chonghu’erxiang where the friendly restaurant owner had told me there was a petrol station. Unfortunately there was a power cut in the village so they told me to continue up another 70 kms and there’d be another one. The roads and scenery on that 70 kms were probably the best ive seen in China, even better than the Tibetan plateau IMO, albeit far too short! I arrived at the petrol station to find the circuit board in bits and a couple of electricians scratching their heads. The boss was very apologetic and said it should be repaired in an hour. It was 30 more kilometres to the lake, so a 60 km round trip without fuel, it was touch and go if I’d make it so I waited for an hour, then another hour, then another hour….
By this time there was a every larger group of people waiting for fuel and getting more impatient. I went off for a walk and found some lovely countryside very nearby, but the sun was getting low in the sky and I wanted to get a photo of the lake before it got too dark. I’d got chatting to a couple of Kazakh riders who had invited me to stay with them near the lake. I thought maybe but really was just thinking about fuel and sunlight. In the end after 4 hours I decided I had to leave if I wanted any chance of getting an ok photo. I coasted down the hills and took it very steady and just caught the light before it totally went, though if I’d been a couple of hours earlier the photo would’ve been awesome. I was riding back to the village I’d seen on the way when there was a horrible sound of scraping metal, my chain fell off and the bike came to a slow stop. The master link had come loose, slid out slightly and destroyed itself on the engine casing. I found a couple of pieces of it but they were useless, I had bought spare links but stupidly left them in my jialing tool kit, doh! A Kazakh guy stopped to help and tried to link it with wire, of course it didn’t work but full marks for effort. Just then my mate from the gas station called and said he’d be over soon to pick me up. We towed the bike a few kilometres to his family’s log cabin where we had a fantastic meal of beef and potatoes. They also made cottage cheese which they whisked up and mixed with milk to make a delicious yogurt like drink. We ate in his brother/cousin’s cabin kitted out with all modcons then slept in a smaller one across the way. Inside both cabins was one large communal bed, the bedding was stacked around the outside and it served as a bench/sofa during the day. At night the bedding was unrolled and everyone just lied down and went to sleep. Under any other circumstances I’d’ve thought that was pretty weird but it just felt like camping out with your mates as a kid.

In the morning we fixed the chain using an old rusty nail as a punch. Luckily we were able to shorten the chain by one link and put the front wheel right forward. If we hadn’t had that room for adjustment I don’t know what I’d have done.

475 today, 4175 total.